The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [141]
A tile gave slightly, his weight tripping another trigger. With a nerve-scraping grinding, the foot started to descend.
His instinctual response was to get clear - but he suppressed it, summoning every ounce of self-control to hold still as the foot pressed down on him. He tried to stay calm as the pressure increased, controlling his breathing - but the weight began to force the air from his lungs. ‘Shit!’ he tried to say, but the word was choked short in his throat.
The rasp of stone continued, flesh and bone not slowing the statue’s relentless descent in the slightest. Pain coursed through Eddie’s ribcage as it was squashed against the floor. He struggled to writhe free - but was pinned in place.
Kali was going to crush him!
He turned his head to give Nina a last anguished look, seeing her staring back at him in horror, realising too late that she had been wrong—
The noise stopped.
The pressure suddenly eased, the foot rising slowly back to its original position. Gasping, he drew in several long breaths of cold, dusty air before crawling through the hole. ‘I’m in,’ he croaked.
‘Thank God,’ Nina said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I feel like toothpaste, but I’ll be all right.’
‘What can you see?’
He glanced round; the new chamber was almost completely dark. ‘Nowt - a torch’d be handy. Roll one down to me.’
Nina drew back her arm as if throwing a bowling bowl and sent her torch skittering down the passage. Eddie caught it and switched it on. The new room was small, the walls engraved with images of Shiva, the paint on the ancient carvings still surprisingly colourful, and line upon line of Vedic Sanskrit. But the object that caught his attention was against one wall.
It was an ornate chest, standing upon gilded legs shaped like an elephant’s and decorated with pearls and small gemstones. Like the walls, it was painted: Shiva, seated in the lotus position, gazed serenely back at him.
‘Can you see anything?’ Nina called.
‘Yeah, there’s a fancy box, and . . .’ He panned the light round. Part of the statue’s mechanism was revealed: several large cogs. ‘I need something to jam up the works. A stone, or a metal bar, something like that.’
A quick search by Shankarpa’s men produced a thick iron rod from one of the siege machines. It was tossed down the passage with a clang. Eddie jammed it between the teeth of the cogs, then experimentally put his weight on the floor beneath the foot. There was another clang as the bar was slammed between the cogs when they tried to turn, but it held firm. After a few moments, the mechanism reset.
He leaned under the foot and waved. ‘Okay. Who wants a look?’
Shankarpa was first, cautiously advancing down the passage. The statue’s arms jerked, but again the metal rod held everything in check. Nina followed.
‘Check it out,’ said Eddie as they crawled through the entrance. He illuminated the chest. ‘You think Shiva’s diary’s inside?’
Shankarpa was too overawed to respond to Eddie’s lack of respect. He went to the chest, hands hovering just above the lid as if afraid to touch it, then looked back at Nina. For the first time, he seemed unsure of himself. ‘What should I do?’
‘Open it,’ Nina told him. ‘If the Shiva-Vedas are inside, we need to know - so we can decide how to protect them.’
He nodded, about to raise the lid - but again couldn’t bring himself to touch the box. ‘I . . . I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I do not know if I am worthy—’
‘Oh, give it ’ere,’ Eddie snapped, flipping the chest open.
Shankarpa flinched back, and Nina glared at her husband. ‘Eddie!’
‘What? You said we needed to get a move on. Now, what’s inside?’ He held up the torch.
At first glance, the contents seemed almost unworthy of the effort and danger endured to find them. The interior was like a rack, metal dividers separating and supporting a row of stone tablets, each the size of a large hardback book, about half an inch thick. There were perhaps forty in all.
But Nina knew that they represented an incredible archaeological find, the ancient wonders in the cavern outside nothing more than baubles