They crossed the transept to the ambulatory, took the three steps down to the iron gate of the crypt. Rochat stopped.
“What if the angel wakes up?”
“She won’t wake up till I tell her to.”
“Non?”
“Old trick we detectives have.”
“Oh.”
Rochat pulled his ring of keys from his overcoat, found the oldest key, slipped it in the rusting lock. Kaklack. He pulled open the gate, ducked under the low stone lintel, turned back to Harper. “Don’t step on the skeletons, monsieur, they’re very old.”
Harper smelled ancient dirt. He saw a dozen skeletons in open graves, their chalky bones glowing in the lantern light. He followed the lad’s shuffling steps along a narrow dirt path between the graves, not quite able to stand upright for the low ceiling. He felt a slash of pain and pressed his hand on the bandage covering the wound. Rochat pointed ahead.
“That’s the stone arch where I hit my head. And over there’s where I dropped my pencils, and those are the skeletons that were laughing at me.” Rochat lowered the lantern to a grave at the arch where a fragile-as-dust skeleton lay with its skull turned to the side. “And this skeleton was looking at the well, and I imagined he was telling me one of my pencils fell inside. That’s how I found the lunch box.”
Rochat ducked through the arch. Harper followed the lad and his lantern to a bigger cavern and hundreds more graves. All filled with skeletons on their backs, all with their hands crossed over their chests, all looking melded into the earth. The ground dipped and Harper straightened up, his head just brushing the stone ceiling. He saw the field of bones around him.
“Are they all like this, arms crossed over their chests?”
“They’re all like this. I imagined they were seeds and someone planted them in the earth to grow again.”
“Not too far off, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you all about it later.”
They moved farther through the bone garden to a third cave where the skeletons lay in concentric rings. Dead center was a round stone structure standing a meter and a half above the graves.
“Is that it, the well?”
“That’s the well.”
Harper saw the heavy iron grate and the twelve spikes emanating from the center, each one stretching twenty centimeters beyond the rim of the well. He made a slow 360 around it, touching each point of the spikes.
“I imagined it looked like a compass,” Rochat said.
“That’s exactly what it is. With the well as the center point from which all directions lead.” Harper’s eyes followed the lines of the compass, each one pointing to more arches and tunnels. “Where do the tunnels lead?”
“To more caves with skeletons.”
“And all the tunnels and graves are on this level? None of them go deeper than the foundations of the cathedral?”
Rochat thought about it. “Is that the feet?”
“What?”
“The feet of the cathedral?”
“Sure, the feet.”
“Nothing’s under the feet but solid rock, that’s what Papa said.”
“Did he ever mention any false walls or hidden doors anywhere down here?”
“Non.”
Harper looked down through the iron grate. “So where’s the lunch box?”
Rochat held his lantern over the grate and pointed down through the spikes. “It’s there, stuck in the stones.”
Harper set his shoulder under one of the spikes and heaved. It wouldn’t budge. “How did you reach it?”
Rochat set the lantern on the edge of a grave and shuffled to a pile of timber. He drew a thick length and carried it to the well.
“I imagined I could use this to hold up the compass, then I squeezed under and reached down.”
“Good thinking.”
“Merci.”
They worked the plank under the iron spikes and lifted the grate. Harper braced his weight against it and Rochat squeezed through the opening, hanging over the lip of the well, reaching down.
“I have it, monsieur.”
Harper grabbed the back of Rochat’s coat and pulled. He slid from under the grate and held up a silver box by its handle. Bloody hell if it didn’t look like a schoolboy’s lunch box, Harper thought. They knelt in the dirt, the silver box between them. Harper tapped it gently.
“Titanium.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means it’s a very expensive lunch box.”
Harper set it upright, saw the combination lock set to triple zero. He flipped at the latches with his thumbs.
“Nine nine eight are the numbers to open it.”
“You know the combination?”
“I imagined all the numbers the wheels could make, then I made a phone book and checked them one by one. It took me all day.”
“You’re telling me you opened it and you know what’s inside?”
“I saw what’s inside but I didn’t know what it was.”
“You tell anyone else you opened it?”
