Rise of the Snake Goddess, page 7
But still, these incredible details paled in comparison with the serpent. The intricacy of the scales, the perfect curvature of the head, the round eyes—she had suspected they would be stunning in person. And so they were. But they were beyond that, too. If she stared at the symbol too long, trapped there in the concentrated light of their quadruple beams, it was almost as if the snake…moved.
Sam squeezed her eyes shut, willing her heart rate to slow, willing her lungs to bring in air and release it. When she opened them again, the symbol was still just as lovely but no longer looked alive.
“Sam?” Bennett asked.
“I think the cave air is getting to me,” she said, attempting a laugh and ending up with something that sounded like a wheeze. “It’s absolutely exquisite. The craftsmanship, the preservation…”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr. Killeen said, his voice hushed but still buzzing with excitement. “Not in all my years of searching.”
“It’s creepy,” Joana said, ever practical.
“It’s leading deeper into the cave,” Bennett said, only the faintest hint of wonder edging into his voice. He tapped against the tongue, the arrow shape clear.
Sam shook herself. She had almost forgotten why they were there. “Right. We should follow it.”
“Counterpoint, should we, though?” Joana muttered, but she didn’t lag behind as they continued on.
They made their way cautiously downward, farther into the chamber, the rocks growing slippery with the peculiar moisture that collects underground, making it even harder for them to descend. The walls disappeared around them as the air grew thicker and more oppressive, as if the earth were exhaling and pressing down on them. Sam had never considered herself claustrophobic—after all, she had found herself in some tight quarters during the treasure hunts Mr. Steeling would put on for them in their childhood. She’d once had an unfortunate run-in with a family of raccoons living under the porch of the old schoolhouse. But down here was different, the air swallowing up their light like a black hole.
“I don’t think I like caves,” Sam said when she couldn’t stand the drip of some unseen water source any longer.
“That’s because you’re human, and not a patch of lichen and whatever else makes a cave its home,” said Joana.
“Actually, there were plenty of human civilizations whose people dwelled within caves,” said Bennett. “Especially here on Crete.”
“Spare me the lecture when I’m ankle-deep in cave slime, brother,” Joana sniped.
“I wasn’t lect—” Bennett started, but stopped as they came up against a wall. “This looks like the end of the chamber, and I don’t see another one branching off anywhere.”
“We need to spread out,” Sam said. “Bennett and Jo, you search that way. Mr. Killeen and I will go this way. Look for anything out of the ordinary.”
“For a cave, you mean,” Joana said dryly.
“You could stay here, Jo,” Bennett said. “It will be easier for me to look without having to worry about you getting lost or stuck.”
“And let you be the one that makes the big find?” Joana said with a snort. “Stuff it, Bennett. Let’s go.”
“Are they always so argumentative?” Mr. Killeen asked Sam.
“Oh, no, this is them being kind,” Sam said, though she smiled as she said it. “You should see when they fight.”
They scoured the back walls of the chamber, Sam searching the low reaches of the rock while Mr. Killeen did his best to look at the curve overhead. She wasn’t sure how long they looked, her eyes straining in the poor light, but other than a startling collection of snails on one stalagmite, they came up with nothing.
“Anything?” Sam asked hopefully as they rejoined Bennett and Joana.
Bennett shook his head. “Nothing of import. No symbols, or hieroglyphics, or even graffiti. It doesn’t seem as if anyone has ever inhabited this part of the cave.”
“But the symbol pointed in this direction,” Sam said, surveying the blank wall before them in consternation. “Didn’t it?”
“There’s nothing here, Sam,” Joana said. “Unless that creepy snake has some other secret message hidden in its scales, we’re at a dead end.”
“The snake,” Sam said, the gears of her mind biting into an idea and cranking slowly. “Why a snake?”
“I thought that was the question on hand,” Mr. Killeen said.
“Just let her talk,” Bennett advised. “It’s how she works things out.”
