Authors: Renee Simons
"Where the hell
am
I?" she muttered.
She needed an answer as much as she needed a way out. Since exiting the way she'd entered seemed out of the question, she slipped on her knapsack to explore whatever lay ahead. A sudden sharp pain scorched its way from shoulder to fingers. Tender beneath the slightest touch, her forearm felt hot and swollen, and she thought she’d probably broken a bone. She slipped the arm through one of the shoulder straps and wore it like a sling as she set off.
She let her light lead her further into the tunnel, expecting that eventually, the artfully excavated passageway would revert to its more natural state. Instead, the glittering walls continued on, becoming more starkly white, like walls of ice laced with bands of silver and gold that seemed to grow wider and finally dominate. As she penetrated further she realized the tunnel had become more like a maze than a straight-through path.
"I'll never find my way back." Her gaze picked out several spider webs whose silky threads glittered in the pale light.
What was there to go back to? Like Alice, she'd tumbled down a rabbit hole and entered a wonderland. Unlike Alice's bizarre play land, this enchanted place would either lead her home by some path she had yet to discover or it would lead to her death.
"But not yet."
She pulled out the sandwich and broke off a corner, grateful for the peanut butter and jelly filling she hoped would provide a small burst of energy and control the trembling in her legs. With the help of the light that bounced off the ceiling and fell like illuminated rain, she had no trouble pouring clear water into the Thermos cap although she used only her right hand. As she sipped she realized just how thirsty she was and how good the drink tasted despite its metallic tinge.
The minuscule snack helped dissipate her morbid thoughts. "I have to keep going," she whispered.
"Until I find the way out."
She glanced idly around the chamber. Was there some way to mark a path back to the mouth of the tunnel? In case she had no other choice but to try to make the impossible climb out? What if she found tools to hack out handholds or notches for her feet? Or something she could use for a ladder? How did the person who'd created this place get in and out? What if he'd left something behind? If she couldn't get back, nothing she found would be any of any use. So what harm would it do to make some scratch marks in the rock? Like Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs.
Good grief. What was it about this place that recalled all these childhood fairy tales? And not even her favorites. She snorted. "Well, that makes sense." This was far from her favorite place to be.
She fished around in her backpack. She'd hung the key to the door connecting the tunnel and the house on a chain heavy with others. Would its tip be sharp enough to make a mark? She picked a dark spot on the wall and scratched. The point left a faint though discernible line in the grey stone.
Relieved, she sat down again. The momentary pause allowed all the bruised and throbbing places on her body to register their complaints, as if they were cranky children vying for her attention. "Don't bother me, I'm busy," she muttered. "I have to figure out where to make the scratches so I'll be able to find them later."
She settled on the place where the wall curved upward to form the ceiling vault. “Señor Miner” had left a band of untouched stone as a border that ran in a continuous ribbon for the length of the tunnel, following the twists and turns the passage took. She scratched a // in the rock, picked up her few belongings and moved on.
Every few feet she made another double slash mark, noticing other markings as she progressed. At first they seemed to be random and to resemble the tool marks she'd seen before. But as they continued they seemed to take on recognizable shapes until once again, she made out letters: d-o-b-l … e-s-q-u-i-n….
As before, what letters were decipherable had no meaning for her.
She could only hope that the message pointed the way to safety. She thought she might be right until she found herself facing a blank wall. Her disappointment left her breathless and shaking. She dropped to the ground and leaned back.
She couldn't believe she'd come this far with no hope of going further. Tears of anger clouded her vision. She swiped at them with the back of her hand. She would not give up. There had to be some way out. She rose and stood close enough to the wall that she felt its cold surface against her face. Where was the message her desperation insisted the miner had left?
"I'm looking, Señor Miner." Her words bounced back at her. What had she missed? More scratch marks?
Letters?
Something.
She squinted, straining for a clue.
