Prologue
Kerala, India - 1908
Dr. John Portman couldn’t believe his eyes.
It wasn’t the first time he’d stood at the gates of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala, but the sight of the shimmering golden structure in the waning light of the sun was something that would never get old. The precious metal coating the building seemed to offer a brighter illumination than even the fiery center of the solar system. The golden reliefs of Hindu deities and other important figures sprang to life, covering nearly every square inch of the upper exterior.
Outside the entrance, however, was a stark contrast. Ordinary city streetlights hung over cracked, hard-packed dirt sidewalks. The clay-tiled roofs looming over buildings next to the temple seemed out of place, as did their crumbling and haphazardly painted walls. The entryway into the temple, too, was nothing eye-catching. Ordinary white walls surrounded the darkened archway into the ancient building. The bright white paint seemed a bizarre choice next to the center, where the arched door led beneath a miniaturized golden mountain.
He didn’t care about the mismatched exterior decor of the entrance. Getting in was the point, not standing around outside in the Indian heat, wondering about architectural and design aesthetics.
Portman was one of the foremost experts on ancient Indian mythology and history. His understanding of Indian culture and the old Vedic texts was so vast that he’d been offered multiple jobs to teach at universities and museums in Mumbai and across the region.
John had, of course, turned them down. He much preferred the lifestyle he’d built in Cambridge and had no intentions of moving to a new home. Even when he remotely considered the notion, the sweltering heat here beat the idea back into the shadows.
As an unnecessary reminder, a bead of sweat rolled down his right temple, clung to his jaw for a second, and then dropped to the dry cobblestones at his feet. He unconsciously reached for the white handkerchief in his breast pocket and dabbed at his forehead.
“What is the delay?” he asked the man to his right.
Anik Laghari shrugged. “Security at this site is very tight, sir.” Anik was one of John’s liaisons on this trip to India—on most of his trips to India. He’d been an extremely useful resource, and John frequently leaned on the younger man for assistance in cultural matters, such as the proper way to order tea. John tried to fit in as best he could wherever he went. Anik had made that simple enough for him. It helped that the younger assistant spoke proper English, even carrying the accent without flaw.
That was more than he could say for the other man standing on his opposite side. Reyansh Anand was also a good assistant—helpful and eager to get things done. He was, however, less the academic and more of a brute-force type. The tall Indian hovered over the shorter Dr. Portman, standing five inches over six feet tall. His bronze, muscle-strewn arms glistened with sweat in the afternoon heat. Reyansh listened to the conversation with his jaw set firm as he stared ahead at the gate.
Something about his gaze might have been unsettling to anyone who didn’t know the man, but John and Anik simply assumed it was grumpy Reyansh.
“They are clearing us to go in, sir,” Anik answered the professor’s next question.
“I’m aware that’s what they’re doing, Anik. I just don’t understand what’s taking so long.”
“Patience, my good friend.” Anik offered a sympathetic smile and patted the older man on the shoulder. It was a gentle gesture, but it still shook the wire-framed glasses on John’s nose. “This is an extremely sacred place to us. Even for a world-renowned researcher and historian such as yourself, all protocols must be followed.”
John reached up and pressed the glasses back up toward his forehead. “Indeed,” he said, though his voice didn’t hold an ounce of sincerity or understanding. It wasn’t that he believed himself better than most; he simply wanted out of the oppressive heat.
Fortunately, the professor was only required to wait another minute before one of the security guards returned from a building off to the right. John wondered what could have possibly needed to be settled in the little shack to approve his visit when all the necessary channels had already been cleared. He only spent a moment on that thought, knowing it was fruitless and would only exasperate him.
The guard handed John his papers and gave a nod. “Follow me, sir,” the security guard ordered.
Finally.
John picked up a small bag lying at his feet. His two colleagues hefted similar bags in each hand and started forward through the entrance.
It wasn’t the first time John Portman had entered the ancient temple. He knew what awaited beyond the gates. It was why he was here: to analyze the mysterious vaults within and, perhaps, try to open them.
