 XXV. Sadalabra 1:00 AM Reine found herself at the head of the line of people tramping down into the bowels of Ira Reece’s mansion. But, as she reflected, it made sense that there was a basement down here. The mansion after all was built on top of a plateau that could have been hollowed out before the foundations was poured in. One of her hands held her flashlight, which helped light up the path a few feet in front of her. Her other hand was firmly gripping Marcus’s hand. Behind him was Hadrian and Mary, then the Friesners, and finally the Baron and the Baroness at their backs holding the weapons, ready to fire in case of any sign of mutiny. The darkness of the basement was cold, damp, and stale. She was glad that she at least was wearing a sweater. The foreboding atmosphere gave her images of dank dungeons and abysses, much as she had pictured when she was younger, devouring hordes of science fiction and fantasy novels. What was down here? Spiders? Bats? Skeletons? Or was it something more sinister? She had thought she had seen everything after the adventure in the catacombs. “Do you see anything yet?” Tabora called out. Her voice echoed downward like an eerie and shrill bell. The tunnel downward sounded hollow as her voice bounced against the walls. “No,” Reine answered dully. “And I thought she was such a nice lady,” Mary murmured to Hadrian. “Often dark things lurk under a nice exterior,” said Hadrian darkly. To keep herself from tripping and collapsing, perhaps of hysteria, and also from keeping her mind from wandering to thoughts of revenging ghosts who liked to get physical, she counted the steps that spiraled further and further downward. Sixty-one. Sixty-two. Sixty-three. How many steps were there? How deep into the bowels of the mansion were they getting into? One story deep? Two? Three? The staircase ended at the hundredth step. Reine paused, staring at the door in front of her. It was obviously old, but the wood it was made of looked tough enough to withstand sustained damage from a battering ram. There was a small window at the top of the door, covered in an iron grate. The handle was an iron ring. There was also an old fashioned keyhole just below it. “Open it,” Tabora commanded. “You expect me to say ‘Open Sesame’?” Reine retorted. Tabora glared at her and pointed her pistol in her face menacingly. “Do as she says,” Marcus whispered. “Yes, do as I say,” the Baroness sneered. She turned back to the door and took a deep breath before pulling on the handle. The iron felt bitterly cold on her fingers. They were so cold that it felt like they burned. The door did not budge. “You,” the Baron tapped Hadrian on the shoulder with the butt of the revolver. “Open the door.” “But Reine couldn’t open it.” “Then pick the lock open!” “Yes, sir,” Hadrian muttered. He moved passed Marcus and Reine and took out the wire he had used on Ira’s bedroom door and slipped it into the old fashioned lock of the basement door. He twisted. Something in the door squealed. He twisted twice more and a clunky mechanism in the door reluctantly clicked. He pulled the door open and a musty air, strangely perfumed with lavender, rushed outward to engulf the guests. “I recognize that perfume,” said the Baroness. “It’s from somewhere. I can’t remember now.” “Does that mean that someone has been down here recently?” Vicker asked. “Be quiet,” said the Baron. “All of you, get in there. The treasure must be down here somewhere.” Reine took the lead again, deliberately pacing slowly. Just inside the door was a brief foyer, completely bare. A heavy dark curtain blocked the foyer from the rest of the room. She placed a hand in front of her. The curtain felt soft, as if it was made of velvet. She pulled and the curtain gave way with a squeak as the hooks holding the curtain to the ceiling slid to one side. She let out a breath she had not known that she had been holding. The interior was an immense stone cavern that could have held a huge feast during medieval times. Or more likely, as Reine mused to herself, one of Phineas Cronan’s infamous occult ceremonies and orgies. At one side, a hearth the size of a store front window blazed in a cold yellow light. She stepped inside, allowing the others to trail after her. Opposite to the hearth was an altar similar to the one that she had seen in the ruins in the forest. This one, though, was made of stone and was still intact. It was draped with a dark cloth. The rest of the room was completely empty. She looked up and could not find the ceiling since the light did not reach all the way up there. “The treasure is somewhere in here,” said Tabora, breaking the silence. “It must be over there.” She waved her free hand, indicating the altar. A noise suddenly startled all of them. The Baron and Baroness instinctively swung their gun toward it. A door beside the altar that they had not previously noticed, opened, admitting a figure clad in a black cowl. Reine squinted, seeing past the open door to something familiar. She saw snow and Mary’s battered pick-up truck. “The door,” she said in comprehension. “It’s at the base of the plateau, near