Oracles of Delphi Keep (31 page)

“I think it’s best if we split up. You go that way and I’ll go this way. If you find the stairs, call out and I’ll come to you.”

Carl’s expression clearly suggested he was less than thrilled with that idea but he kept his mouth shut and
headed off in the direction Ian had pointed to. Ian walked in the opposite direction, pushing at plants and looking around stumps for any sign of the stairway indicated on the old map.

After a good ten minutes, he headed back to his starting place and found Carl coming through the brush at him from the opposite direction. “Any luck?” he asked.

Carl shook his head. “It’s really thick back there,” he said, pointing behind him. “You’d be lucky to find your feet, let alone a set of stairs.”

“Well, if we don’t find the stairs on this pass, we’ll wait until after the next time we visit with the professor and get a better feel for exactly where they are.”

Carl nodded and headed east. Ian turned west and searched again. Not even three minutes had passed when Ian heard Carl shout, “Oi, Ian! Come here quick!”

Ian whipped around and bolted as fast as he could toward the sound of Carl’s voice, afraid he might have been wrong about the beast being nowhere about. To his immense relief he found his friend straightaway. Carl was jumping up and down with excitement.

“Look!” he said, pointing to a rather crude structure that was nearly completely hidden by ivy and brush. Ian moved closer and gasped when he realized that what he’d thought was just a clump of vegetation was actually four huge flat stones that formed three walls and a roof. These mammoth pieces of rock sheltered a set of stairs leading down to a metal grate door that stood slightly ajar.

“You’ve found it!” Ian exclaimed. “Good job, mate. Now, let’s see what’s down there!”

The stairs were narrow and the boys descended one at a
time, with Ian in the lead. When they reached the bottom, he paused at the gate, peering into the spooky darkness of the tunnel beyond the iron.

“Should we go in?” whispered Carl.

“Why are you whispering?” Ian whispered back.

“Why are
you
whispering?” asked Carl.

Ian rolled his eyes and gathered his courage. “Never mind,” he said in his normal voice while digging into his pocket for the pocket torch the earl had replaced for him. Clicking it on, he attempted a joke. “We’ve got to be quick about it. Don’t want anyone at the keep to think we’ve been eaten alive, or anything.”

Carl went starkly pale. “You don’t think the beast is in there, do you?” he asked in a shaky whisper.

Ian almost laughed at his friend’s expression. But seeing that Carl really was frightened, he was quick to reassure him. “Of course not! I was only joking, mate.”

Carl gulped. “Still, perhaps we should take a big stick with us, just in case we have to defend ourselves?”

Ian could have slapped himself for being so stupid as to make a crack about being eaten alive. “Sure, Carl, sure,” he said. “I’ll wait here while you get your stick.”

Carl bolted back up the stairs and Ian could hear him tramping through the woods. He leaned against the frame of the door and shone the beam of the small torch into the tunnel opening. As he swirled the light around in small circles, something sparkled in the gloominess. Curious, Ian pointed his beam directly on the floor in front of him. Not far away something shiny glinted back.

“I found one!” Carl called from the top of the stairs.

“That’s good,” Ian said, still distracted by what his light was reflecting off. “Come on, then, or we’ll run out of time.”

Carl raced down the stairs and showed Ian his big stick, which was nearly as tall as he was. “Nice choice,” Ian said to him, working hard to appear serious.

Carl flashed a winning smile; then he nodded and Ian turned back to the tunnel. He could hear Carl walking behind him with the
tap … tap … tap
of the stick striking the stone floor every other step. They went cautiously and slowly—Carl because he was clearly afraid of creepy dark tunnels, Ian because he wanted to examine the walls for indications of who had carved it out.

The stairs and the gate indicated that this tunnel was man-made. As they went in, Ian was surprised by how wide and spacious the interior was. Most of the other tunnels required anyone taller than he to duck, but this one had a great deal of extra headroom and was wide enough for three men to walk abreast. Ian bounced the beam of his pocket torch around the walls and ceiling but kept going back to the shiny object at the end of the tunnel. As he moved closer, he could see that the reflective surface was something about as large as a football, and almost as round.

“What
is
that?” Carl whispered as he too caught sight of the metallic object in the beam of Ian’s torch.