The temple was a structure dedicated to the worship of Lord Vishnu, one of more than a hundred centers of worship in the area that gave patronage to that particular deity. It had been built in the medieval era of the former Tamil Empire, construction beginning in the early seventh century. The temple was a tremendous source of pride for the people of this region, and the idea that an outsider from England would be given permission to examine anything within smacked some of the locals with stinging suspicion.
John, of course, didn’t care about that. He had one thing in mind: to get into one of those vaults and find out what awaited beyond the mysterious doors.
The Indian government hadn’t granted him permission to open the vaults. That was something John figured would require much deliberation, committee approval, and votes from politicians. In the end, they would deny him the opportunity. However, accidents happened from time to time. Who was to say that he didn’t “accidentally” open one of the vaults while conducting his research?
His mind was made up. He had to know what was beyond the vault doors. It was a secret that had been kept for hundreds of years, perhaps more. While his tiny fleck of an ego didn’t care about fame and accolades, there was something deeply appealing about becoming the first to open the forbidden vault.
The security guard led them around a turn and down a long open-air corridor. White pillars lined the walkway, spaced only a few feet apart atop a reddish-brown wall that came up to John’s midsection. Golden beasts perched on top of the columns faced inward, silently roaring at their mirror images on the opposing side. Above them, the ceiling curled into a row of royal-blue tiles that stretched from one end of the passage to the other. In the center of the blue line, circular mosaics filled the space with a splash of color, one after another, all the way to the far end of the corridor.
John gazed up at the spectacular artistry as they walked down the path. He nearly stumbled into the guard at one point and had to brace himself on Anik’s shoulder so that he didn’t startle the armed man.
The guard didn’t notice the moment of clumsiness and abruptly turned into another passage that cut into the center of the temple. He pushed through a heavy door and stepped into the next room.
The guests followed as a gust of cool, musty air wafted over them. The interior chamber of the temple was at least ten degrees cooler than outside, a welcome climate change to each man.
John stuffed the handkerchief into his breast pocket again, realizing he’d been holding it this entire time and wouldn’t be needing it until he left the site.
The guard motioned with one arm extended, pointing at a stone stairway that led down into the bowels of the temple.
Torches and candles burned along the sides of the room, casting an eerie orange glow into every corner. The staircase, however, retreated from the light, bathing itself in shadows all the way to the bottom where the vault door awaited, unseen in the darkness.
Another door on the opposite side of the room led to a similar chamber, almost identical in every way to this one. John knew there were six such rooms, each containing a matching staircase to this one.
Almost identical, he thought.
Portman knew that one of the chambers was different, its vault door holding a mystery—and a threat. At least that’s what he’d been told. In his previous, albeit short, visits to the temple, John hadn’t been permitted to see what was being dubbed Vault B.
He’d stood before the doors of the other five vaults, at the base of the staircases, gazing at the intricately designed barricades that had kept thieves and treasure hunters at bay for thousands of years.
Each door contained multiple keyholes, all requiring a particular method of use with the matching keys so that the vaults would open properly. Rumor had it that if any of the keys were turned out of sequence, something horrific would happen to the person attempting to gain entry.
John had heard these legends and figured them to be part of an ancient oral tradition passed down from the elders of the community to frighten away those who might be tempted to purloin the vast treasures that lay just behind the vault doors.
There was, of course, no way to verify there were any treasures within the secret chambers. No one had dared open the vaults since they were closed and sealed during the reign of the Tamils.
Down through the ages, a single soul had kept possession of all the required keys. He was the temple’s guardian, its curator, and its keeper of secrets. No temple guardian, it was believed, had ever opened any of the doors, adhering to an ancient code that was passed down from one keeper to another. The men responsible for protecting the keys and the vaults might have had suspicions as to what sat just beyond the heavy metal doors. Some might have even risked a peek sometime in the distant past, but no one would ever know it.
Even members of the government were curious as to the vaults’ contents, but up to that point had never been able to clear the way to allow researchers and archaeologists to go in and explore.
