‘You absolutely sure it’s safe?’ Eddie asked. ‘I don’t want to end up with an extra head growing out of my stomach like Kuato.’ Nina looked askance at him. ‘From Total Recall,’ he added.
‘I know.’
‘The original, not the crappy remake.’
‘I know.’
He flapped his hands before his chest and put on a croaky voice. ‘“Start the reactor!”’
‘Will you be quiet?’
‘There is nothing to fear,’ the monk told them as he made his way deeper. ‘But we must leave before the next burst of steam. Which will be in…’ he consulted his watch, ‘forty-six minutes.’
Nina examined the walls, and the wooden beams supporting them. The condition of neither made her feel safer. But there was something odd about the rock, she realised. As they moved away from the entrance, she caught faint glints of reflected lamplight from all around, as if tiny flecks of metal were embedded in the walls.
Not just the walls. The wood, too. Whatever it was, it covered everything.
The tunnel sloped downwards into the heart of the mountain, the air becoming hotter and more humid. As they rounded a bend, the light from behind was cut off. ‘It is not much further,’ said Amaanat.
Eddie spotted drips coming from a hairline crack in the ceiling. ‘Water’s getting in.’
‘It is from the snow as it melts. But without it, what you are about to see could not happen.’
‘So what are we about to see?’ asked Nina.
The passage narrowed as they rounded another turn. ‘This,’ said Amaanat.
Nina and Eddie both stopped, stunned by the sight.
The cave was made of gold.
Every surface was covered in the precious metal, as if it had been slathered thickly over walls, floor and ceiling. Even the pit props had been absorbed into the shimmering coating. At the far side of the space, a six-foot-wide chasm dropped vertically downwards, the ragged rock also caked in gold. A tall, heavy-duty tripod spanned the gap, a pulley hanging from its top. The arrangement was the only thing in the chamber that had not been completely gilded, but even this had a distinct sheen to it.
‘Whoa,’ Nina said finally. ‘Okay, now I understand why Midas’s name is associated with gold.’ She took in the whole of her incredible surroundings. ‘But this isn’t a natural seam. This has been… deposited. How?’
Eddie took a closer look at one wall, examining where a prop met the rock. The gleaming covering had softened any sharp edges as if it had oozed to fill every corner. ‘It must be an inch thick! I don’t even want to think how much this lot’s worth.’
‘And that is why we have kept this place a secret,’ said Amaanat. ‘The violence as greedy men sought to control it would be terrible.’
‘Control it?’ said Nina. ‘Not just take it?’
‘This is not simply a place that contains gold. It makes gold. Talonor found it, thousands of years ago, and it has been used to create riches ever since.’
Eddie shook his head sceptically. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘Where do you think we get the gold to make our statues and jewellery? The monks of Detsen hold the secret, and we have used it. Carefully, a little at a time, to avoid attention. But we can create gold by the gram, by the kilo… or by the ton.’
‘How?’ Nina demanded. ‘How is that possible?’
‘I will show you.’ The elderly monk moved towards the chasm — and Nina gasped as his light suddenly illuminated a figure hidden in the darkness.
‘Who’s that?’ said Eddie, instinctively interposing himself between his wife and the lurker.
Amaanat replied quietly, almost reverently: ‘That is the daughter of Midas.’
Her initial shock now past, Nina saw that the person was unmoving. A statue. No, not even that, more an abstract representation of the human form, all features smoothed to the nothingness of a sea-worn pebble. It was half crouched, twisted at the waist, both arms raised to shield its empty face.
She realised that Amaanat’s words were literal, not merely naming a piece of sculpture. ‘There’s somebody inside it?’
‘She died here,’ he said, almost sadly. ‘By radiation, by steam, being choked by gold — we do not know. But Talonor named the cave in honour of his friend’s loss. She was Midas’s only daughter. A woman of importance, a princess. She thought this place was exactly the same as another in Atlantis. She was wrong. The time between each breath of the dragon is shorter here, and she was caught inside when one took place.’
Nina nodded thoughtfully. ‘And was turned into gold. Or coated in it, but it must have looked like the same thing. So that’s where the myth of Midas came from. Atlantean history, passed down to become a Greek legend.’
‘That’ll be a good chapter for your next book,’ said Eddie.
‘Except we can’t tell anyone about it, can we?’ She looked at Amaanat. ‘I gave my word.’ The abbot smiled.
The tramp of feet signalled the arrival of Rudra and the other monks. The lantern-bearer was in the lead, a length of rope over one shoulder. The man carrying the shrouded object was behind him. The others bore the metal canisters. ‘This is the true secret,’ said Amaanat as the mysterious item was carefully unwrapped. ‘Without it, there would be no gold; the cave would create nothing but radiation. This is the Crucible.’
The artefact mentioned in both her mother’s notes and the Secret Codex. Nina watched as the last layer of cloth was removed, eager to see what was revealed…
It matched none of her expectations.
The name suggested a man-made vessel, but what Rudra lifted out resembled some sort of geode: a natural, roughly spherical reddish crystal. An opening at the top gave her a glimpse of the hollow interior. It was faceted, reflective, like an agglomeration of gemstones. Jagged rib-like ridges ran up the outer shell. From the great care the monk was taking, she guessed they were as sharp as they looked. The whole thing was contained inside a man-made cage of thick wire with a tall handle looping over its top.
Amaanat anticipated her next question. ‘We do not know where it came from. That secret was kept by Talonor. But we know what it does.’
‘Makes gold, at a guess,’ said Eddie.
‘How does it make gold, though?’ Nina asked. ‘It can’t just magic the stuff up out of nothing.’
‘We shall show you.’ Amaanat stepped back as Rudra placed the Crucible on the floor near the tripod. ‘But first you will need protection.’
The Englishman smirked. ‘Too late for that, we’ve already got a kid.’
One of the other monks opened a bag and took out several breathing masks, which he distributed. His brethren donned them. ‘The Crucible turns mercury into gold,’ explained the abbot, voice muffled by the filter. ‘But the mercury gives off vapour. In a confined space, it is poisonous.’
‘You’ve got mercury in those cans?’ said Eddie. ‘Nasty stuff.’
‘We take great care with it. We do not want to pollute the mountain — the water from this cave flows down into the rivers, and on into the sea.’
Nina remembered the drips from the ceiling. ‘There isn’t much of it, though.’
Amaanat stepped to the edge of the chasm. ‘Not that water. This water.’ He tilted his lantern to illuminate what lay below.
Nina joined him, looking down, and saw that the rift was flooded. The surface some thirty feet below shimmered gently, suggesting that it was being gradually filled by meltwater flowing through faults in the surrounding rock. The coating of gold stopped abruptly around five feet above the rippling pool.