“Don’t know,” said Ian, intensely curious now. “Come on. Let’s have a closer look.”

The boys picked up their pace, their focus now only on the shiny object. When they got close enough to touch it, they stopped and looked down. The thing was shaped much like an egg, with a bronze-coated surface that was lightly
covered in dust and cobwebs. Ian had no idea what it was, so he kicked at it, and it rolled over, revealing a hollow center.

“It’s a helmet,” said Carl, poking it with his stick.

Ian squatted excitedly and picked it up, delighted to have found another bit of treasure. “It’s heavy,” he said, holding it at eye level and wiping the dust covering it on his trouser leg. Carl leaned in to get a better look and Ian smiled, thinking of a prank to play on his friend. “Here, why don’t you try it on for size?” And he plopped the helmet on Carl’s head.

“Hey!” Carl said as the heavy bronze headgear came down over his eyes and rested near his nose. “I can’t see!”

Ian laughed and laughed while his friend stumbled around ridiculously, banging into something that gave an eerie clatter. “What was that?” Carl asked, laughing too while he reached up to tug up the lip of the helmet.

But all laughter died in Ian’s throat as he saw the object now reflecting his torch beam.

As Carl continued to thrash about, Ian was frozen in place. He raised a shaking hand and pointed at the back wall, where the bony remains of the upper torso and skull of some poor soul were cemented firmly into the rock and protruded grotesquely out at him.

Carl, finally free of the helmet, blinked several times, trying to get his bearings. “What’s the matter?” he asked when he finally noticed Ian standing there with wide, horrified eyes.

“That!” whispered Ian, pointing urgently.

Carl glanced to his right and let out a terrific scream as
he came face to face with the hollowed-out eyes of a human skull.

Carl flew forward, grabbed Ian’s arm, and whipped him around.
“Run!”
he yelled.

Ian’s feet finally agreed to move—and move fast. He raced past Carl as if his life depended on it. He’d suddenly found his voice too, letting out his own terrified scream, which, along with Carl’s, reverberated off the stone walls. Ian raced up the stairs with Carl hot on his heels and neither boy slowed down as they crashed through the forest, back to the hilltop where they’d first paused to look at the map.

There, Ian finally collapsed on the grass, panting hard as he felt Carl thump to the ground next to him. Long seconds passed before Ian sat up and glanced at his friend. Carl was staring at the sky, his chest heaving and his right hand still gripping the helmet from the tunnel.

“Hey,” said Ian, motioning to the helmet, “how did you manage to run so fast with that in your hands?”

Carl panted another beat or two before he glanced sideways at his hand, then sat up quickly and tossed the helmet away with an “Ahhhh!” For emphasis, Carl kicked it.

“Wait!” Ian said, reaching out to catch the helmet before Carl could do any real damage. “Don’t ruin it!”

“It fell off that … that …
thing!”
Carl said, scrunching up his face and shuddering.

By now Ian had regained his composure and was genuinely curious about what he’d seen. “Yes,” he agreed. “But who do you think he was?”

“Who cares?”
screeched Carl. “Ian, did you see those bones? He was … he was …” Carl was at a loss for words.

“Cemented
into
the wall!” said Ian. He’d never seen anything like it and now that he was over his initial fright, he found it fascinating.

“Yes! Cemented, that’s a good way to describe it,” Carl agreed.

“How is that even possible?” Ian wondered.

Carl shivered and stood up. “I knew going into that tunnel was a bad idea,” he grumbled. “Didn’t I tell you it was a bad idea?”

“No,” Ian said. “You didn’t.”

Carl glared at him while he dusted himself off. “Well, I
meant
to say it. We never should have gone in there!” he added with another shiver.

Ian got to his feet as well, lifting up the helmet. “We’ll need to hide this for now,” he said, thinking that they couldn’t very well show up at the keep with another ancient artifact. Ian was quite certain that he’d get into a load of trouble if he admitted to exploring more tunnels.

“For
now
?” Carl asked, looking at Ian like he’d just grown an extra head. “Toss that thing off the side of the cliffs, I say!”

Ian gave him a level look. “Carl,” he said reasonably, “this could be another ancient artifact. It could be worth loads of money! It could mean that you and I will have a bit of cash for the years after we leave Delphi Keep!”

