Just like the day in that wretched lagoon, she felt nearly compelled to switch on her flashlight to see what lay beneath her, but a few feet below. Only her brother’s light illuminated their way through the obscured water, not reaching much farther than a radius of one meter on each side. She could think of no palpable reason why she had to endure this. Her brother annoyed her more than ever. No matter how she tried to enjoy his company again, he somehow vexed her. When in his company she constantly found her mind flashing back to her youth, how she was betrayed by him. Visions of Africa and her abandonment resurfaced time and time again without provocation, leaving her furious with him and the fact that he had allowed her uncle to leave her behind at such a tender age. When she did think about it, she reckoned that her brother was in on it all back then. Obviously, as the weaker sibling with the less-articulate mind, he felt intimidated by her and ultimately he wished to get rid of her so that he would have all the attention and the money. Now he was playing the lord and savior of her fate once more and she hated it.
They glided toward the right. Agatha took care to keep her eyes on Purdue, just not to see the enormous posts made from elm and larch that looked like lone floors, rafts of wood that carried the structures above. By the position they were in, she noted that they were now swimming under the Ca’Foscari University. Now it was safe for her to switch on her light, although she was uncertain of what she wanted to behold down here.
Almost disappointed at the revelation, Agatha saw no more than dirty water filled with floating particles that whipped up in the movement of Purdue’s kicking legs. There was only a milky brown darkness ahead of them for now. Her mind raced with mixed emotions and a very faint hint of exhilaration at what they would find. By the map they had deciphered the Library of Forbidden Books would be accessible via a tunnel dug by citizens of Dorsoduro during the Second World War. It was during this escape from Nazi oppression above, while Mussolini was in league with Hitler, that Giuseppe Tavici and his fellow Venetians discovered what he called “a hall of cursed magic” in his memoirs, later hoarded by the SS and subsequently, the Order of the Black Sun.
From there it leaked out to the descendants of the murdered Tavici in 1949 by means of his notes and this was how the sources of MI6 gathered intelligence on its former existence, whether myth or not. Previously perceived as a possible threat to the European Alliance with its clandestine keepers and erratic characters being involved in the search for the place, the information and hype surrounding the forbidden library eventually faded into historical obscurity.
Only the most tenacious of both factions of the Second World War remained aware of the existence of the hall of cursed magic, therefore Patrick Smith and the council carried knowledge of it. Purdue was beyond intrigued by what could be held by the library and he could not propel himself forward fast enough, eager to find the tunnel under the university. Under the pressing, polluted water he lifted his palm-sized tablet in front of him and gestured for Agatha to stop while he determined the next marker.
In the brown mix of light and night, they floated like specters. A blue spot pulsed on the small screen, coloring an azure halo around Purdue’s hand in the water. He nodded to his sister and gave her a thumbs-up. She nodded. They proceeded along a row of grimy black support posts, deeper under the building, and Agatha gradually began to understand Nina Gould’s aversion for enclosed spaces. The thought of an entire building hovering less than two meters above her, held there only by the mercy of age-old lumps of rotten wood embedded in nothing more than silt and sediment, unsettled her more and more as they advanced. What if the thing just fell on them? Her heart jumped and she sped up to get closer to her brother, the reason for which eluded her. There was nothing his proximity could save her from, let alone a collapsing building.
He stopped and she almost swam into him. Under his knee that was now planted firmly in the slippery clay and mud, the ocean floor lifted in retarded motions of curling sand particles and kelp. For a moment it looked as if Purdue was going to be enveloped by the ground like a cloak, but then Agatha noticed he was leaning forward into the dark. She frowned at the sight. In between the rotten old posts, there was nothing but the spaces they were moving through, but now her brother was touching something, something that was not there.
Purdue reached in between the two posts where there was supposed to be space, but his careful palms pressed flatly against an invisible wall. Agatha, absolutely captivated by the strangeness, approached slowly in her reluctance at what could dart out from where her brother was probing. At closer glance, she was astonished to see that there was a solid wall between the posts, camouflaged in muddy residue that gave it the appearance of plain water mass.
Very impressed with himself, Purdue had to turn and give her a self-assured look first, just to make sure that she acknowledged his ingenuity. Agatha gestured a slow applause and a shaking head, giving him his moment. Purdue smiled and turned his attention to the cavernous entrance under the silt he had wiped away. With flashlights brightly showing the way they proceeded into the wormhole of stone and geo-deposits that had been dug so many decades before by desperate men. Against the rock walls next to them the deep gash marks of heavy hand tools could still be seen where the tunnel was broken away bit by bit to go deeper into the sub-alluvial stone.
Venice and its surrounding geology did not actually possess rock matter as such, but there seemed to be the occasional protrusion from tectonic plates that bore up through the loose ocean floor. Besides, with a history spanning several centuries, Venice could very well have had rock under it, lying closer to the surface. There was no way to know what was truly under such antediluvian structures.
Agatha tried her best to ignore the narrowing throat of rock and filthy water bringing her down, but her instincts threatened to send her into a panic. The corridor seemed to go on forever and she was running out of composure, even knowing full well that a tantrum would profit her nothing, along with killing her in the process. Purdue slowed, vexing his sister once again by acting like a stopper obstructing a drain. He pointed to the wall just before the mouth of the junction they had reached.
Etched in the stone with those same tools was the word ARC. They exchanged looks of perplexity and shrugged, wondering what this place had to do with the ARK that was planned during approximately the same time frame as when the tunnel was dug. It was an interesting development for the Purdues. They were both harboring the same notion. Perhaps this had been planned as the original ARK?
From the junction the only way was upward, still worming through the rock tunnel. At first the mouth of their current tunnel looked like a dead end of stone, but on closer inspection it was just a chimney that they had to enter and from there climb up. Agatha hated the small space that she was not even certain would lead them anywhere before they ran out of oxygen, but she had to complete the journey. There was no use in turning back now. The only consolation was that the entry of the stone chimney rose above the water level, therefore rescuing Agatha from another minute in the hazardous brown muck.
They removed their masks in the confined space of the tubular conduit, their faces showing the exertion of the swim in the grotesque shadows that the flashlights shifted across their faces every time they moved.
“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Purdue grinned.
“No, I agree. It was positively fabulous. We should do it again soon,” she snapped, huffing and puffing from relief rather than fatigue. Her brother chuckled at her sarcastic response and checked his tablet again, expanding it somewhat with a sweep of his thumb. Agatha’s big blue eyes ogled the process in silence as the dimensions and markers reflected on her wet face. “I’m no expert, David, but I would guess that the next move should be up this tunnel. Seems like the only logical direction, does it not?”