Then she saw what she needed. The last six letters she'd deciphered, only this time, running in reverse. At the place where they ended she found a niche in the rock just wide enough to squeeze through. She removed her pack and held it over her head. Once again, pain shot from her left forearm down to her fingers and back up to her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat and sweat filmed her upper lip.
She leaned against the rock wall until the spasm passed. Taking a deep breath, she slid along the wall, inching slowly into the waiting darkness, moving her feet cautiously in case the solid ground fell from beneath her. To her relief, the terra firma remained firm.
Once on the other side, she felt the space widen around her and turned on the light. "Holy…." she whispered, nearly speechless at the awesome sight of a chamber as brilliant as any presided over by the Sun King.
She remembered reading about a cavern that had been almost pure silver. The Bridal Chamber, it had been called, had yielded over two million dollars’ worth of silver so pure it hadn’t needed processing. The chunks of metal had been shipped just as they’d been dug out of the walls. Could this place have been a similar find?
Señor Miner had exposed every inch of quartz to create walls that glistened like frosted glass. The quartz itself had been excavated to reveal enormous medallions of silver and gold which had been polished until they shown like mirrors. Reflected on their surfaces, huge oval plaques of the same metals on the opposite wall had been liberated from their stony base to be carved and embossed with the profiles of elaborately coiffed ladies and enormous urns filled with flowers and leaves spilling over their sides.
From the neck of each lady hung a pendant of turquoise.
The urns had been decorated with faceted stones of such brilliant colors she refused to name them or even contemplate their value. Her artist's eye reveled in the wealth of detail that had been employed to illustrate the curls falling over each lady's delicately curved brow and cascading to her shoulder. Her trembling fingers could almost feel the care and love that had created each leaf and petal. Brushing away the cobwebs and dust, they traced the craftsmanship that had gone into embossing the golden frames circling each work of art.
"You, my friend were either a genius or a madman." She turned slowly to take in the full effect of the gallery.
"Or maybe a little of each."
The left-most cameo bore the name Doña Alita, the one on the right, Doña Leonor and the portrait in the middle, Doña Constanza. Although the other two ladies had been depicted in profile, the fair lady Constanza viewed her world from a three-quarters full pose.
That alone would have told Callie the woman was special even if she hadn't been able to translate the legend,
Mi Corazón,
which formed a frame for the upper part of the portrait. Who the others were would probably remain a mystery. I hope this isn't a gallery of all his past loves, she thought. That wouldn't say much for his faithfulness quotient.
"Well," she said with a sigh. "If I can't get out, at least my bones will rest in pleasant surroundings." She groaned. "Let's cut out
all that
defeatist sh — tuff, Cal, and see what's up ahead."
She pulled out the camera and took several photos. Who knew if they could be printed, but like so much else she’d done, if, when, she found her way out, the attempt to document what she’d seen might come in handy. At the very least, the photos would prove she hadn’t dreamt the place.
Another passageway, easier to negotiate this time, led to a small, somber chamber devoid of any decoration. The only objects in the area looked suspiciously like two large, stone sarcophagi. When she saw the ornamental covers, one depicting a woman, the other a man, she knew, or thought she knew, the purpose for the underground complex — a tribute to a man's love for a woman, a love transcending all manner of material wealth and splendor, leading to their final resting place.
She sighed. Would she ever know such devotion? Or be capable of giving it to another? A quick vision of Luc’s face flashed before her, quickening her pulse, and she wondered what kind of message her subconscious was sending. He’d made very clear to her he was far from ready for a relationship of any kind, much less one of lifelong commitment. She’d never been one to chase after impossible goals and a future with Luc qualified as nearly impossible as anything she’d run into lately. She saluted his receding image and looked down at the marble coffins.
"Hope these two lived a long and happy life before ending up here." She traced the hard cold lines of the woman's long robe and clasped the upturned point of one slipper with a sigh. "Hope I do, too."
After taking a photo, she whispered a farewell to the eternal lovers and resumed her search for an exit.