“Monsieur Buhlmann told me to put it back where I found it and forget about it before I remembered to tell him what was inside. So I put it back and forgot till we imagined it in the nave, because I’m very good at forgetting things.”
“Right. So, nine nine eight, then?”
“Nine nine eight. Do you want to see?”
“I certainly do.”
Rochat lifted the lantern over the box. Harper turned the three dials…click.
He flipped the latches, raised the lid. Lantern light sparkled along a narrow rod of polished iron, fifteen centimeters long. A starlike cluster of delicate iron spikes at one end, a small holed-out oval at the other end. It was fitted into a slab of black foam.
“Do you know what it is, monsieur?”
“A key.”
Rochat pulled his ring of keys from his overcoat. “It doesn’t look like a key, and I have lots of them.”
“It’s a key, all right. Question is, to what?” Harper lifted the key from the box, stood, and held it by the oval, letting the tiny spikes hang down toward the iron grate. “Let’s have your lantern up here a sec.”
Rochat jumped up and lifted the lantern over their heads. Harper lowered the key to the center of the grate. Twelve spikes on the well grate, twelve spikes on the key, all pointing in the same twelve directions.
“They look alike, monsieur.”
“And the grate and key each have one spike a tad longer than the rest. So line them up to match and…which direction is it pointing?”
“So the cardinal point of the well’s compass is east.”
“Where I stand when I begin to call the hour.”
“And where first light comes from.” Harper leaned over the well again, looked down into the dark. “How deep is it?”
“Twenty-five meters.”
“What’s the well used for?”
“Monsieur Buhlmann says they used to pour holy waters down there when they were old.”
“Does anyone ever go down there?”
“It’s forbidden.”
“Who says?”
“Monsieur Buhlmann. He said the well is very old and the walls could cave in.”
“I bet he did. Who is Monsieur Buhlmann, anyway?”
“He taught me to hold the lantern and say the words.”
“The words?”
“C’est le guet, il—”
“—a sonné l’heure.”
Rochat stared at Harper. “You know the words, too, monsieur?”
“Yes, I know the words.” Harper tugged at the grate. “Look, we have to get down there for a look.”
“But Monsieur Buhlmann said—”
“—the walls could fall in, I know. But the key was hidden in the well for a reason. We need to see if the reason is down there.”
“Because you’re a detectiveman trying to solve a mysterious mystery.”
“Exactly, and I’m sure Monsieur Buhlmann would understand.”
“D’accord.”
They set their shoulders under the grate and heaved, once, twice, till the heavy thing slid off the well and hit the dirt with a dull thud and a cloud of dust filled the cavern. They covered their mouths, waited for the dust to clear. Rochat held the lantern into the well.
“I don’t see anything, monsieur.”
“Hard to tell from up here. Any rope down here?”
“The workermen keep tools in an empty cave under the north transept. We can get there through the tunnels.”
They hurried through the tunnels and graves to a small cave stuffed with shovels and picks, timber, coils of five-meter-length rope. They carried six coils back to the well, lashed the ropes together, and secured one end to the iron grate. They laid the heavy length of timber across the grate to weigh it down. They eased the rope down the well. Harper lifted his legs over the top and climbed in. He braced his feet against the crumbling stones, lowering himself a meter. Bits of dirt and stone broke from the inside of the well. He stopped and waited.
“So far, so good.”
“Wait, monsieur, you’ll need light to see things.” Rochat reached in his overcoat and pulled out a spare candle. He handed it to Harper. “And I have matches, too.”
“Cheers—”
The stones under Harper’s feet broke loose, the rope slipped from his hands.
“Monsieur!”
Rochat heard Harper hit bottom.
Boom, boom, boom.
“Monsieur, are you all right?”
Harper’s voice called up through the dusty dark. “I’m all right. I managed to grab the rope and break my fall. But I can’t see a bloody thing. Toss me the matches.”
Harper heard them hit the dirt. He felt around and found them. He scratched a match alight, touched the flame to the candle’s wick. He did a slow turn, saw nothing but the inside of a very old well. He pulled and pushed at the stones, everything solidly in place.
“Is there anything down there, monsieur?”
“Nothing that shouldn’t be here. We must be looking in the wrong place.”