the garage. Why didn’t anyone notice that before?” “You’re right,” Mary replied. “I had noticed the door, but I thought Palwick stored all his gardening tools in here.” “Be quiet you two,” Tabora hissed. She aimed the pistol at the strange figure at the altar. “Who are you?” The figure took off the cowl, revealing a lined face and snow-white hair. A few of the guests gasped. “Ira!” said the Baroness obviously surprised. “I thought you were in Cancun.” “As tempting as it is, I couldn’t leave lose ends here,” she replied. “I am leaving. Soon. But there were some other matters to take care of. Like donating the house to the Historical Society.” “You can’t!” Tabora protested. “There’s the treasure…” “Ah, yes, Phineas Cronan’s treasure. Did you think that I would not follow up on that tale as soon as I heard of it, Tabora?” “Well.” She waved her pistol. “What about that thing?” she said indicating the altar. “The treasure must be there, right?” Ira smiled strangely. “After all these years, Tabora, I thought you better than a mercenary. I guess I was wrong. Go see for yourself, if you care.” Eagerly, the Baroness, followed closely by her husband, strolled toward the altar. “Well, Reine, I trust you found the twenty-fifth seeing stone?” said Ira. “I knew where it was all along, of course. I had hoped that you would find this place on your own, but apparently things didn’t go quite as planned.” “Yes, I found the seeing stone,” Reine frowned. “All the good that it did.” “And you found the manuscript?” she asked Marcus. “I think it’s pretty good myself, but I want your opinion first.” “I found the manuscript,” said Marcus, “but I haven’t had time to read any of it. You put the picture of the compass in there, right? And you e-mailed us. You somehow sneaked back into the house without our knowing.” “It was a rather easy thing to do when everyone was asleep,” she said breezily. “So are you taking your dog back with you?” Hadrian asked. “Yes, that part I was lying about,” said Ira. “I hope you’re not disappointed. I’m sure Amanda has taken quite a liking to you.” “Actually, that’s fine,” he said quickly. “I’m positive that your bulldog is much happier with you. You’ve owned him longer.” “I’m glad you haven’t been kidnapped,” said Mary. “Is that what everyone thought I was?” she said amused. “So is there really treasure there?” inquired Vicker. His wife watched specutively at Ira and then at the Baron and Baroness who were busy pulling away at the cloth on the altar. She seemed to reach some inner decision to not join into the materialistic fray. “You’ll see,” the mystery author replied enigmatically. “Oh my God, there is treasure!” Tabora was looking down at the altar in awe. “It’s beautiful!” “We’re definitely going to rebuild our fortunes with this,” the Baron agreed. Both of them bent over, intent on reaching the treasure when abruptly they toppled over into the hollowed out altar. Their screams were abruptly cut off when their feet disappeared over the edge. “Ira! What happened to them?” Vicker sprinted over to the altar. “Oh God.” Curious now, the others hurried to the altar to see what happened. Reine had the sinking feeling that it had been something awful but that out of morbid curiousity, everyone just had to see. It was like passing a car wreck on the interstate. She reached the scene right after Vicker and peered into the hollowed out altar. It was actually a clear pool that was illuminated from the bottom. The bottom indeed was littered with coins and jewels, all of them glittering in an eerie light. The Baron and Baroness were floating on top of clear water, face down, but the water was slowly turning red. She turned away and breathed deeply, trying not to be sick. The others turned away afterwards and stared at Ira who had the dark cloth in hand, ready to place back on the altar. “It’s very difficult to retrieve any of the goods to the surface,” Ira explained. “The coins and jewels are protected by glass boxes that are unable to be corroded. That liquid you see in there is not water but an extremely poisonous acid. It kills on contact and slowly dissolves everything until there is nothing. I was hoping you, Reine, would have found this first. You have the scientific expertise to figure out how to bring the rest of it up. It would have been yours. It still can be yours.” “I don’t know if I want it,” she said wryly. “There are two dead people in there.” “An unfortunate accident,” Ira conceded. “But perhaps necessary. Tabora was never that mentally stable to begin with. Her husband is weak enough to follow her.” “So nothing has been retrieved from the trove?” said Marcus. “You needed Reine to get it?” “I needed Reine to get at Phineas Cronan’s treasure,” she agreed, “But something had been retrieved from it once before. Part of that single glass box that was brought up had been used to finance my first book sale. The other part…” Reine reached in her pocket to pull out the seeing stone she had just found and the pouch of the other twenty-four stones. “The other part. You gave to me.” © 2002, S. Y. 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