John walked through the chamber and to the next doorway. He stopped and turned back to the guard, waiting for him to open the portal into the chamber of Vault B.
The security man glared, his darkly tanned face creased at the corners of his eyes, his forehead wrinkled, and his lips curled down. His head shook once at the professor’s unspoken request.
“I was granted permission to analyze the doorway to Vault B,” John said. “My permit says my team and I are to be allowed unrestricted access to the entire temple, save for entering the vaults themselves.”
The guard swallowed hard. There was something in his eyes. It wasn’t sternness or fierce determination. It was fear, the kind a person usually didn’t find in a hardened military man or someone accustomed to assuming risk on a daily basis. Was it paranoia—or was that fear based on something real, something genuine that the professor had not yet seen?
Internally, he scoffed at the grown man’s superstition.
John had heard the stories, the rumors, the myths. He feared no such thing. He was a man of science, logic, and reason. Superstition had no place in his line of work.
“We have been granted access to the entire temple,” John repeated. “You certainly don’t have to go in there, but I’d hate to walk all the way back to the front of the building and fetch the keeper.”
The guard sensed the threat in the professor’s voice and swallowed the lump of air in his throat. Despite the inner sanctum of the temple being several degrees cooler, large droplets of sweat trickled down the guard’s cheeks. Some clustered in damp puddles in the worry lines on his forehead.
He nodded and walked across the room. This door was locked with a single key, one of ancient make and design. It looked like something from a castle in a time long forgotten. The iron skeleton key dangled from the guard’s nervous fingers up to the point he shoved the thing into the keyhole and twisted his wrist.
Then the guard stepped back and gave a nod. “That chamber is forbidden,” he said. “I will go no farther.”
His accented English gave away his origin. He must have been a local, by John’s account. The man had likely grown up in the shadows of this place and thusly heard all the stories, the legends of what possibly waited within the golden walls.
The guard should have been excited, but John understood. Superstitions, especially localized ones, held a powerful sway on the human mind.
John gave an appreciative nod and grasped the golden ring dangling just below the key. He tugged on it for a moment and then gave up, realizing the thing was stuck.
Reyansh stepped forward and barged between the professor and the door. “Allow me.”
He grabbed the handle and yanked it hard. A loud squeak escaped the hinges. Metal ground on metal with a low, grating tone. Then the door was free of its captivity and swung open with a whoosh.
A new smell burst from the chamber beyond, washing over the four men as they stared into the darkness. The room reeked of decay and death, though by all measure nothing of the sort should have been there. No animals or people could access the antechamber of the mysterious Vault B. All ways in and out were sealed tight. Considering there were only two doors, one into this vault and one into the next, keeping things closed off was relatively simple.
John stood on the threshold, staring into the darkness beyond. The light from the torches and candles around him seemed to dim suddenly at the door, daring him not to enter the realm of shadows on the other side. It was almost as if the orange, flickering glow feared the darkness in the next room.
Poppycock.
John reached up to a sconce, wrapped his fingers around a torch’s bronze handle, and hefted it from its seat. He felt the warmth from the flame drifting over his skin, prickling the hairs on his hand and wrist with a comforting heat.
The professor blinked rapidly as he gazed ahead into the abyss. Then he turned to his companions and nodded to two more torches. “Better take a few of those, lads.”
The men did as instructed, each removing a torch from the wall and returning to the professor’s side. The combined light from their flames still didn’t seem to pierce the darkness beyond, but that wouldn’t stop John Portman. He was here to do one thing and he had no intention of being denied.
He raised his right foot and moved it forward into the shadowy space on the other side of the door, then set it down. As he passed over the stone line separating one chamber from the next, the room suddenly burst to life from the light of his torch.
The rectangular stone chamber was much like the previous: built from smooth stone, hewn from a far away quarry. He’d wondered, in his early days of studying the location, how ancient builders had transported the materials across such vast distances. People like him had pondered the same thing about the pyramids and other mysterious structures from the ancient world.