Sam tapped a finger against her lip. “Mr. Killeen, what do you know of the snakes here on Crete?”
“Not much more than the average inhabitant,” he mused. “Snakes factor prominently in Minoan symbology and worship, but most of the snakes here are harmless. There is a myth about Heracles clearing the island of harmful snakes to pay honor to the birthplace of Zeus, which is allegedly in another cave on this island.”
“Like Saint Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland,” Bennett added.
“I thought islands weren’t supposed to have snakes,” Joana said. “I was banking on that being the case, actually. I hate snakes.”
“Oh, that’s not true at all,” Sam said absently, still searching the cave walls. “There is an island off the coast of Brazil nicknamed Snake Island because the snake population is so high humans can’t live there. They have the world’s deadliest snake there. They say its venom is so poisonous that it melts your flesh where it bites you.”
Joana pointed an accusing finger at her. “Don’t make me regret our friendship.”
“We don’t have anything like that here,” Mr. Killeen said hastily. “There is the whip snake, the leopard snake—which is actually quite beautiful, red and spotted—the cat snake, and the dice snake.”
“That sounds like a lot of snakes,” Joana said ominously.
“They really are harmless,” said Mr. Killeen. “Well, the cat snake does have venom, but it’s too weak to cause any damage to humans. And none of the species native to the island are cave dwellers. We’re quite safe in here.”
“The arrow in the tongue—it wasn’t meant to be casually discovered,” Sam reasoned. “Whoever carved that symbol meant to hide something. We’ve been looking for a big ‘here you go!’ sign. But it must be something more secretive than that. Something meant to stay hidden. So why the snake?”
She let her flashlight beam drop to the ground, tracing it over the misshapen stones underfoot, the water sluicing into little rivulets and carving paths that were millions of years in the making. One such path curved down into a deep well near the edge of the cave wall, the opening no larger than her hand. She crouched down, something about the little well drawing her attention.
“Sam?” Bennett crouched beside her, looking into the small black hole. “What is it?”
“What do you notice about that hole?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s filling with disgusting cave water?” Joana offered.
“It looks like a snake den,” Bennett said.
“Exactly!” Sam said. “No one would notice a small, natural hole like this. Except this one is not natural.”
“It’s perfectly round,” Mr. Killeen said, huffing as he squatted behind her.
“Too perfectly round,” Sam said. “Where in nature have you seen anything so perfect?”
“You think someone carved this hole?” Mr. Killeen said in surprise. “Why?”
“There’s only one way to know,” Sam said resolutely. “We reach in and find out.”
“In the history of ridiculous things you’ve said to me, I didn’t think it was possible to top yourself,” Joana said. “But here we are.”
“No one is sticking their hand in there until we know what it is,” Bennett said. “If we’re wrong and it is a snake hole, we’re miles from any kind of help.”
“Mr. Killeen said none of the snakes are poisonous!” Sam protested. “And this is where the symbol was pointing. Whatever we’re looking for, it’s in that hole.”
“Or it’s a booby trap that’ll bite your hand clean off,” Joana countered. “I’m not losing a hand to test it.”
“I’ll do it,” Sam said.
“No!” Bennett and Joana exclaimed in unison.
“Perhaps it should be I who does it?” suggested Mr. Killeen. “As the resident expert here.”
“No,” Bennett said, shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous without more information.”
“We don’t have time for more information!” Sam exclaimed, annoyance bubbling up. “We have come this far, and we are so close, and you would rather putter around and make charts and draw risk analyses. Is this not why we’re here? To make such a great discovery as lies right here at our feet, right now, if we would only reach for it?”
Bennett gave her a strange look. “Is that why you’re here, Sam?”
“Well, I’m certainly not here to listen to you lecture me like a…like a stuffed shirt,” Sam said, her anger offering up the first word that came to mind. She thought it was a rather mild insult, considering some of the more colorful ones Joana had invented for Bennett over the years, but that wasn’t the effect it had on Bennett. He dropped his arms, his face going slack like she had landed one in the gut.
