The Bone Labyrinth Read online

  Father Kircher’s gaze settled upon the emissary, still on bended knee before his overloaded desk. “And who is your companion?”

  “He comes with a package from Leopold I. It would seem the emperor has remembered enough of his Jesuit education to send something of import to your doorstep. Leopold appealed to the Grand Duke to have me present this man to you with some urgency, under a cloak of dire secrecy.”

  Father Kircher lowered his quill. “Intriguing.”

  They both knew the current emperor had an interest in science and the natural world, instilled in him by the Jesuit scholars who had tutored the man in his youth. Emperor Leopold himself had been headed into the church until the death of his older brother to the pox placed the pious scholar on that cold northern throne.

  Father Kircher waved to the messenger. “Enough of this foolish posturing, my good man. Stand and deliver what you’ve traveled so far to present.”

  The emissary rose up and pulled back the cowl of his hood, revealing the face of a young man who could not be more than twenty years. From a satchel, he retrieved a thick letter, plainly sealed with the emperor’s sigil. He stepped forward and placed it upon the desk, then quickly stepped back.

  Kircher glanced toward Nicolas, who merely shrugged, equally in the dark about the particulars of this matter.

  Kircher retrieved a knife and slit through the seal to open the package. A small object rolled out and toppled to the desktop. It was a bone, frosted with crystalline rock. Pinching his brow, Kircher pulled out and unfolded a parchment included with the artifact. Even from steps away, Nicolas saw it was a detailed map of eastern Europe. Father Kircher studied it for a breath.

  “I don’t understand the meaning of all of this,” Kircher said. “This map and this bit of old bone. They come with no letter of explanation.”

  The emissary finally spoke, his Italian thickly accented. “The emperor chose me to deliver the other half of this message, words I was sworn to set to memory and reveal only to you, Reverend Father.”

  “And what are those words?”

  “The emperor knows of your interest in the ancient past, in those secrets buried in the bowels of the earth, and requests your aid in investigating what was revealed at the site marked on the map.”

  “And what might be found there?” Nicolas asked. “More bones, such as this?”

  He stepped closer and studied the ossified sliver, the crusts of whitish rock. He sensed the great antiquity of what lay upon the desk.

  “Bones and much more,” the messenger concurred.

  “And who do these bones belong to?” Kircher asked. “Whose grave do they mark?”

  The young man answered, his words shocking. Then, before either man could respond, the messenger swiftly drew out a dagger and sliced his own throat from ear to ear. Blood poured forth as the man choked and collapsed first to his knees, then to the floor.

  Nicolas rushed to the young man’s aid, cursing at such brutal necessity. It seemed those final words were meant only for Father Kircher and himself, and once dispatched, were never to be spoken again.

  Father Kircher rounded his desk and dropped to a knee, taking the young man’s hand between his palms, but his question was for Nicolas. “Could it be true?”

  Nicolas swallowed, dismayed by the last message spoken through those bloody lips.

  The bones . . . they belong to Adam and Eve.

  FIRST

  BLOOD AND SHADOWS

  Σ

  1

  April 29, 10:32 A.M. CEST

  Karlovac County, Croatia

  We shouldn’t be here.

  A trickle of superstitious dread stopped Roland Novak on a switchback of the trail. He raised his hand against the morning sun and stared at the craggy mountaintop ahead. Black clouds stacked in the distance.

  According to Croatian folktales—stories he had heard as a child—during stormy nights, witches and fairies would gather atop the summit of Klek Mountain, where their screams would be heard all the way to the neighboring city of Ogulin. It was a peak haunted by tales of the unwary or the unlucky meeting horrible fates.

  For centuries, such legends had kept the peak fairly unmolested. But in the past few decades that had changed when the crag’s towering cliffs drew an ever-increasing number of local rock climbers. Still, this was not why Roland and the others risked scaling the northern side of the mountain this morning.

