AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The door that wasn't a door tips away from us while stone grinds against stone and bits of dirt and pulverized rock shower down on the floor. The slab falls backward to whump down inside a passageway. Once the dust settles, we inch toward the now-open doorway and gawp at the foot-thick slab that has fallen away from the wall.
Bod an Donais. I did it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ashley
A cloud of dust has plumed up around the fallen slab of rock, obscuring our view of whatever lies beyond the opening. We wait until we can see what's in there, then we climb over the slab and find ourselves inside a passageway that has smooth walls and a ceiling taller than either Errol or Munro. I don't see any carvings on the walls or artifacts lying around on the floor. In both directions, beyond the vanishing point for the sunshine coming in through the opening high above the entrance, I see nothing but darkness.
Errol pulls out his pocket flashlight to illuminate the area, but it can't penetrate the deeper recesses of this man-made cavern. "We need more light. Let's get our packs, bring out our battery-powered lanterns, and start exploring."
I follow the boys back into the entryway cavern so we can grab our stuff. I remember a device I had bought, though I wasn't sure I would ever use it. Errol had encouraged me to buy the laser-mapping device, if I had enough money in my budget for it, because it might come in handy considering that we're searching for a hidden cave. But the device doesn't detect caves. It can create a map of them.
Now I realize he was right. The laser-mapping device will help us. Not only can we create an accurate picture of the cave system, but we will have a map to guide us out of what might turn out to be a labyrinth if Kincaid's description matches what we find here.
After we've geared up, we climb over the slab again and consider which way to go in the passage. We toss a coin to settle the issue. Left it is.
We walk for about fifty feet, then stop. A doorway on the right opens into a large chamber, though we can't see any artifacts inside it. Errol leads the way as we cautiously enter the room, glancing around for any sign of something interesting. I'm just about to get depressed, thanks to the lack of any artifacts, when my boot crunches on something under my foot. I kneel and pick up the object, which measures about the size of my thumbnail, and run my finger over the dirty surface. When I turn the green stone between my fingers, the light flashes across its center like a cat's eye.
I jump up. "I found it!"
Errol and Munro stare at me.
"Proof," I say, not caring if I sound like a little kid who just found a silver dollar lying on the ground. "The cat's eye stones."
The boys amble over to me.
I kneel again to search for more stones, and I find many more of them scattered around the floor, stones of various sizes and colors but all with the signature cat's eye flare.
Errol crouches beside me and picks up a stone. "This is incredible, Ashley. You proved at least one part of Kincaid's story is true." He kisses my cheek. "Congratulations,gràidh."
"We haven't found the big stuff yet."
"Over here," Munro hollers. "This might be something."
Errol and I trot over to the far wall, where Munro seems to be peeking behind a length of canvas that hangs from nails driven into the wall.
Munro lifts the canvas. "You might be interested in this."
I shine my lantern into the space behind the canvas—and freeze. The fabric hides a long niche that holds a collection of small statuettes that span the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, Tibet, South America, and more. I can't move or speak. The realization of what this means sinks into me ever-so-slowly, and goosebumps raise up and down my arms. The goal I had struggled to achieve for so long has finally come to fruition. I can prove my father was right, finally.
"This is it," I say, almost whispering the word. "We found the hoard. But where's the rest of it?"
"We haven't searched the entire complex yet," Errol says. "Let's map this room and keep going."
Errol seems to know more than I do about how the laser-mapping device works, so I let him handle that. Since he had scanned the passageway before we started our exploration, we already have good data under our collective belt. An exhaustive search of this chamber yields nothing else. We take pictures of the statuettes in the niche, first with the dust and cobwebs, then we clean them off and take another round of pictures. Before we did anything else, though, we had photographed the entire chamber.
When I ask Errol if we could use his satellite phone to get the exact coordinates of this network of caverns, he tells me that doesn't work underground.Rats. We'll need to rely on an old-fashioned compass to keep track of the cardinal directions. I don't know if that's necessary, but I want to have as much information as possible.
Since this chamber doesn't seem to have any hidden doorways, we head back into the passageway and continue our search. We reach the end shortly, but another passageway leads to the right, where we can see another doorway. Our footfalls echo in the corridor as we increase our pace to reach the mysterious opening. Errol steps into the room first and sweeps his lantern back and forth.
The beam flashes on metal in several places.
We enter the chamber and set our lantern flashlights on the floor with their beams aimed straight up, creating a glow that fills the space.
I see statues. Everywhere. Gold. Bronze. Partially concealed by cobwebs.
My feet refuse to move even one more inch. My eyes don't want to blink either. I just stand here gaping at the genuine hoard in front of us. Besides the statues, I take note of wooden boxes on the floor that seem to hold more treasures inside them, though I won't know for sure until we examine the boxes.