Carl was still glaring at him, but Ian could see a small bit of cracking in his resolve, so he continued his argument. “Besides,” Ian said, “this helmet is another clue linking us back to the box and the map and that scroll. Did you ever consider that the soldier who wore this helmet might be the
same person who left the silver box in the tunnel? This could be the way for me to clear my name! If the schoolmasters see that skeleton with their own eyes, they’ll know I had nothing to do with that writing on the wall or hiding the box in the tunnel. It could be the proof we need to remove any doubt about this being a hoax!”

Carl crossed his arms and his scowl deepened. “Lot of good it did that bloke back there to leave you that box,” he muttered. “I expect if that
thing
embedded in the wall down there had to do it all over again, he’d have chosen tossing that box off the cliffs too! I say we go back and tell Madam Dimbleby She’ll tell the earl, who can seal off that tunnel and all the others for good!”

Ian sighed. Carl was more stubborn than he’d thought. “How about this …,” he said. “We’ll tell the schoolmasters about it, but we’ll do it
privately
, and we’ll bring them down here so they can explore our discovery themselves.”

“Look, mate,” Carl said, puffing up his chest. He was a good two inches shorter than Ian, but that didn’t stop him from trying to stand up to his new friend. “That unfortunate bloke down there
died
in that wall likely after he went exploring places.
You
almost died when you first found the box exploring that tunnel. Then
we
almost died when the beast came after us because you’d gone exploring near its lair. All that this exploring has brought us is a load of trouble and I, for one, have had quite enough of it!”

But Ian was undeterred. He would tell the schoolmasters about the helmet and bring them down to the tunnel to show them the soldier’s remains with or without Carl. Maybe once they’d seen it with their own eyes, they’d
believe that he had nothing to do with the writing on the wall or putting the map inside the silver box. “Come on,” he said, ruffling Carl’s hair good-naturedly. “Help me find a hiding place. I promise that once I get the schoolmasters alone, I’ll tell them about what we’ve found.”

Carl groused some more but eventually he helped Ian locate the perfect-sized nook between some large boulders where the helmet could be hidden. “Thanks, mate,” Ian said after he’d covered the helmet with some grass and dried twigs to further conceal it.

“Don’t mention it,” said Carl with a frown before adding,
“ever
again!”

Ian laughed and motioned toward the road leading to the village. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll have to run to the village and hope there isn’t a queue at the bakery.”

Ian and Carl hurried to fetch the bread Madam Dimbleby had sent them for, and quickly made their way back to Delphi Keep. Puffing with effort, their arms loaded with bread, they returned to the kitchen, where Ian was surprised to find Schoolmaster Thatcher sitting at the small table by the pantry, sipping tea and chatting with Madam Dimbleby “Hello, boys,” he greeted them.

“Sir,” Ian and Carl said together as they handed the loaves over to Madam Dimbleby.

“It’s about time you two got back,” she said to them. “I was about to send Master Goodwyn here out to look for you.”

“There was a queue at the bakery,” said Ian. He didn’t elaborate about it being only two deep.

“I see,” she said with a suspicious look. “Well, as long as you’re here, you might as well help me carve the loaves for the table. Knives are in the drawer, and you’ll want to make sure we have enough slices for all the children plus Schoolmaster Goodwyn, Madam Scargill, and me.”

Ian let go a sigh of relief that she didn’t question them further about taking so long and he nudged Carl in the direction of the hooks at the back of the kitchen, where the children put up their coats.

“And wash your hands first, boys,” added Madam Dimbleby over her shoulder before the boys could begin their work.

As they hurried to the sink and got to it, they couldn’t help overhearing their headmistress and Thatcher continue the conversation the boys had interrupted.

As he and Carl laid out the bread and fetched the knives, Ian listened in.

“This Professor Nutley has offered to pay the boys for their help cleaning up his flat?” she asked.

“Yes, Madam,” Thatcher answered. “And I daresay it would be a wonderful opportunity for them. The professor was a favorite of mine at Cambridge. He was one of the best archaeologists of his time and would be nothing but a positive influence on the lads.”

“I suppose it’s all right,” Madam Dimbleby said as she stirred the gravy. Ian smiled excitedly at Carl, who grinned back until Madam said, “I just worry about them running amuck in London.”