  “It’s not much farther,” Alex Wrightson promised. “Best we be in and out before the storm hits.”

  The British geologist led the foursome, looking as solidly built as these peaks, though he had to be close to seventy years old. He wore khaki hiking shorts despite the chill, revealing strong, wiry legs. His snow-white hair, fuller than Roland’s own receding blond hairline, was tucked under a climbing helmet.

  “That’s the third time he’s claimed that,” Lena Crandall mumbled under her breath to Roland. A fine sheen of perspiration from the hour-long climb made her cheeks glow, but she didn’t seem winded. Then again, she was in her midtwenties, and from the well-worn boots on her feet, he figured she must do a fair amount of hiking herself.

  She stared at the skies, studying the towering wall of dark clouds. “Luckily I was able to get here a day early,” she said. “Once that storm breaks, these mountains will be swamped for who knows how long.”

  In acknowledgment of that threat, the group set a harder pace up the unmarked trail. Lena unzipped her thermal expedition jacket and adjusted an old backpack higher on her shoulders. It bore the logo for Emory University, her alma mater in Atlanta, Georgia. Roland knew little else about this American, except that she was a geneticist who had been called away from a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. And like Roland, she was equally in the dark about the reason behind this sudden summons by the British geologist and his partner, a French paleontologist.

  As they climbed, Dr. Dayne Arnaud spoke in low whispers with Wrightson, and though Roland could not make out the paleontologist’s words, especially with the man’s thick French accent, the researcher plainly sounded irritated. So far neither of the men had shared any more details concerning the group’s destination or what they had discovered here.

  Roland forced himself to be patient. He had grown up in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, but he knew all the stories surrounding this peak of the Dinaric Alps. Its summit bore an uncanny resemblance to a giant lying on its back. It was said to be the body of the giant Klek, who battled the god Volos and was turned to stone for his affront. Before being petrified, the giant swore that he would one day break free from his slumber and exact revenge upon the world.

  Roland felt a flicker of superstitious unease.

  Because that giant had been rumbling of late.

  This region was prone to earthquakes, a fact that possibly gave rise to this legend of a slumbering giant. Then last month a strong quake registering 5.2 on the Richter scale had shaken the region, even cracking the bell tower of a medieval church in the nearby city of Ogulin.

  Roland suspected that quake was tied to whatever had been discovered by the geologist and paleontologist. His suspicions proved true when the party circled past a craggy shoulder of the mountain and into a dense patch of pines. Ahead, a massive chunk of rock had broken from the cliff face and shattered into the forest, knocking down trees and smashing through the landscape, like the stomping of the mighty Klek himself.

  Wrightson spoke as they followed a path through the maze of boulders and shattered trunks. “A local bird watcher stumbled upon the destruction here after last month’s quake. He was hiking early enough in the morning to see steam rising from between a few boulders, hinting at the possibility of a cavern system below.”

  “And you believe the recent earthquake cracked this system open?” Lena asked.

  “Indeed.” Wrightson waved an arm. “Not a particularly surprising outcome. This whole range is made up mostly of karst, a form of limestone. All the rainf
all and abundant springs have made this region a geological playground, full of marvels. Underground rivers, sinkholes, caves—you name it.”

  Roland stared at Arnaud. “But it was more than just an old cave you found here.”

  Wrightson glanced back, his eyes glinting with amused excitement. “Best we don’t ruin the surprise. Isn’t that right, Dr. Arnaud?”

  The paleontologist grumbled sourly, a match to the scowl that seemed permanently etched on his features. While Wrightson was gregarious and outgoing, the Frenchman was his dark shadow, ever grim and meanspirited. The researcher was only a few years older than Roland, who was thirty-two, but Arnaud’s attitude made him seem far older. Roland suspected much of Arnaud’s attitude rose from his annoyance at both his and the American’s inclusion here today. Roland knew how some scientists could become very territorial about their work.