“Pardon, monsieur, but what are we looking for, because I can’t remember.”
“Not really sure. A door, another lunch box, who knows?” Harper blew out the candle, grabbed the rope between his hands. “Keep the rope steady, I’m climbing up.”
“D’accord. I’m very glad you’re not hurt, monsieur. It sounded like you fell down a very deep tunnel, because when you hit the ground it made a very big echo.”
“What did you say?”
“When you hit the ground, there was an echo like you fell down a very deep hole.”
“It did, didn’t it?”
“Oui.”
Harper jumped back to the floor of the well. Boom, boom, boom. He relit the wick and lowered the candle to the floor of the well. Nothing but the hardened ground of centuries-old dirt. He picked up one of the fallen stones, got to his feet and let it go. Boom, boom, boom. The sound sinking deep, deeper, till it faded away. He looked up and saw Rochat leaning over the top of the well, lantern in his hands.
“Could you go back to the cave with the tools and bring a shovel?”
“I can bring a shovel.”
Harper sat in the dirt, staring at the burning candle in his hands. Almost trembling with excitement before reminding himself it was only the phantom of a dead man. Or maybe it was something else. The earth under these stones was sacred to our kind, Gabriel had said. Didn’t know why, couldn’t know why. Been sent to this place two and a half million years ago. Lost all contact with the creator. As if the creator himself had disappeared and they were truly a pack of lost angels, hiding in the forms of men so long that all memory of where they’d come from was gone. And the only knowledge they had of themselves was from the legends and myths and religions of men. Stones are sacred to our kind. This is all that is left to us. What the hell is down here? He laughed to himself, thinking how much he was acting like one of the locals: So this is what it feels like to be like them.
“Monsieur, cover your head. I’ll put the timber over the well and come down.”
Harper looked up, saw the lad leaning into the well.
“No, I need a shovel.”
“It’s in my coat.”
Bits of dust and stone jolted free as Rochat mounted the top of the well, slung his lantern over his shoulder, and twisted down the rope, touching the ground quiet as a cat. Harper nodded.
“Very impressive.”
“I was first in my school in rope-climbing because I’m very strong from the legs up.”
“I remember. Where’s the shovel?”
Rochat turned in the cramped surroundings and handed his lantern to Harper. He pulled the shovel from the back of his overcoat.
“I’ll dig, monsieur.”
Harper blew out his candle and slipped the stub in his pocket. He squeezed up against the stones of the well to get out of the way. “Go right ahead.”
The same hollow sound sinking deep and falling away each time the shovel hit the ground. Boom, boom, boom…boom, boom, boom…boom, boom, boom…thunk. Harper brushed away the dirt with his hands and saw lantern light glint on metal. Rochat cleared more dirt with the shovel. A rounded iron door in the center of the ground. Barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through.
“It looks very old, monsieur.”
“Older than the cathedral, a lot older.”
Harper pulled at the handle; Rochat pried the shovel under the edge. It opened with a shrill cry falling into utter darkness. Fresh air seeped out. Harper lowered to his knees, peered in with the lantern. A round shaft, meter and a half wide, carved from solid black rock. Iron rungs running down one side and stretching into utter blackness. Harper pulled himself up, rested his back against the stones of the well. Rochat looked at him with curiosity.
“What is it, monsieur?”
“A hole in the ground. And it’s deep.”
“How deep is deep?”
“Good question. Hold this.”
Harper handed the lantern to Rochat, dug in his trouser pockets, and found a coin. He held it over the center of the shaft opening. Rochat grabbed Harper’s sleeve.
“Monsieur, wait.”
“What?”
“That’s five francs. Don’t you have anything smaller?”
“Nope.”
Harper let the coin fall. They held their breaths and listened. Nothing, nothing, nothing. As if the earth swallowed the coin. Harper looked at Rochat.
“Like I said, deep.”
“Who made this place, monsieur?”
“That is the question.”
Rochat quickly hooked the lantern over his shoulder and scrambled for the iron rungs. Harper grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“It’s my cathedral.”
“Right. After you then.”
