The Lost Throne

23

The blue tapestry hung from the ceiling to the floor, covering most of the back wall in the monk’s chamber. Dial had orig inally thought it was there to add a splash of color to an otherwise dreary room. Then he noticed a color that didn’t belong. The color was red. It was smeared on a few of the golden tassels near the bottom right-hand corner of the tapestry — as if someone with bloody hands had grabbed it and pulled it away from the wall.

Careful not to contaminate the evidence, Dial lifted the tapestry and peered behind it. He hoped to find a message scrawled on the stone or something attached to the back of the Orthodox cross. But what he found was better. And much more surprising.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled to himself.

“What is it?” asked Andropoulos as he tried to peek over Dial’s shoulder.

“You’ll see in a minute. Go close the door.”

Andropoulos hustled across the room, glanced outside to make sure no one was coming, then quietly closed and locked the door. By the time he returned, Dial was standing in front of the tapestry, wondering how they could move it without damaging it. Eventually, he figured things out. The tapestry was hanging from two large hooks, one in each upper corner, that were drilled into the stone wall. All they had to do was remove the right corner from the right hook, fold the tapestry upon itself, and hang the right corner on top of the left corner. That way the tapestry would remain hanging, folded vertically, while dangling from the left-hand hook.

Working in unison, the two of them carefully lifted the tapestry so it wouldn’t drag across the floor and hung it as Dial suggested. Then they stepped back and stared at their discovery.

In the center of the stone wall there was a door.

A secret door.

One that looked hundreds of years old.

Dial didn’t know why it was there or where it might lead, but he knew they had stumbled onto something special. Not only because the monks had gone out of their way to conceal it, but also because the door itself was more glorious than any door he had ever seen before. Intricately carved by a master craftsman, it depicted dozens of Greek soldiers fighting a foreign horde on the battlefield. Some used spears. Others held swords. But all of them fought with honor.

Andropoulos moved closer to inspect the details, to appreciate the remarkable workmanship of his ancestors. He wanted to run his fingers across it, like a blind man reading Braille, just so he could touch a piece of history. That is, until he noticed the dried blood. It was just a small stain near the door’s handle, yet it brought him back to reality.

He wasn’t a tourist in a museum. He was a cop at a crime scene.

He said, “I found more blood. Just like the other door, it’s by the handle.”

Dial crouched down to study the stain. “Strange. Very strange.”

“How so?”

“There’s blood on both doors yet nothing in between. You don’t see that very often. Normally, you’d see a visible blood trail on the floor.”

Dial reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean tissue to open the door. He would have preferred latex gloves, but he was forced to improvise, since he didn’t have a pair.

“Any theories?” Dial asked.

“About what?”

“The source of the blood.”

Andropoulos shook his head. “Not really. What about you?”

“I always have a theory. If I’m right, we’ll know in three seconds.”

“What happens in three seconds?”

“You’ll see,” he said cryptically. “Are you ready? Three… two… one… breathe.”

Dial pushed the door forward and was instantly greeted by the stench of death. The smell, a mixture of blood and decaying flesh, caught Andropoulos completely off-guard. So much so, he started to gag the moment it hit his nostrils. But not Dial. He was expecting it. With the tissue, he covered his nose and mouth, then stepped inside the dark corridor.

“Mmmmm, death,” he said with a wry smile. “Do you have a light?”

Still coughing, Andropoulos handed him a tiny penlight that he kept clipped to his belt. Dial turned it on and shined the beam ahead, revealing a tunnel about ten feet long with a stone floor followed by a spiral staircase that faded downward from view. Creeping forward, Dial shined the light on the walls and the arched ceiling above him. Although it was made of stone, it was reinforced by several wooden planks — just like the one in the monk’s room.

“How often does Greece have earthquakes?”

Andropoulos cleared his throat. “Every year. They are small but very common.”

Dial nodded in understanding as he continued to explore. “That might explain the wood. The monks who built this place were probably worried about cave-ins. Miners used to do the same thing in the Old West. The boards kept their shafts from collapsing.”

“Where does it lead?”

Dial shrugged as he stopped at the edge of the steps. “We’ll find out shortly.”

He shined the light into the darkness below. The stairs curled to the right, then disappeared into the depths. Dial turned back and looked at the Greek. “Are you ready?”

Andropoulos coughed again. The sound echoed throughout the corridor. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then stop your goddamn coughing and let’s get moving.”

Dial eased down the staircase one step at a time, making sure each stair supported his weight before he moved on to the next one. Five steps. Then ten. Fifteen. Then twenty. Finally, after twenty-two steps, he reached the bottom. A few seconds later, he was joined by Andropoulos, who was no longer hacking — even though the stench was growing stronger.

“This is interesting,” Dial mumbled to himself.

The stone corridor opened into a rectangular chamber, approximately ten feet across and twenty feet long, with a slender archway in the back of the room. The left and right walls were lined with carved wooden shelves that were empty except for a pack of matches and a few cobwebs. The intricate craftsmanship of the shelves, which looked remarkably similar to the hidden door, suggested they had once been filled with something important. But neither of them knew what that might have been.

Hoping to find out, Dial walked deeper into the room.

Next to the shelves he spotted a decorative candleholder that resembled a menorah but only held five candles. It was made of metal and bolted securely to the left-hand wall.

“Do me a favor,” Dial said, pointing toward the matches. “Light those candles.”

Andropoulos did what he was told, and soon darkness was replaced with flickering light. On the opposite wall, he noticed a second candleholder, identical to the first, and lit those candles as well. Suddenly, the room was bright enough for Dial to turn off the penlight.

“What is this place?” Andropoulos asked after blowing out the match.

Dial shrugged. “It looks like a document archive. At least it was at one time.”

Andropoulos ran his finger along one of the shelves. It was coated with a thick layer of dust. “Whatever used to be here was taken long before the massacre.”

Dial nodded in agreement. “Speaking of the massacre…”

The phrase hung in the air as Dial crept through the archway in the back of the chamber. It led to a second room half the size of the archive but far more important. Not only because it contained a stone altar, but also because it was the source of the horrible smell.