The ground sloped upward and the passage narrowed to accommodate no more than a single person. She willed herself to climb slowly and to stay calm despite the claustrophobic feel the place had taken on. The sense of foreboding that had followed her down the tunnel now leaped out in front of her and slammed into her as she found herself facing a tumbled pile of rocks that halted her progress and sealed the tunnel from further exploration.
"Not again," she muttered, forcing a patience she didn't feel. After all, she'd found her way this far. It couldn't have been for nothing.
Or to end up as a bag of rotting bones.
She shivered,
then
shrugged off her own gloomy thoughts once again. "Morbidity is not an option," she said, "not mental or physical."
She climbed to the top of the rock pile, took hold of a smallish rock wedged against the ceiling and tried to pry it loose. The motion needed two hands, but her left arm was now nearly immobilized with pain and she failed to make any progress. Shaking from her exertions, she moved to another spot and tried the maneuver again with no success. Time and the laws of physics working against her made this exit non-negotiable.
"Now what, Señor Miner?
Surely, you’ve left me another way out."
She refused to give in to the desperation that hovered at the edge of her thoughts. Instead, she returned to the burial chamber. Just then, her flashlight flickered a warning.
"Don't fail me now, dear friend. I need you to find my way out or I'll end up like the miner and his lady."
She slid to the ground and propped herself against the side of Constanza's coffin. To conserve the battery she pressed the switch, sending the chamber into darkness. Well, she thought, that's all right. I know there's nothing in here to hurt me.
She didn't need light to eat or to consider what to do next, and drinking could wait for a while. Maybe this was a good time to rest, letting the black, heavy silence enfold her while she renewed her energies. The pain from her arm, sometimes sharp and jarring, sometimes a dull, grinding ache, made lying down impossible, so she closed her eyes where she sat and gave in to her fatigue.
From the dark that descended upon her, Luc strolled toward her with his sexy, loose-hipped walk. His smile flashed in the sunlight and his outstretched hand beckoned. She lifted her arm and reached out until their fingertips touched.
In some part of her battered mind, she knew that it was only a dream but she didn’t care. She gave in to the memory and felt again his hands on her heated flesh, his lips on hers,
the
weight of him stretched along the length of her body. Once again, her heart pounded as her body responded with its own liquid fire to the throbbing pressure of his arousal. Her breasts tightened as she fell asleep with the memory of his lips on hers and the feel of his warm skin beneath her hands. And she resented whatever it was that woke her finally and sent him back into the shadows.
She didn't know what it was — not a sound or
a wayward breeze, surely — but once her eyes were open
, she realized a new element had entered the chamber. A faint glow now relieved the darkness that had filled the place when she fell asleep.
She checked the flashlight. “It’s not coming from here.”
She looked around the chamber for the source and found it in a corner opposite her. A shimmering column of light descended from the roof, scattering rays that warmed the darkness before collecting in a puddle on the ground. Feeling like an Israelite encountering the pillar of fire in the desert, she approached with caution and no small amount of trepidation. Closer inspection revealed nothing supernatural or threatening, just a small, long-abandoned fire pit. The light came from the ceiling directly above, pouring through a hole she thought might have been used to vent the smoke that had blackened the adjacent walls and nearly obliterated several pictographs.
She took a photo of the sarcophagi and the drawings and ran her hand over the jagged stone. Someone had cut footholds into the rock, creating a crude ladder by which to scale the wall. The light shining through the smoke hole gave her hope that she would be near the surface if she could make the climb. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slipped the backpack over both shoulders to equalize its weight. She kept her good arm free, once again using the strap on the left side as a sling. Hauling herself up to the first foothold proved difficult, but she managed after several tries that left her drenched in sweat and wracked with nausea. She clung to the wall until the wicked pounding of her heart subsided and her stomach stopped its annoying flip-flops. Moving crabwise on shaking legs that threatened to give way at any moment, she hitched her way from one handhold to another until she’d made it to the top of the wall and the source of the light.