“Sorry to drag your happy-go-lucky adventure down with my drab logic and reasoning,” Bennett said, his jaw stiff.
“I didn’t mean—” Sam began, but Joana shoved between both of them before she could finish.
“Oh hell, we’ll all be fossils by the time you two finish hashing this out,” she said, glaring at Sam and pointing a finger at her. “You owe me for this.”
She drew up her sleeve and shoved her hand down in the hole before either of them could stop her, drawing an exclamation of surprise out of Sam and one of fear out of Bennett. But the deed was done, and her arm disappeared nearly up to the elbow. Her face contorted in a grimace.
“Well, I was right about one thing,” she said. “It’s full of disgusting cave water.”
“No snakes?” Sam asked.
Joana’s gaze narrowed on her. “Why would you even bring that up right now?”
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Do you feel anything else? I mean, besides the cave water?”
“The cave water is a bit distracting,” Joana said, but she tilted her head in concentration. “It’s a small hole. I can’t open my hand all the way. Wait, hang on. I think I feel something.”
The rest of them leaned in eagerly, accidentally pressing against Joana’s side and making her squeak in alarm.
“What is it? What have you found?” Mr. Killeen asked, and even he couldn’t keep the youthful excitement out of his voice.
“It feels like…well, I don’t know. Something different. It’s like a bit of rock sticking out or something. It’s got a shape to it, too. Long and skinny up the middle with two little fat arms on each side. The arms are wide, though. Much wider than the middle.”
Sam sucked in a breath. “Are they curved? Up and down?”
“Yeah, it feels that way, maybe.”
Sam looked at Bennett over Joana’s head. “A double-headed axe.”
“The labrys,” Mr. Killeen filled in. “Same as the symbol on the cave wall. Can you remove it?”
“It’s pretty far down there,” Joana said, torquing her arm around and grunting. “It’s stuck, I think. Hang on, let me get a better grip, and I’ll see if I can’t pull it loose.”
She maneuvered until she was flat on her chest, her arm fully extended down the hole. She grunted as her shoulder flexed, pulling at the object and crying out in surprise as her arm came several inches out of the hole. The earth rumbled and groaned beneath them, an ominous sound that had all of them scrambling backward.
“Dynamite!” Bennett said sharply, grabbing for both girls as Mr. Killeen gave a very undignified yelp.
“They really did booby-trap it!” he cried.
The earth continued shuddering and groaning, and for a terrifying moment, Sam imagined a detonation going off and the rock ceiling crashing down on them. No one even knew they were there. Some perky upstart like herself would probably find their bones in a few hundred years and wonder about their demise.
“Run!” Mr. Killeen cried.
“Wait!” Sam said, pointing at the wall above the snake hole. “Something is moving.”
Perhaps it was an earthquake, cracking the wall before it swallowed them up. But the opening was too perfectly round to be caused by natural disaster, same as the snake hole. The rumbling stopped, and as Mr. Killeen stepped forward, his flashlight beam illuminated what looked for all the world like a set of stairs inside. All of Sam’s nervous, fizzing energy sparked to life.
“It’s a secret passage,” she breathed in wonder.
“I’ve done it,” Mr. Killeen said. “We, I mean. We’ve done it.”
“Says the man with two dry arms,” Joana muttered.
“See?” Sam said, unable to help the smirk that twisted up her lips as she looked to Bennett. “No booby traps.”
“It’s not as if I was hoping for one,” Bennett said.
Mr. Killeen moved into the opening, quickly descending and taking his flashlight with him. Sam caught only a brief flash of the walls within the passage, but it was enough to spur her forward. The narrow stairs were etched into the cave floor, the rock surprisingly dry after their passage through the rest of the cave muck. Sam put out a hand to steady herself, her flashlight beam concentrated on the ground before her. But something was odd about the wall where she touched it, and as she brought the light up to investigate, she sucked in a breath in wonder.