Harper checked his watch. Mark at fifty-five. He followed Rochat into the shaft. They worked down the iron rungs, the lantern light reflecting on the carved-out rock. Tiny flecks of light sparkled in the black stone, and there were flashes of green and red and blue. Deeper and deeper down. Harper heard the lad mumbling to himself as they climbed. He checked at his watch; ten minutes on. Looking up, no longer able to see the open iron door above, just blackness. Deeper. Twenty minutes, losing all sense of perspective. Like sinking through a void with nothing but the lad’s lantern to separate them from darkness.
“We’re at the bottom, monsieur.”
Harper looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes down. He noticed the second hand stuck in place; he held the crystal to his ear.
“Is something wrong with your watch, monsieur?”
“It’s stopped.”
Harper stepped from the last rung onto a solid rock floor, squeezed around to face Rochat. The lad with the lantern in one hand, a small well-dented coin in the other.
“Here’s your five francs, monsieur.”
Harper smiled. “Tell you what, mate, you keep it for the both of us. For good luck.”
“D’accord.”
They looked up. Nothing beyond the glow of the lantern on the black walls, as if all the world had disappeared.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, monsieur, except when I’m in the nave at night and playing space captain.”
“Sorry?”
“Sometimes I sit at the organ and pretend I’m flying through outer space. It feels like that down here. Like we’re floating in outer space.” He held up the lantern and made a slow pass along the black stone wall. “And all these little colors look like stars.”
Harper watched the reflecting colors appear and fade in the passing light. His eyes separating the light from dark and seeing the patterns.
“They are stars.”
“Pardon?”
“Look here. Andromeda, Virgo, Taurus, Cepheus—all of them. And up here, constellations no one on earth could know, and all the stars…Bloody hell, it’s a map of the entire universe.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re one hell of a space captain.”
“Oh.” Rochat slowly waved his lantern again, studying the points of light. “What’s this one here, monsieur?”
Harper saw where Rochat was looking. “Taurus. And this small group of stars in the constellation is Pleiades, the seven sisters.”
Rochat stared at the tiny cluster of stars, tipping his head from one side to the other. “Like the bells.”
“Bells?”
“In the tower. There are seven bells in the belfry, and they’re sisters, too. Is that a clue?”
“This stage of the game, mate, nothing would surprise me about this place.” Harper looked up. “How the bloody hell did they do this? It’s so far down.”
“Two thousand four hundred and forty-nine steps.”
“You counted them?”
“Oui.”
Harper looked at the iron rungs in the black stone wall. A meter of separation between each. Another meter from the last rung to the ground. Two and a half kilometers down.
“Same as the depth of the well times one thousand. Exactly the same as Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.”
“What’s a Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow?”
“A cathedral on the other side of Europe. Someone found a shaft like this. That’s where the key was found.”
“Does that mean we found another clue?”
“I don’t know. Unless…hold up the lantern again. Let’s push against the wall, see if it opens up anywhere.”
They circled back to back in the confined space, pushing against stone. It was solid.
“Nothing, monsieur.”
“But there’s fresh air down here. It’s coming from somewhere.” Harper sank to the floor, felt around the lowest iron rung. “Here, the air’s seeping through here. Bring us the lantern.”
Rochat lowered the lantern close to the iron rung. Harper touched his palms to the stone, felt air seeping through microscopic holes drilled through rock. He pulled at the rung; it shifted a bit.
“This is it, give us a hand.”
Rochat set the lantern on the ground and scrunched down next to Harper. They grabbed the rung.
“One, two, three.”
They pulled hard, and a meter-square section of stone separated from the wall. A gust of sweet air rushed at their faces. They leaned down, saw a small iron gate set back in the rock face.
“It looks much older than the door in the well, monsieur.”
“And there’s not a nick on it.” Harper saw a multi-pointed slot cut in the gate. He patted his pockets. “Bollocks, I forgot to bring the key.”
“Pas grave, I imagined we’d need it.”
“Sorry?”
Rochat pulled it from inside his overcoat and handed it to him.
“That’s damn good imagining.”
“Merci.”
Harper held the key to the lock. “It fits, but all the slots in the lock are of equal length. Which way does it go?”
