Eddie was equally impressed. ‘I think we’ve found what you were looking for.’
2
The room was not large, only a fraction of the altar room’s size. But it was every bit as dazzling a find. Like its larger counterpart, the walls were covered with metal sheets: orichalcum, the red-tinted gold alloy favoured by the Atlanteans. At the sight, Nina unconsciously touched a pendant around her neck, made from a scrap of the same material by her father when she was a child.
Inscriptions filled the panels, recounting the history of the ancient civilisation. There was even a map, similar to one Nina had seen in the Brazilian temple. It showed the continents of the world, incomplete, distorted, but still recognisable. Lines weaved across both sea and land. The voyages of the Atlanteans?
She didn’t have time to give it proper scrutiny, however, as something else had captured the divers’ attention. They turned to point their cameras at a statue at one end of the room. A man, life-sized, and sculpted in gold — in its pure form this time, the metal an auric yellow. He was clad in robes, a sword sheathed at his side. His hands were raised before him.
Holding a large book.
Nina stared at the screen, more than ever wishing she was seeing it in person. ‘Oh, wow. It’s just like the Talonor Codex… which means,’ she leaned closer to examine the statue’s face, ‘that actually might be Talonor!’
‘I’d say it’s a good bet,’ said Blumberg, enraptured. ‘So that’s what he looked like?’
Talonor had been the greatest explorer of Atlantis, travelling as far as the Amazon basin to the west, and into the Himalayas to the east. The Talonor Codex, a record of his journeys, had been discovered in the underwater ruins several years earlier. It had given a whole new insight into the ancient civilisation, as well as leading Nina to another discovery: the Vault of Shiva, an astounding repository of Hindu artefacts high in the Indian mountains.
But it had not been his only record.
Further discoveries had led the IHA’s archaeologists to believe that Talonor — a military leader as well as an adventurer — had compiled a second volume, the so-called Secret Codex. Rather than an account intended to impress the citizens of Atlantis with epic exploits in far-off lands, this was for the empire’s rulers alone, written with a potential conqueror’s eye: the strengths and weaknesses of the peoples Talonor had encountered, their riches and resources that could be plundered.
And it seemed that it had now been found.
Eddie moved closer. ‘He’s a bit smug.’ The lean-faced man had a definite smirking curl to his lips.
‘Well, when you’re one of the greatest explorers in all recorded history, you’re allowed to be pretty pleased with yourself,’ Nina told him. ‘The book — it looks like he’s holding it, rather than it being a part of the statue?’
Eddie’s gloved hand appeared on the monitor, brushing silt off the golden fingers. ‘Yeah, it’s a separate thing. You want me to pick it up?’
‘No!’ both Nina and Blumberg cried simultaneously, Cellini joining in the chorus from the ocean floor. ‘We need to photograph and catalogue everything first,’ she went on. ‘I know it’s been a while, but you remember the drill, surely?’
‘I was hoping you’d forgotten the boring parts,’ he replied.
‘None of this is boring!’
‘Different strokes, love.’ Cellini’s camera on another screen revealed that the Yorkshireman’s smirk was as wide as Talonor’s; he was trying to wind her up. ‘I’ll have a poke around while Nerio’s taking pictures, then. Don’t worry, I don’t literally mean poke.’
Blumberg gave Nina a disapproving look. ‘He does know what he’s doing, trust me,’ she said. ‘After I beat it into him.’ A faint mocking snort came from the seabed.
Cellini took a camera from his case and started to photograph the chamber. Blumberg switched the main screen to show the view from his shoulder cam as he worked. ‘This is amazing,’ said Nina, her knowledge of the ancient Atlantean language letting her pick out some of the words on the walls. They appeared to describe the lands the explorer had visited. The map was almost certainly a chart of his travels, then. ‘Talonor’s secret records chamber, still preserved after all this time.’
‘It’s incredible that anything survived at all,’ said Blumberg. ‘First Atlantis sinks, then a ship demolishes the temple…’
She ignored the hint of blame aimed at her for the latter. ‘But there it is. Thank you for letting me be a part of this, Lester.’
‘No problem,’ he said, somewhat dismissively. ‘Although there was only one route to follow down there, so we didn’t actually need a guide at all.’
Now she made her annoyance plain on her face, but before she could come up with a spiky rejoinder, another low rumble echoed over the loudspeakers. ‘What was that?’
Eddie felt it directly. ‘The room just shook.’ The floor had quivered beneath his feet, enough to unsteady him.
Cellini looked about in alarm. ‘Earthquake?’
‘No, mate,’ said Matt. ‘I’ve got readings from the seismic relays around the site. That was local, just in the temple.’
‘If something was dislodged by the explosion, the change in the current might be affecting it,’ suggested Blumberg.
‘Oh, great, so it’s going to fall down on us?’ Eddie started for the tunnel. ‘Come on, Nerio, time to go.’
‘In a minute,’ said the Italian. ‘I have to photograph this first.’ He approached the statue.
‘What is it with archaeologists?’ Eddie asked the universe in general. ‘Look, if that big statue outside drops by even a couple of inches, we’re not getting out of here! Forget taking pictures — just take the real thing.’ He reached past Cellini and tugged the volume from Talonor’s golden hands. It was heavy, its pages thin sheets of inscribed metal.
‘Eddie!’ Nina protested. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s going to be taken out of here anyway, innit? I’m just saving some time—’
Another rumble, louder than before — and the whole chamber shuddered. Dust and silt dropped from between the ceiling’s stone slabs, forming ghostly stalactites in the water.
‘That was not me,’ Eddie said firmly, glaring at the statue. ‘That was a coincidence, not a booby trap!’
Cellini gave him a worried look. ‘You are right. We should go!’
Both men launched themselves at the exit, using their suit thrusters to power down the passage before stopping at its end. Eddie squatted to check their escape route. It was still clear. ‘Okay, you go first,’ he told Cellini.
The Italian shook his head. ‘No, you first! We have to get the Secret Codex out of here.’
‘Your life’s worth more than some book. And so’s mine, for that matter!’ But Eddie could tell the young man was not going to change his mind. He had seen the same attitude often enough in his wife. ‘Oh, for— All right!’ He threw the Codex as hard as he could into the low crawlspace. It spun through the water, skidding to a halt about ten feet in. ‘I’ll push it through ahead of me. As for you, you’d better be right behind!’
He dropped to his belly and pulsed the thrusters to move himself into the passage. Cellini took hold of his feet to push him onwards. When he reached the Codex, he shoved it along the narrow tunnel. A faint drumming reached him through the water. He put his fingertips to the ceiling. The statue was trembling.
Above him, he saw scrapes in the gold where the deep suits had ground against it. He rolled slightly to give himself as much clearance as possible. ‘Nerio, I’m almost at the tight bit. Let me line up before you push me through.’