Sebastian

They’d been walking through ever narrower and lower tunnels for the best part of three hours, taking countless turns. He knew there were over fifty kilometres of manmade tunnels within the Rock, but apparently there were more that had not been recorded or explored.

It felt like being deep in water – in fact they were probably well below the level of the sea – but he was used to diving, so he didn’t mind it in the least. The further down they went, the better he felt physically. It made him realise how his mind and body lacked substance on the surface of the world. He was forever floating off, coming unstuck. Here, in the depths of the earth, he felt solid and supported. Anchored was the word for it. Also, his superb sense of direction had always been three-dimensional – four-dimensional actually – telling him their approximate location

Psychologically, however, he felt vulnerable. He could see that Mohammed felt the same. The young man was sweating copiously. Carlo occasionally stopped to consult some kind of map, but he seemed to be quite confident where he was taking them. Sebastian asked no more questions, his curiosity now seemed inappropriate.

Something told him not to voice his ability to find his way around in any space. He didn’t want to unsettle Carlo Montegriffo in any way. If the man thought that either of his charges could find their way back to his treasured find, he might decide he would not let them come back up… especially after what Sebastian had done to him in the apartment. The mystery of what had really happened there kept coming back to him as they walked. How could Montegriffo have risen from his death bed? Or how could he himself have been so mistaken? Dead was dead, no pulse, no breath.

‘Watch your head,’ Carlo said, interrupting his thoughts.

They were turning into a tiny sliver of an opening, and began to scramble downwards through what seemed more like a crevice than a manmade opening. The rock walls were jagged and uncut. There was little to hold on to and alongside the footholds were black plunging voids. Twenty minutes of this was hard work, and dangerous. Twice he had to steady the Moroccan boy, who was clearly getting distressed though trying his best to hide it.

When they finally reached the bottom of this downward climbing feat, they were standing on the flat surface of a large natural cave. The torches had been growing dimmer, and Carlo groped in his rucksack for batteries.

‘Let’s rest for a moment,’ said Carlo. ‘We need to keep up our strength.’

They sat on the smooth rock floor and he offered them a handful of nuts and raisins from a bag and gave them each a bottle of water.

‘Are you ready for this?’ he said, cryptically.

He directed them towards the far end of the cave. Down at floor level was a half-metre-wide horizontal slit.

‘The only way to get in through there, is to lie down and push yourself through,’ said Montegriffo. He turned to Mohammed, ‘You go first.’

‘What’s on the other side?’ asked the boy.

‘That which I want to show you,’ said Montegriffo impatiently. ‘When you get there, just turn your light off and stay put.’

‘Why must I turn off the light?’ Mohammed asked.

‘Don’t argue with me.’

The kid looked unhappy, but did what he was told. He lay down on the floor and inched himself through the slit, disappearing from sight.

All was silent for a couple of minutes. Sebastian knelt down, trying to look through the slit. He could still see a flicker of light, but it seemed to be quite far off. How could they be sure that there wasn’t a plunging void on the other side?

‘Are you through?’ Sebastian shouted after a long moment, fearful that the boy could fall to his death.

‘No,’ came the strangled reply. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘Just keep pushing yourself through,’ shouted Carlo through the slit. ‘Don’t panic. Just keep going.’

Another few minutes passed. Sebastian tried to shine his torch in but the crevice seemed empty, jagged and ominous; it was hard to imagine a body getting through it. He felt a growing sense of outrage. Why send the poor kid in first?

Mohammed was shouting something. It sounded as though he were far away. The echo of his voice was muted by the narrow passage, but they couldn’t hear what he’d said. ‘Come quickly, please,’ he shouted again, now with obvious panic.

Sebastian hurriedly lay himself down on his back and began pushing himself through the cavity, using his heels as propulsion. It was further than he’d imagined. He was squashed by the rock all around him and grazing his head and his hip as he went. A sense of dread assailed him when his chest became wedged and he found he could not move either forward or back. Sweat poured into his eyes as he tugged back and forth to get free. Finally, he was loose and he slithered the rest of the way, thankful that he had not given way to terror. When he got on his feet he found himself in yet another cave.

Mohammed stood trembling with the torch pointed at the wall. There, in the light of the torch beam, sat two corpses, their grinning faces intact. They appeared to be soldiers, still in their uniform. Sebastian stared at the men, half expecting them to open their eyes. His heart thumped and he felt cold despite sweating profusely. After a minute, when he’d recovered a little from this gruesome encounter, he took a step closer to examine the remains. Apart from the flesh having shrunk back a little over their bones and features, there seemed to be not a speck of dust on their clothes, as though they’d died there just weeks ago, although their uniforms were clearly from some other era. No insects, bacteria or mould seemed to have affected them, and rodents surely didn’t live this far down.

‘We’re well over two hundred years too late in rescuing these gentlemen,’ said Carlo, who had joined them. ‘The records show them to have been missing in 1773. They went in to explore the interior cave system and never re-emerged.’

‘How are they so well preserved?’ asked Mohammed, staring at the corpses.

‘This is a dead cave,’ said Montegriffo. ‘Completely dry. Most of the caves in here are live, with water dripping constantly through the millennia.’

‘But why did they lie down and die?’ asked the boy. ‘Or were they killed?’

Montegriffo regarded the corpses at length. ‘I imagine they got lost, then ended up here, disorientated, exhausted and dehydrated, and probably with their source of light extinguished. They obviously didn’t find the opening so low along the floor.’ He paused. ‘They thought they’d come to the end of the line.’

All three were silent, looking at the men sitting there, shoulder to shoulder.

‘So…is this the end of the line?’ Sebastian spoke into the closed silence.

‘As far as you’re concerned, it is,’ Carlo said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…that’s all you get.’

‘There is more?’

‘No,’ said Carlo. Something about his voice gave him away. He obviously had more up his sleeve than he let on and was wavering between secrecy and his vanity. ‘That’s it. And just remember, this find is not known to the public. We’re waiting for the ‘experts’ to come from London to decide what to do. Probably the MOD would want to give them a proper burial. I think someone is looking into possible descendants.’

Mohammed seemed to find his voice. ‘You shouldn’t have sent me in here without warning me.’

Sebastian was glad to hear the boy speak up for himself. Making him enter the cave unprepared for what he might find had been a downright sadistic move on Montegriffo’s part. But he already knew that the man had a wicked streak. That fact that Carlo was alive gave him no comfort. More than ever he realised how much Mimi needed his protection.