‘Jason and Nico…they’ll be going mad,’ she said. ‘They’ll think we’re— Oh God, how are we going to get out of here?’
He smoothed his hand down her back, trying to comfort her. ‘We’ll find a way. Maybe when the storm passes, we can swim back out.’
She stared at the broken face mask lying beside her. ‘I don’t think so. Not me, anyway.’
‘It’s going to be OK, Ari.Courage, ma brave. We’ll find a way out. There are caves and tunnels throughout the point. We used to come down here as kids. Well, not downhereexactly.’ He searched the shadowy recesses of the cavern. ‘But into the caves, looking for treasure. Me and Laure. All the kids. It was a thing. There’s going to be a way out. And if not…if not, I’ll swim out and come back for you with help.D’accord?’
‘You can’t. They won’t be there. You’ll be out at sea. Besides, we don’t know if you’ve got enough oxygen or if the tide will let you, or—’
He lifted his finger to her lips, just lightly. It wasn’t enough to actually silence her, but she stopped talking all the same. The panic in her eyes didn’t fade though. ‘I promise you. I’ll find a way. We will. Together. Now,mon coeur, can you stand? Were you hurt?’
For a moment, she just stared at him, as if dazed. Perhaps she’d hit her head harder than he thought. But then she pulled herself together in front of his eyes, just as he knew she would. She was valiant of heart, Ariadne Walker, like the mythical woman she was named for. And though they might be lost, he knew they would find their way out. Knew it with all his heart. Because she was here too.
‘No, I’m fine. A bit bruised, I’m sure. And cold. But nothing’s broken. You’re right. We’ll find a way out of here.’
They had to have been swept some distance into the cave system, he realised. If they were near the end of the point, the sea would fill this space. The light that made it through only lit up the immediate surroundings and he feared the torches they carried would do little more. And once they ran out of power…
No, they needed to move now.
Ari shook off her shock and set to work ordering him around. Normally, it would have amused him, but she was the dive leader and she knew what she was doing. Besides, he was worried that she needed this right now so that shock wouldn’t set in. Or despair.
They took off the oxygen tanks and stowed them safely away from the water, up on a higher ledge. If the sea rose further, they didn’t want to lose equipment and Ari was adamant that they might still need them. If he had to swim out of here, if he could find the way, and if there was a chance that the boat came back…
For all his insistence that there was a way out of here through the cave system – and logic said there had to be – he didn’t know for sure. He had never found a cavern like this in all the years he’d explored here. But Fabien had.
How he had done it without modern equipment and scuba gear, Rafael dreaded to think. The diary said he and Tristan had dived down, so maybe there had been some equipment available. Had Simon found it too? Had he followed the clues in the pages of Fabien’s diary or some tale Tristan had told his brothers, passed down by the Poullains? Or a combination of both?
It didn’t matter now. Not finding Ys. Not even the hope of ending the curse to protect Georges. He could feel it slipping from his fingers even as he stood there, the terrible twisting in his guts, the failure. That dream was gone. Or at least postponed to another day. What mattered now was finding a way out again, preferably one that didn’t involve trying to swim through submerged caves. He had heard too many horror stories about people doing that.
They climbed up to the next ledge and Ari gave a gasp of surprise, her torch sweeping across the rocky incline.
‘They’re steps. Look. Someone carved steps into the rock.’ They were unmistakable, smooth and regular, the perfect height, leading upwards. ‘Come on.’
She skipped up those stairs before he could stop her and he had no choice but to follow. ‘Ari, wait. We have to stay together.’
She stopped at the top of the steps, but even then, he wasn’t entirely sure she was waiting. She was standing there, head lifted, staring in wonder.
And as he joined her, he couldn’t help but do the same.
The torchlight illuminated carvings, arches and pillars, worked by long-ago hands into the rocks of the caves themselves. Tunnels led off in various directions, but the main chamber here was the size of a small church, like the chapel in the village. Fish trailed along one wall, eels curling around them in intricate knotwork which reminded him of Celtic art. There were ships carved into the ceiling, reminiscent of Viking long boats and Roman galleys. Every time their pools of light shifted around the chamber, something else was revealed, more beautiful than the last.
Beneath their feet, he felt the rough surface give way to something still uneven but manmade, cobbles, like the little round stones you sometimes found washed up on the beaches and in the coves. Like the plaza outside. He brought his own beam down and saw the patterned floor in a riot of colours spreading out beneath him, a picture, an image of a building, a street, a city.
‘My God,’ Ari murmured. ‘It’s incredible, Rafael. It’s…’
‘It’s Ys,’ he replied, hardly able to heave those words out with the enormity of what he was seeing. It was like the old map she had found which may have been La Fontenelle’s. Had he stood here too, the Wolf of Douarnenez? Had he seen these wonders and died protecting the secret as well?
Or died because he would have spoken of it? Was there another side to the curse?
The thought shuddered through him, the realisation…they had found it. They had found evidence of Ys.
‘This is what Fabien and Tristan discovered, isn’t it? This is what they had to protect.’
To save it. They had found this and kept silent so the occupying forces of the Third Reich couldn’t plunder it. It had to be. But they died before they could share it with anyone else either. How old was it? Who had done all this?
‘Rafael, look!’
She had moved off again, up towards the far end of the chamber, where a raised plinth rose out of the ground, like the sanctum of the chapel. In the centre stood a carved stone, shaped like a throne. On the wall, framed in carvings of every kind of sea creature, her torch illuminated the face of a woman. Long hair spilled out from her head, like she was underwater, waving and coiling like seaweed. Her face held all the impassivity of stone, her eyes staring at him without kindness, without empathy, without any kind of emotion at all.Eyes of stone, heart of stone. And she was beautiful, beyond beautiful. She was a goddess to be worshipped, an idol to be adored. Like a Madonna, unapproachable, unfeeling, glorious.
