Iron Horsemen by Brad R. Cook Page A

nervous gaze. Tense and anxious, I leaned against the door, listening for any sounds within.
    She whispered, “Hear anything?”
    â€œNothing.”
    I stared at the golden ring and tried to push it, turn it, pull it, but it remained anchored. Genevieve watched in amusement. I snapped a look at her and she shook her head.
    â€œCheck the rest of the door, it’s probably meant to distract you.” Genevieve pointed to the hinges. “See if you can lift the pin.”
    I pulled the pin and heard a click from behind the door. Pulling it further, I heard the latch release and the door opened. Genevieve smiled in triumph.
    We entered a small room tucked on to the back of the building. A circular rug lay in the center and a chest sat against the far wall. We looked around the empty room, and I walked over to the chest. As I passed over the rug I heard a change in the sound of my steps. Genevieve flipped back the rug revealing a pattern of stone tiles on the floor in the shape of a pyramid.
    Stepping on each stone, the top one rocked while others remained firm. We pulled on the tip, lifting just above the other tiles and slid over. A narrow circular rod-iron staircase led down into the shadows but the soft glow a flickering flame illuminated the way. We slipped down the stairs and found ourselves in a small chamber underneath the alley.
    One wall had an upside-down semicircular arch mirroring the one above. I realized that the two arches made a circle and I brimmed with excitement as Genevieve turned up the flame on the gas lamp hanging at the bottom of the stairs. Stacked books and papers strewn on several desks around the room called to me. I ran over and begancarefully filing through them. Genevieve walked over to the only wall without a desk and looked at the mosaic mural.
    I scanned over books about astronomy, geology, minerals, history and a variety of other subjects. There had to be common thread that linked them and I thought hard trying to figure it out. I found a set of papers labeled ‘The Sungrazer Comet’ and saw the thread.
    The papers outlined the core of the comet, a diagram showed that it was ice but with a dark core at its center. The diagram also showed that it was not one block of ice but several bound together surrounding this dark core. A pencil line led to the side of the page where an annotation was written—‘unknown metallic compound.’ There was more at the bottom.
    I read it aloud. “The comet used to return every seven hundred years, but in 372 BC Aristotle prevented the horsemen from appearing by stopping the comet from passing over the sun. In doing so it broke apart.”
    â€œAlexander, you have to see this mosaic.”
    I walked over and looked at the wall; it was a map of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Everything looked in place but then I noticed the Azores were much bigger and further out to sea than they should be. I turned back to Genevieve and pointed to the paper. “It looks like they’ve been studying the comet.”
    Her shoulders drooped and she looked around the room. “I bet this is the place my father was supposed to find.”
    I nodded. “I think it is.”
    â€œWe shouldn’t stay long.”
    I couldn’t agree more, already the voice in the back of my mind screamed to leave. My nervous laugh broke the tension. “I don’t think my father has been here, all of these books were written in English.”
    â€œYou do have a keen eye.”
    â€œYou’ve never been in my father’s house. Pick up a bookand you first have to figure out what dead language it’s in before you can read it.”
    Genevieve chuckled and I turned down the gas lamp before we ran up the stairs. I slid the stone back into place as she dropped the carpet over the pyramid. We headed back through the archway, in the opposite direction from where the tattooed man had gone.

CHAPTER 12
RUNNING AROUND THE ROCK
    Passing