Now, however, wasn’t the time to consider such feats of engineering. He was on a mission, and John intended to see it through.
He took another step forward and gazed down into the stairwell below that led to the antechamber of Vault B. His assistants hesitated before entering the room, almost as if they too were overwhelmed by the superstition of the guard waiting back on the other side.
“Anik? Reyansh? Would you mind giving us a little more light?”
The men nodded and made their way around the room, touching their torches to others and setting the room alight in a dim orange glow. The torches in this room didn’t seem to shed as much illumination as the others—or was it simply John’s imagination?
He covered his mouth against the stench of rot that permeated the area. What was that infernal smell? Something had found a way in, whether the doors were sealed or not. Perhaps it was a dead rat or multiple rats that had snuck in one fateful day as the temple curator was doing a routine check or, perhaps, going somewhere he shouldn’t have.
Whatever the case, John wasn’t about to be pushed away by a bad smell. His nose, he was certain, would acclimate.
He took a step toward the stone stairs and lingered at the top step. The air was colder in here, even more so than in the previous room, and the chill seemed to be coming up from below.
That made no sense, of course. Cold air fell. Hot air rose. His imagination, it seemed, was taking hold of him.
He shook off the fruitless thoughts and stepped down onto the staircase. Reyansh and Anik followed close behind, perhaps out of fear or simply out of their sense of duty to the man they’d worked so closely with the last year.
John descended the stairs carefully, bracing his hand against the wall as he moved until he reached the bottom, a short landing where another metal door greeted them.
There was something on the door; an engraving of some kind jutted out toward them. He raised his torch and gasped, taking a brief step backward, stopped by the firm hands of Reyansh.
“My apologies, Rey,” John said, stiffening his posture to feign bravery.
The big Indian said nothing.
John once more held the torch up to the door and gazed at the intricately carved head of a serpent. It looked more like a dragon’s head than a snake, but he knew exactly what it was.
A cobra.
“It’s a warning,” Anik said. “Death waits for those who enter.”
John glanced over his shoulder at the younger man, then to Reyansh, then back to the door. “Poppycock,” he said. “There isn’t anything on the other side of this door but another door. That’s why we’re here, yes?”
The men nodded, albeit reluctantly.
“Very well then, open it.”
John stepped to the side and allowed Reyansh to move close to the door. The big man grabbed the latch with his hand and twisted, then pulled hard. The door grumbled in protest, but it was no match for Reyansh’s power. A loud, rusty squeak echoed through the small space and up into the chamber above, sounding like a banshee giving a howling warning to intruders.
The professor covered one ear for a moment to protect against the piercing sound, and then, when the door was fully open, he removed the hand and held his torch aloft. The dancing tendrils of light lapped at the darkness beyond, giving barely a glimpse of what was on the other side of the threshold.
The smell of rot nearly overwhelmed the three men. Anik gagged for a moment, before collecting himself and shaking off the nausea.
John wouldn’t be denied. He’d come this far, toiled through the necessary legal battles, and now stood on the cusp of a discovery that would put him in the history books for all time.
He wasn’t there to merely analyze the doorway of Vault B. He was there to open it.
John glanced back up the stairs and confirmed their guard was still nowhere to be seen, likely waiting back in the first chamber, trembling from irrational fear.
“Quickly,” the professor said. “We haven’t much time.”
He stepped into the room and made his way straight across the giant stone tiles to the far wall. As he neared the end of the path, his torchlight danced across something unusual, different than anything they’d seen thus far. The other two men were less daring and moved slowly, cautiously, into the chamber until they were standing just behind the professor. As their torches’ light joined his, their eyes fell upon something that was as ghastly as it was beautiful.
Twin serpents twisted and rose up the sides of a golden door. Their metallic, scaly bodies wound up to their dragon-like heads, mouths open, tongues flickering at each other. Positioned against the spines of the two snakes were two large discs, also engraved into the golden door, each displaying what appeared to be a fleur-de-lys surrounded by a series of dots and triangles. Two flowers were imprinted on the door near the cobras’ heads.
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