  “Ah, here we are!” Wrightson declared, stepping forward to the top of a ladder that protruded from a nondescript hole in the ground.

  Focused on the goal, Roland missed the figure standing in the shadow of a boulder until the large man stepped into the sunlight. He had a rifle resting on his shoulder. Though the guard was dressed in civilian clothes, his stiff stance, the sharp creases in his clothes, and the steely glint in his eyes all suggested a military background. Even his black hair was shaved to stubble, looking more like a peaked skullcap.

  He spoke rapidly to Arnaud in French.

  Roland didn’t speak the language, but from the attitude, the guard plainly was not subservient to the paleontologist, more a colleague on equal footing. The guard pointed toward the darkening skies, seeming to be arguing about whether to allow them to go below. Finally he cursed, stepped to a generator, and yanked on a cord, setting the engine to rumbling.

  “That would be Commandant Henri Gerard,” Wrightson introduced. “He’s with the Chasseurs Alpins, the elite French mountain infantry. He and his men have been keeping anyone from trespassing here.”

  Roland glanced around, trying to spot any other soldiers, but he failed.

  “A sad but necessary precaution, I’m afraid,” Wrightson continued. “After the birder discovered this possible entrance, he contacted a caving club to investigate. Lucky for us, the club’s members adhere to a strict and secretive code of conduct. When they discovered the importance of what lay below, they preserved what they found and reached out to their French comrades, those who oversaw the preservation of such famous caves as Chauvet and Lascaux.”

  With a background in art history, Roland understood the significance of mentioning those two caves. The sites were famous for their Paleolithic cave art, paintings done by the oldest ancestors of modern man.

  He stared toward the opening, suspecting now what must lie below.

  Lena also understood. “Did you find cave artwork down there?”

  Wrightson lifted one eyebrow. “Oh, we found so much more.” His gaze settled on Roland. “It’s why we contacted the Vatican, Father Novak . . . why you were summoned from the Croatian Catholic University in Zagreb to join us.”

  Roland peered down into the tunnel. As thunder rumbled in the distance, dread drew him to touch the white Roman collar at his neck.

  Arnaud spoke in his heavily accented voice, his disdain ringing clear. “Father Novak, you are here to witness and verify the miracle we’ve found.”

  11:15 A.M.

  Lena climbed down the ladder, following Wrightson and Arnaud. A power cable paralleled their path, leading from the generator above toward the faint glow of lights below. Like the others, she wore a caving helmet with its own lamp. Her heart pounded in her ears, from excitement but also from a touch of claustrophobia.

  She spent most of her time locked up in some genetics lab, her eyes fixed to a microscope or reading code off a computer monitor. Whenever she had free time, she escaped into any wild places afforded her. Lately that was mainly the ribbons of parklands running alongside the rivers that crisscrossed Leipzig. She missed the wooded acres that surrounded her former research station outside of Atlanta. She also missed her twin sister—a geneticist like her—who continued working on their joint project in the States, while she did ancillary work here in Europe, which meant spending sixteen to eighteen hours a day building ancient code from bits of decaying bone or teeth.

  If this cave was truly some lost Paleolithic site, rich in fossilized remains and artifacts, she could guess her role here: to carefully collect samples for analysis back at her lab. The Max Planck Institute was well respected for its ability to sift through old bones for fragments of DNA and reconstruct those ancient sequences.

  Lena stared between her boots as she scaled the ladder, wondering what she might discover below. She wished her sister Maria were here to share this moment.

  A slight gasp sounded above her as Father Novak slipped slightly on the ladder, but he quickly caught himself. She frowned a bit, wondering yet again why the priest had been enlisted here. En route from Zagreb, she had engaged the man in conversation, learning that he taught medieval history at the university, a strange background for someone exploring a prehistoric cave.

