The Emperor Awakes (45 page)

Maria stopped in front of a heavy wardrobe, gifted to her by her grandmother. Giorgos was relieved to see that they had finally reached their destination. He began to think that they were half way to Nicosia, the capital, by then. Maria started to move the wardrobe without asking for Giorgos’ help and she pushed him away when he went to help her. ‘Leave it. Save your energy.’

Maria silently thanked her mother for leading her into the rigour and discipline of a life shaped by gymnastics training since she was a little girl, barely out of the habit of sucking her thumb and playing with her favourite doll. And of course her later obsession with martial arts helped.

Behind the wardrobe was a simply constructed heavy-looking wooden door. Maria inserted one of the keys and it turned easily, even after all these years. She shook her head in disbelief. Behind the door the aroma was of vintage stale and damp of a, by now, forgotten good year. She gave Giorgos the two torches and one of the keys.

‘Go on. Take the key and lock the door behind you. I’ll see who it is and, if necessary, keep them busy to buy you time.’

‘Maria, no. I know I asked you to create a diversion, but it’s not worth it. It’s too dangerous. Come with me. Please.’

‘I’ve been in scary scrapes before. How far worse can this be? And you forget I know my martial arts. OK, I’m not a master, but I can handle an emergency. I have been hoping for some action for some time now. I think I’m growing rusty.’

‘Maria, this is not a game.’

‘Don’t I know it. I rather gathered that within seconds of you coming through that door.’ She indicated towards the direction of the front door.

‘These people are ruthless.’ He grabbed her arm and shook her vigorously. Her expression and physical detachment, transmitted from her flesh to his, told him that he should let her go, but he had to persevere. ‘Maria, they tried to kill Katia.’

Maria’s eyes opened wide, but then contracted again. ‘No, not Katia. But why? How?’

‘Not now. There’s no time. But whoever has been following me and who’s most probably knocking at your door right now could be responsible.’

‘She will make it, won’t she?’

‘I don’t know. I really hope so. She’s in good hands. I called an ambulance and they took her away. She must be in the hospital by now.’

Now Maria felt angry and more determined than ever. Giorgos pleaded with her again, but eventually had to give up, because he knew that, once her mind was made up, he didn’t stand a chance in hell in persuading her to change it. He also knew he had wasted enough time already.

‘Giorgos, just go. You’ll have a better chance on your own. Do what you have to do. I can tell it’s important; too important for you to risk your mission by putting your life on the line here or by delaying further. Just go. Hurry. I’ll stall whoever is at the door.’

Giorgos realised she was right and that was why he had come to ask for her help. And standing there arguing was costing him valuable time. He relented. ‘OK, you are right.’

‘And believe me, whoever that is he would not be allowed even the remotest pleasure of finding out the existence of the tunnel.’

‘OK, Good luck.’

‘To you too. I love these exciting dates of ours. We should do it more often.’ Maria kissed him and went back into the house. Soon after she heard the key turn by Giorgos locking the door.

She then pulled the heavy wardrobe back in front of the door, completely covering its existence. She threw a couple of rugs in front and on the sides of the wardrobe to hide any skid marks from moving it on the wooden floor.

She looked at her handy work and nodded to herself in approval. The wardrobe appeared as if it had not been moved for a very long time.

After a few minutes in the tunnel, Giorgos found himself in a small chamber. He saw with relief the dim light of the tunnel giving way to a brightness he was struggling to get used to. He looked up at the ceiling of the chamber for the source of the sudden bright light flooding in.

He saw many of what looked like holes punched into the ceiling and filled with glass tiles. He estimated that he was under the mosque. He decided that it was safe enough to draw breath and examine the scroll.

He unfolded it and saw that it started in Greek, but then continued in those illegible characters that he recognised as Pallanian. He began to read. He went no further than the first line when upon reading the word ‘Michael’, a man materialised in front of him resplendent in what Giorgos recognised as 15
^th
century Byzantine clothing. The Symitzis family resemblance was obvious.

‘Hello Giorgos.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am Michael Symitzis.’

Giorgos stared at the apparition of a man who was no ghost but no real flesh either, although he looked like flesh and bones. He stammered the words out.

‘But you are dead,’ Giorgos paused uncertain and wondering whether his eyes were deceiving him, ‘aren’t you?’

‘Yes … and … no.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Giorgos was struggling to take in what he was witnessing.

‘You summoned me. I’m here to help.’ Michael’s manner was calm but decisive.

Giorgos was trying to make sense of the appearance of this apparition calling itself ‘Michael Symitzis’ when he remembered that he had read Michael on the scroll just before Michael appeared. Yet he still could not understand why Michael was there.

‘Help? How?’

‘The scroll…’ Michael paused.

‘What about the scroll?’

‘Can you read it?’

‘Part of it.’

‘Well, maybe I can help you with the rest.’ Michael said and extended an ethereal arm towards Giorgos.

Giorgos was still struggling to accept what was going on.

‘I can see you are still of two minds whether to believe what is happening is real or not. I assure you it is real and I am real. Or at least as real as I can be, after the usual signs and problems that time lavishes on everyone, be it one of its favourites or not.’ Michael extended his palm and Giorgos relinquished the scroll in Michael’s care.

The scroll spoke of the seven pages, which Giorgos suspected were the ones they got from Alexandria and that formed the chapter ‘On the Pallanian Resurrection’ of the Book of the Pallanians. Each of those pages did not only contain text, but much more besides, material of such high density that its explosion would send debris to the fringes of space.

The scroll said that the now complete Book of the Pallanians should join its master and keeper, the last Emperor, and should be part of the collection of items that would be necessary for the revival of the Emperor and the mother of his lost child.

