The Pegassian Order

13. Fortitude

Cara had left Elliot and her friend behind no little than five minutes ago, but already the prospect of turning back and facing the pitch black passage behind her filled her with too much dread to entertain the idea.

She needed to keep moving forward. She had a feeling the treasure would be in the final chamber, wherever that was. She had lost her maps and tools when she had lost her team in the water.

And now she was running dangerously low on supplies and the deeper they went into the catacombs, the colder it seemed to get. Her muscles had begun to cramp and every now and then, she found herself short of breath and struggling to keep up with herself. She wondered if maybe the air wasn’t circulating as well down here as it did in the earlier rooms. They had gone deeper underground, deeper than she or her boss had anticipated she would go.

She was in far deeper than she planned to be, with no map and just her own sense of direction and intuition, and she was starting to question if the price tag was worth it. She had dodged snakes and death traps, and now there were signs of there being an active and malicious cult at work in the catacombs. She was no stranger to bizarre cults but preferred to fight them out in the open, not while she was trapped underground like a rat in a maze and they operated from behind the shadows.

The walls began to bend toward the left forming a slope to one side. Cara followed the bend and as she delved further along the meandering path an unnerving sensation filled her mind. She was alone again under Athens with no way of getting out and no way of contacting the outside world. A voice in her head told her she should never have left Mara and her friend, that there was power in numbers. But Cara needed to find the treasure, it was a matter of life, death and pride.

It always came down to pride, and of course, getting paid. She was nobody before she walked into the wrong derelict building on the other side of the tracks. That was when she came across Katrine Mortensen, a notorious antiquities dealer who hired muscle to retrieve lost or stolen treasures.

Katrine had seen something in the pick pocket and hired her for a few small jobs which didn't pose much of a challenge to Cara. This was her first big one and she didn't intend on screwing it up. Her job was to observe everything that was happening around the treasure, identify all the barriers to accessing the treasure and then retrieve it for Katrine. There was no time for friendship along the way.

The problem was, Cara felt closer to the treasure, but she had no way of knowing if she was right or wrong, or even whether every step she was taking was bringing her closer to it, or taking her farther away. There was just no way to be certain. She wouldn't know until she saw it and that was that.

The idea of this filled her with a grave concern, what if she got through whatever traps and stages that remained only for there to be no treasure at the end? What if all of this was for nothing? What if she died for nothing?

In that moment, Cara decided that after this job she would find a better way to live her life. She would focus on a pursuit with more purpose, she would find something worth dying for, something more than a price tag or a pot of gold.

Cara slowed down as she approached the end of the passageway which presented her with two options. One was to go right and the other was to go left. She mulled over which way to go and paused as she heard a shuffling sound coming from the right side.

Acting fast, she planted her back firmly against the wall and within seconds the shuffling noise morphed into the sound of footsteps striking the ground and moving purposefully through the tunnel.

A hooded figure hurried past her passage and disappeared down the left arm of the tunnel. Cara tiptoed after the figure, leaving enough space for the sound of her footsteps to be cloaked by distance but she moved fast enough so she didn't lose the figure.

She followed him for what felt like an eternity. To her it seemed like an endless net of lefts and rights and sudden turns and twists, but the figure she followed seemed to know exactly where he was going, never stopping to decide which way to go, always moving forward with his head turned firmly ahead.

She wondered how many times he had taken this route through the net of tunnels and passages, she wondered how many victims had failed their trials and died down here. She wondered how long it had gone on for. Was it just months or was it years?

A chill ran along her spine as she realised she was getting too close for comfort to the figure and slowed down somewhat. He took a sudden left. Cara waited for a few seconds then took the left, only to find herself in a small room with an arching ceiling and a lever hanging from a wall.

She cast a quick look around then clutched the lever and yanked it down. The lever whipped downward and as it did, a thin stone wall parallel to it ascended upwards. Cara released the lever, which began to slide back upward, making the door slide downward again and she ducked beneath the door and entered the large room.