  She finally reached the base of the ladder, and Wrightson helped her down and pointed for her to follow Arnaud, who crouched and continued along a tunnel. She ducked her head under the low roof, but she still kept bumping the top of her helmet and bobbling the beam of her lamp. The air here was actually warmer than that of the chilly morning above, but it was heavy with moisture—the limestone walls damp to the touch, the ground slippery with wet silt.

  After a bit of traversing, Arnaud finally straightened ahead of her. She joined him, stretching a kink in her back as she stood—then froze at the sight before her.

  A cave opened ahead of them, fanged with stalactites and stalagmites. The walls ran with drapes of flowstone, while the ceiling was festooned with elaborate chandeliers of spiraling snow-white crystals, ranging from twisting tiny straws to antler-like horns.

  “A spectacular showcase of helictites,” Wrightson said, noting her attention as he stood. “Those types of speleothems grow from capillary forces pushing water through microscopic cracks. Takes about a century to grow a few centimeters.”

  “Amazing,” she whispered, afraid even her very breath might disturb the fragile-looking displays.

  Arnaud spoke more sternly. “Take care from here. Walk only on the ladders we’ve laid out as bridges across the cavern floor. What’s preserved underfoot is as important as what hangs overhead.”

  The paleontologist continued to lead the way, stepping along a thin trestle of steel treads that led deeper into the cavern. A handful of light panels, powered from the generator above, dotted their path. Lena noted objects strewn across the floor, frosted over and glued in place by calcite deposits. Through the crystals, she could make out the shapes of animal skulls and leg bones.

  “There’s a treasure house of prehistoric life preserved down here,” Arnaud said, some of his earlier sourness fading to wonder. He nodded to one such object. “There’s the intact hind leg of Coelodonta antiquitatis.”

  “The woolly rhinoceros,” Lena said.

  Arnaud glanced at her, a flicker of respect showing, along with an insulting amount of surprise. “That’s correct.”

  She pointed to an artifact resting on the plinth of a broken stalagmite: a skull fused to rock by runnels of calcite. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s from Ursus spelaeus.”

  “The notorious cave bear,” Arnaud conceded grudgingly, which earned a chuckle from Wrightson.

  Lena hid a smile. Two could play at this game.

  “Clearly from its position,” Arnaud continued, “it was likely used as a totem. You can see the black stain of an old fire pit resting in front of it. The flames likely cast the shadow of the beast’s skull across the far wall.”

  Lena pictured such a sight, trying to imagine what that display would have evoked in the spirits of the ancient people who had made this cavern their home.

  The paleontolog
ist continued, identifying other rare treasures as they traversed to the far side of the cavern: horns of a saiga antelope, the skull of a bison, a pile of mammoth tusks, even the complete remains of a golden eagle. Dotted throughout were smaller black smudges, likely marking individual home hearths.

  Finally they crossed out of the smaller cave and into a vast chamber that dwarfed the first. The ceiling arched several stories above them. A double-decker bus could easily have turned around in the large space.

  “The main show,” Wrightson announced, taking the lead now, heading across more of the makeshift steel steps.

  Lena needed no one to point out the wonders of this cavern. Across the walls, massive petroglyphs decorated the chamber’s lower half, depicting all manner of life, a snapshot of the natural world. Some were drawn in what appeared to be charcoal; others were scraped into the black rock to reveal the lighter shades beneath. Several had brighter hues incorporated into them, imbued with ancient pigments.

  But what struck Lena the most was their sheer beauty. These were no simple stick figures or crude renderings, but works of true artistry. The horses’ manes seemed to whip and flow. Bison were drawn with a flurry of legs, as if caught in motion. Herds of deer flung their antlers high, as if trying to ensnare the eagles flying overhead. All around, lions and leopards sped through the mass, either hunting or fleeing themselves. To one side, a single mighty cave bear reared up on its hind legs, towering over all.

  Lena had trouble keeping her boots on the treads as she tried to look in all directions at once. “Spectacular. I wish my sister could see this, too.”