The scroll spoke of the procedure that had to be followed in order to unlock the tomb and what the scroll called the temple of wisdom in which the tomb sat. It spoke of three keys. Giorgos assumed that these were the keys that he and Aristo brought back from Athens after winning the philosophical duel with the three philosophers.

The scroll specified the date for the ceremony for the unlocking of the tomb and the temple of wisdom. It was the 21
^st
of May. Giorgos realised it made perfect sense, as it was the holy day of Saint Konstantinos and Santa Eleni. The last Emperor’s name was Konstantinos and the mother of the lost child was Eleni, as in Eleni Symitzis. This connection of the names of the last Emperor and the mother of the lost child with those of the saints could not be a coincidence.

Giorgos then remembered something that he saw at the castle near where he had found the bust. He did not realise it back then, but the information must have been stored in his memory and it all came back now as easily retrieved as if it was waiting there for its moment to spring out.

He thought at the time what he saw were random or incomplete letters, but now that he thought about it what he saw was a date written in Greek lettering, not Arabic numbers. He took a moment to recall the letters and then it came to him.

The date that was inscribed there on the wall was 21
^st
of May 1454, almost a year to the day after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, which took place on 29
^th
May 1453. The 21
^st
May 1454 was most probably the date that the tomb was sealed, if indeed the tomb was behind that wall at all.

Giorgos was becoming more excited with every step his thought process took. He felt he was on a rollercoaster, each piece of the jigsaw puzzle finding its rightful place, the whole edifice once completed ready to wake up and speak to him and reveal its secrets, long dormant and forgotten or revealed for the first time.

With each revelation of the scroll, Giorgos felt as if an exotic flower was dropping its petals one by one or an exotic dancer was peeling away the layers of dress cramping her style to reveal mesmerising flesh.

The day of 21
^st
May was crucial. It had to be right. If it was not then one could assume that the scroll was not to be trusted and it gave too much relevant and detailed information on the matter of the revival of the last Emperor and the mother of his child for that. It could of course be false information to mislead and hide the trail of the real scroll.

Giorgos dismissed his overly suspicious mind. Was it too good to be true? No, the whole thing fit perfectly. The scroll had to be genuine. He knew he could date it in order to authenticate it or, perhaps, Michael could confirm its authenticity, which he duly did. Giorgos severely castigated himself for doubting the scroll’s authenticity. Yet it paid for an archaeologist to be suspicious.

Giorgos stared in disbelief. ‘It’s all here. It’s more amazing than I imagined. The most important question, though, is where is the tomb of the last Emperor?’

Suddenly, as if a word on the scroll pulled a trigger, one of the walls of the chamber they stood in ruptured. It seemed that there was another chamber beyond the opening that was, unfortunately, not big enough for a human to fit in and crawl through.

There was a roaring noise, like the noise of a pack of wildebeest on running mode, and the whole place shook, like in an earthquake. The opening began to cough out a large object that expanded as it was freed from the confines of the narrow opening.

Within seconds, a sarcophagus emerged. Giorgos had this scary thought of the scroll having a life of its own. He decided to test the theory, the evidence of which his eyes had seen but his brain refused to accept as gospel. He kept reading. The lid rose revealing an extremely well preserved, most probably embalmed, body dressed in Ottoman attire of the 15
^th
century A.D.

Giorgos could read the old Ottoman style of writing on the panels outside and inside the sarcophagus and the dedication on the cover of a silver-crusted Koran on the body’s chest. He reeled from shock.

‘It can’t be.’ Giorgos paused not believing his eyes that remained fixed on the occupant of the sarcophagus and new acquaintance. ‘It’s the Sultan Mehmed II, isn’t it?’

Michael nodded. ‘The remains of the Sultan, whose fate was intertwined with that of the last Emperor and the mystery of what happened to him before the siege of Constantinople, must be joined at the tomb with the other required constituent parts, as listed in the scroll, for the revival of the last Emperor to take place. You are close to your goal. I must go now. Keep the scroll safe.’

A long-forgotten memory was drenched up out of a remote place in Giorgos’ mind and began to form, but remained elusive, unable to attain a legible shape. Maria. Her name entered Giorgos’ mind and a shadow crossed his face.

He couldn’t stay there much longer and he couldn’t go on, contrary to what he had promised Maria. He could not accept Maria putting her life on the line for him. He should get back to see whether Maria was alright, even though it might already be too late. He prayed that it was not.

Giorgos wondered why nobody had come after him, even though he had faith in Maria’s powers of physical persuasion. Giorgos decided to go back to the house. He unlocked the door to the tunnel with the spare key that Maria had given him.

He was thankful that the door connecting the tunnel to the house opened towards the tunnel, otherwise with the wardrobe in place he would not have been able to get back inside the house. He pushed the wardrobe to one side, crushing the rugs that Maria had placed there and went back inside.

The house was deathly quiet. When Giorgos reached the courtyard he stopped in shock. Maria was frozen on the spot in front of him. Behind her he could see the half-broken front door and to the side there was his pursuer also frozen. Giorgos’ eyes almost bulged out of their sockets and out of his head to reach the street.

He approached cautiously. He searched through the pockets of his pursuer. His hand felt a cold stone object. His fingers hugged it and he brought it out. It was the small bust from the castle, the one that was taken from Katia.

He then heard Michael’s voice. ‘I did that to give us time.’ Giorgos looked around, but saw nothing. Then Michael appeared in front of him. He turned his attention to the intruder.

‘He’s a Ruinand.’ Michael said.

Giorgos looked at the mess, the undeniable signs of a fight. There were scratches and bruises on Maria’s face and bare legs and arms. But the intruder didn’t seem to have fared much better either. It looked like the combatants had been equally matched. Giorgos looked at Michael.