“Bennett, look at this,” she said, running her fingers through the grooves that had been carved there.
“Is that…Linear B?” Bennett asked in shock.
Sam shook her head. “No, I think it’s older. Minoan hieroglyphics. Their symbols were more elaborate and detailed, more pictorial.”
The image she touched was a beautifully rendered ship in miniature, the craftsmanship as evident here as it was on the serpent symbol. There were rigging lines coming from the mast, and even small oars that poked out of the side. There were dozens more on both sides of the passage, telling a tale that led them down to wherever the stairs ended.
“What do they mean?” Joana asked, crowding into the space behind them as they continued after Mr. Killeen.
Sam shrugged. “Most of the symbols have never been translated, though some are obvious. The ship, for instance. Minoans were renowned seafarers, and they traded as far as Egypt and Italy. And here again are the horns of consecration. The bull was sacred to Minoan culture and often depicted in their murals. But what they all mean together, and where they’re leading? I couldn’t say.”
“Where did Mr. Killeen go?” Bennett asked, peering down the stairs.
“He moved awfully spritely once the hard work was done,” Joana said. “They’re all the same when there’s treasure on the table, aren’t they?”
“That’s not kind, Jo,” Sam said, though she had to admit her friend had a point. “Even Mr. Carter broke open a hole to view the inner chamber of Tutankhamen’s tomb when he first discovered it and patched it up to be reopened officially afterward. Finds like these are less than once in a lifetime, and most men work their whole lives without such a reward. You can hardly fault his enthusiasm.”
“Just don’t forget to pat down his pockets when we leave,” Joana said.
They made their way slowly, Sam wishing she could take more time to explore the symbols marked into the walls. She had seen some of them in Sir Arthur Evans’s book Scripta Minoa, the definitive volume on Minoan symbology. But seeing Sir Arthur’s sketched interpretations or the small photographs contained in the book’s pages was nothing remotely close to standing in this secret tunnel, most likely undiscovered since the time of the Minoans themselves, her fingers fitting into the grooves etched by names and faces lost to history. For that brief moment, standing in the dim light, feeling the soft edge of a four-thousand-year-old chisel mark, Sam could almost imagine herself there, the iconography whispering its secrets to her.
“It keeps going,” Bennett called from a few steps down.
Sam thought they might descend forever, right into the center of the earth. She even began to imagine she could see the glow of its molten core emanating up from below.
“Is that…fire?” Sam asked, breathless. Because now that her eyes had had time to adjust, she could make out the distinctive flickering movement. She gave a shudder; the last time she found herself in the presence of a room filled with fire, she had been trapped in an inferno of burning books. And while she was fairly certain the room below did not contain a library of eighteenth-century European philosophers or medieval illuminated manuscripts, she still felt a strong desire to turn tail and scrabble back up those steps as fast as possible.
“I think Mr. Killeen has lit a fire below,” Bennett said, ignorant of Sam’s hesitations.
“But how?” Joana asked.
“It seems there is…” Bennett began, but trailed off. Sam reached the bottom of the steps just behind him, peeking out from around his shoulder to discover exactly how Mr. Killeen had lit a fire and—more importantly—why.
“My goodness,” she breathed in wonder.
The chamber was small, the circular walls only wide enough to hold the four of them as long as they didn’t stretch their arms too far. Sam might have found it more than a little claustrophobic, if she hadn’t been so completely distracted by the chamber itself.
“It’s a bench shrine,” she said, taking in the low benches carved from the stone walls. The walls themselves were painted in a mural of such brilliant colors Sam would have sworn it had been done only recently instead of thousands of years ago. She nearly reached out to touch the nearest swath of red to test its tackiness before reminding herself she might cause damage to such a find if she did. Still, the paint glistened, the colors thick and bold and stark in the flickering firelight. There were four shallow bowls placed around the chamber in a diamond pattern, their bottoms filled with a liquid that burned cheerily.