“We can guess, because that’s what detectivemen do.”
“True.”
Harper slipped the key in the lock, jiggled it left and right; nothing. He refitted the key, tried again; nothing. He held the spiked end of the key close to the lantern, saw the one spike a half-centimeter longer than the rest. The iron compass atop the well flashed through his brain, cardinal point of the compass pointing toward first light, not north.
“Bloody hell, I’m such a dolt. Which way is east?”
Rochat rose to his knees, held his elbows close to his sides, extended his forearms as best he could, and twisted from side to side five or six times before pointing in the direction of the iron gate.
“That way.”
“You sure?”
“Oui.”
Harper leaned down to the lock, sat back up. “Just out of curiosity, how’d you figure that?”
“When I was coming down the rope, I counted how many times I twisted around and added it to which way the ladder was.”
“You like to count things, don’t you?”
“It helps me imagine other things.”
“Right, I’ll give it a try sometime. Because so far your imagining is a hell of a lot better than mine.”
Harper turned the key till the longest spike pointed straight up, east as north. He slid the key into the lock and turned…kaklack. He pushed against the gate. It opened with the greatest of ease, and another rush of sweet air hit them in the face. This time it was moist and came on waves of rushing sound.
“What’s that noise, monsieur?”
“Sounds like water, lots of it. Didn’t you say Lausanne has its own underground source?”
“Oui.”
“I think we just found it.”
“Is that why they made the tunnel?”
“Probably one of the reasons they made it here.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“Let’s find out. Care to have a look with your lantern? Your cathedral and all.”
Rochat didn’t even wait to answer. He twisted to all fours and crawled through the door. Harper heard his voice calling back.
“It’s another very long tunnel going sideways, monsieur, and it’s very narrow. We need to crawl on our stomachs.”
“Swell. And it’s dark, I bet.”
“Oui.” Rochat pulled himself from the tunnel. “But there’s a light at the other end.”
“You must be joking.”
Something bright fell across her face. She opened her eyes to a luminescent shaft of color passing slowly over her. Her eyes followed it to the crossing square of the transept, where a raggedy old man stood in the colored light amid the hundreds of candles set about the flagstones.
Katherine sat up and looked him over. Pockmarked skin, yellow teeth, worn-out clothes, coughing up phlegm into a filthy handkerchief. He turned to her.
“Be not afraid.”
“I’m not, but who are you?”
“A messenger.”
She looked at the altar, saw the maquette of the cathedral, the book. “Where’s Marc, where’s Harper?”
“They’ll soon be back. And I want you to tell them something. I want you to tell them, Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.”
“I’m dreaming, aren’t I? That’s why I’m not afraid.”
“Sí, you are dreaming. So the words will be easy for you to remember. Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.”
“That sounds like Latin.”
“Sí.”
“I’ll never remember it.”
“You will, because this is a dream.”
Katherine looked around the nave, saw people standing shadowlike and faceless, but she could feel them watching. “What…who are they?”
“Undying souls waiting to be born into another life.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That is how it is done.”
“How what’s done?”
“Never-ending life on earth.” He walked toward her and held out his hand. His skin was cracked and there was dirt under his nails. “Come, walk with me.”
She looked up to his face. Scraggly stubble for a beard, his hair hanging in greasy clumps, the brightest eyes. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a gentleness from him.
“Your eyes, they’re so green. The same as Marc and Harper.”
“Then you know you’re safe with me.”
She gave him her hand, and he led her through the burning candles on the flagstones to the center of the crossing square. He turned her to the south transept. She raised her eyes to the rose window. Each piece of stained glass seeming to ignite like sparks of colored fire.
“Gosh, the light…it’s so beautiful.”
He stepped behind her, raised her arms, turned her palms to the window. “And you will be the bearer of the light.”
A shaft of color took shape and cut through the dull gray light in the cathedral, touching the floor and racing over the stones and crossing her feet. She looked into the window, as if standing in the middle of a rainbow. The man stepped in front of her, the brilliant light glowing all around him as he faded into silhouette.
“Where are you going?”
“To purify the light before it touches the life within you. C’est le guet, il a sonné l’heure, il a sonné l’heure.”