The room resembled the hall in a church, only the pews were missing. There were several impressive pillars lining the pathway leading toward the tall alter which was cloaked in darkness. As she walked up the aisle she noticed the hairs stand on the back of her neck and one by one, the torches lining the pillars lit up as she approached a large rectangular table on the ground just before the podium. As she grew closer, she noticed a white sheet draped over the surface. It moved and swelled then shrank in certain places.

Was somebody under there?

The torches in each of the corners of the table suddenly lit up, letting out a soft roar as they burnt through the mesh of twigs and wooden pulp, giving off a thick black smoke as the flame ate its way through the fuel.

The tufts of smoke panned upward and out, disappearing into the air around her. A cool breeze rolled through the room and all at once, the illuminated torches suddenly went out. The room was at once cloaked in black and Cara noticed the adrenaline pulsing through her body. Her instincts roared at her to leave this place at once, but she stood still in the darkness, afraid to move and give herself away.

She couldn't take her eyes off the table in front of her, she could no longer ignore the shuffling and murmuring that came from beneath the white sheet. Something was under there, of that she was certain.

There was a bright sizzle from above and Cara looked up at the high ceiling to see a large barrel of oil from which oil soaked ropes lined the room and travelled toward the lanterns.

An auburn flame glimmered from above and ignited the bundle of ropes, illuminating the ropes spanning the room like a giant yellow spider coming to life until every single torch burned brightly once again.

Only now, strange shadows were cast across the walls, like clouds gathered round. Cara turned on her heel to find herself facing a room filled with cloaked figures, all staring at her. Nor Cara nor the figures moved. Everyone remained glued to where they stood.

More hooded figures stepped out from between the pillars, Cara stepped back until the marble table dug into the back of her knees. Her voice caught in her throat and she was unable to form words as she watched the figures with a bewildered expression. She spotted a small doorway just beyond the alter.

She glanced back at the figures who were all stood still. She counted around twenty, at least. Turning on her heel, she sprinted for the doorway but as she ran felt a force knock the wind from her lungs and she fell onto her back.

A man stood over her, he had dark eyes and the black robe the rest of the strangers were. His smile was more of a sneer as he stooped toward her and bared his sharp teeth.

Cara swung her head forward and head butted him. He stumbled back and the rest of the figures all took a synchronised step forward. The man held up a hand, stopping them instantly. He watched Cara as she turned and ran through the doorway.

She ran deeper through the maze of tunnels, her heart pounded against her ribs. She ran without caution or hesitance, she ran for her life.

Until she stepped on a panel which revealed a door to her side. She stopped and examined it. It led to a small room. Casting a cautious glance over her shoulder, she slipped into the small room and shut the door behind her.

She found herself facing a den of monitors and maps. She pushed buttons on the keyboard to navigate through the cameras. She saw the cloaked figures searching for her in the tunnel she just slipped out of. She scrolled onto the next camera, where she found Elliot and Rafi. Only instead of continuing down the hall toward the room filled with cloaked figures, they had discovered a panel in the wall and were examining it closely.

She wanted to tell them to run, to put as much space as possible between themselves and the room she was just in, but all she could do was watch.

She skipped through the next few camera screens until she found herself staring at it. There it stood, in a marble and gold plated temple, it stood on its hind legs with its pearly white wings spread and head held high. He had golden armour around his body, making the white of his body stand out even more.

It was the Pegassian treasure, the precious statue of Pegasus himself surrounded by gold coins and gauntlets. Cara zoomed in on the wall and found a symbol of a horse then examined the maps on the table before her. Taking her thumb, she followed the symbol of the horse along the network of tunnels until she found the correct room. This was where the treasure was.

Her plan was to wait until the figures had taken a different route, then once the coast was clear she would sneak out and follow the map to the chamber filled with treasure. She had to see it for herself, and having come this far, there was no way she would go back without feasting her eyes on it. If she could get just on coin and take it back to the surface and show Katrine, it would be enough to commission another expedition into the tunnels with more back up, supplies and weapons the second time round.

It was worth a lot more than £100,000. In fact, a part of her wanted to keep it all for herself, sell it on and launch her own expedition of treasure hunters tracking down ancient jewels.