A bright light flashed behind him.
He turned his head to look at her. “Welcome to the dining room of the Antiqui Nautae.”
Genevieve flashed her light around the room. “It looks empty.”
“It appears they lived simply while at sea.” Tom smiled. “Come on. Let’s see where this ends. It seems strange to build a tunnel that snakes around unless they were protecting something.”
“I’ll follow you,” she said.
Tom swam through the tunnel which brought them out on the lower level of the first outer hull. It snaked around to the right. He followed it all the way to the end. Again, it turned back towards the middle hull. Tom continued until it opened up into the largest of the rooms.
And most unique.
At first he thought it just looked like the Viking dining room, without the table. Then he noticed the exits. There were at least fifty inside the room — each one only just large enough for an adult to crawl through. Below, as his own light filled the room, he noticed the deep buildup of sediment on the floor. Unlike the rest of the ship, which had been mostly clear, the flooring here had deep sediment.
Tom swam to the middle of the room and secured his green dive guideline to the roof using a hand driven screw to hold it into the wood. “Genevieve, careful with your fins in this room. The sediment is huge and you’ll have a white out pretty quick if you kick it up.”
“Okay, got it.”
He then waited for her familiar LED light to enter.
“What do you think?” He asked.
She flashed her light aimlessly around the room. There was no treasure and nothing to warrant their long trip to the secret chamber. And then she noticed the exits. “My god, there must be forty tunnel exits!”
“I’ve just counted fifty-three.”
Chapter Fifty One
She looked at his face. Searching for answers. “But why would they make so many entrances?”
“My best guess is that this room was used by the Antiqui Nautae to defend against boarding parties as a means of last resort. They would likely retreat into here. The attackers would follow them, not expecting too much of a challenge as they were allowed to continue through the empty tunnels. Then, when they enter this room, the warriors would be hiding inside each of these additional passageways and would emerge to slaughter them.” Tom flashed his light towards the sediment below. “Perhaps those are the remains of their last victims?”
“So then what happened to the warriors?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe there was a second rogue wave and they were taken by surprise. Who knows?”
She looked around the strange room again. “Now what?”
“Let’s check out these passages. Maybe one of them leads somewhere.” He screwed a blue secondary guideline into the wooden roof. “I want you come off the primary line and run a secondary line so we don’t end up with multiple overlapping lines while we’re here.”
Genevieve nodded her head in understanding. “Sure.”
Tom divided the room in half. One side for him and the other for her. He then began methodically working his way through the series of openings. Most simply turned back around on themselves and returned to the same room. Others were no more than an alcove large enough for hiding a couple of men.
Frustrated, Tom returned to the starting point disappointed. “There’s nothing here, Genevieve. The entire thing was used as a killing room. There’s no secret treasure. Interesting history, but nothing more. It’s just an empty room.”
Silence.
“Can you hear me?” Tom asked.
More silence.
Tom switched off his flashlight.
A faint glow could be seen. It seemed far away. It was light green, instead of the bright LED glow. Tom closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again — unsure that the light wasn’t caused by his eyes still adapting to the complete darkness.
The glow was still there, but it was a long way away.
Without any other light a matchstick will stand out like the sun. Likewise, the tiny green glow became a beacon. Tom began swimming towards it. His heart raced and he felt himself breathing the Heliox much faster than he should at this depth. Consciously, he struggled to slow his rate of breathing. He kicked his fins as though he were racing some unknown evil to the finish line.
The tunnel was long.
And then it curved in a sharp leftward direction. The light seemed to be maintaining its distance from him, no matter how fast he swam. “Genevieve, if you can hear me switch your strobe light on.”
Radio crackles.
He dropped another ten feet as the tunnel descended. There was a third level to the trimaran. Tom swallowed to equalize the pressure in his ears. “Genevieve! Can you hear me?”
More radio crackles.
The new level was very narrow. Almost too small for him to squeeze through with his 6 foot-five, 230-pound muscular physique. With his twin tanks he was only just able to make it forwards. His diving intuition told him not to go any further.
Ahead, the silt had been recently disturbed, filling the entire tunnel with ancient particles of dust. He could no longer see more than a few inches in front of him. But it was the evidence Tom needed. Genevieve must have passed through this place.
Against his instinct he continued into the silt whiteout. “Gen, can you hear me?”
More crackles. This time, followed by one word that he could understand perfectly well. “Help.”
“Genevieve!”
“Tom! I think I’m in trouble.”
He swam faster. His twin tanks now scratching along the walls of the tiny tunnel.
“I must have snapped my guideline. I tried to turn around but seem to have gone the wrong direction. Now I’ve reached a dead end and I’m trying my very best to hope that term doesn’t turn out to be the truth about my fate. I’m stuck!”
Ahead of him the ancient silt had built up like a frenzied swarm of locusts which his vision could barely penetrate. “I’m pretty certain I can see you up ahead. Don’t move. And for God’s sake stop kicking your fins you’re sending all the silt particles flying. I can barely see a thing.”
“I have stopped. The tunnel is so narrow I couldn’t kick even if I wanted to.”
Against all safety, he blindly entered.
It was dark despite switching on his light again. In fact his light worsened his vision. It was like switching on the high-beams in a car while driving in heavy fog He turned it off again and the familiar light green glow returned.
The light was finally getting stronger.
“Genevieve!”
“Help!” Her voice sounded sharp. Rushed. Almost frantic.
Tom increased his pace. If that was even possible. Then the green glow turned into the warm light of an LED.
In front of him, he saw the back of a single fin. It was completely stationary. Christ, is she dead? Then it moved slightly. “Genevieve.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m right behind you. Do you think you can turn around with my help?”
“No, my dive tanks will never let me turn. It’s too narrow.”
Tom checked his dive computer. He’d used more Heliox than he should have because he’d chased her. “We’re getting low on Heliox. Can you go any further forward?”
“No. There’s a door. It’s made of bronze or something metallic. I’ve tried pushing on it, but it doesn’t move at all. I could probably kick it down if I could turn around — which I can’t.”
Tom pulled himself forward using the back of her fin. He shined his flashlight at the door.
He placed the crowbar in Genevieve’s hand. “Here, try this.”
She took it and began working to pry open the door. It didn’t move at all. “The brass is heavier than I expected. I didn’t even know the Antiqui Nautae even knew how to make brass.”