He entered the room, immediately intimidated by its size, his soul seemingly swallowed up by its high-vaulted ceiling and cold sparseness. There was very little furniture in the room and even less light. A single sliver of sun broke through the drawn curtains, illuminating little more than a large desk with a marble top and ornate gold legs at one end of the room. In the dim light, the man could make out a figure sitting in a high-backed chair behind the desk. He made out a second figure, short and hunched, looming in the shadows by the curtains.
The man slowed his stride and tried to control his nervous, exhausted breathing, walking respectfully toward the desk now.
“You have done well, my son,” the figure in the high-backed chair said, his voice old and slow, yet weighted with knowledge and power.
“Thank you, your Holiness,” the man said, stopping in front of the desk and genuflecting. “The subject is alive and seems to be responding well to the treatment, although his condition needs to be monitored.”
In the dim light, the figure in the chair—the most powerful man in the Catholic world—smiled. “Excellent. The correction has begun. Wrong shall be made right. Let God’s will be done.”
“Your Holiness, we still need to find the tigers. There’s not enough of the elixir to—”
The old man held up his hand and silenced the visitor with a comprehending nod. “And we shall,” he said. “We have information on the whereabouts of the shipwreck. We will find the map. God is on our side.”
He leaned across the desk and placed his hand on something folded neatly on its marble surface. He slid it across the desk, and in the dim light the man could see that the object was crimson in color.
The old man said, “Dr. Dante, this is for you.”
The man who stood before him, Dr. Angelo Dante, asked, “What is it?”
From behind him came a slurred and zealous voice, a thick Cockney accent present despite the time he had spent convalescing in the Vatican. “It’s da robe. Da robe of da Crimson Crown. You are now one of us.”
Dr. Dante turned. The figure hunched by the curtains stepped into the sliver of light. He had only one arm and his face was horribly scarred, the flesh disfigured by fire. Nonetheless he smiled as best he could, sucking in the drool that pooled in his mottled mouth, before laughing maniacally as he spattered—
“Vengeance is mine. So say da Lord!”
About the Author
GEOFFREY KNIGHT’s Fathom’s Five adventure series is the result of watching too many matinee movies in small-town cinemas as a child, before embarking on his own adventures as an adult, traveling the world from the palaces of the Rajasthan Desert to the plains of Africa to the temples of Kathmandu. The Fathom’s Five series, which includes
The Riddle of the Sands
and
The Curse of the Dragon God
, will continue soon with the fourth adventure,
The Temple of Time.
Geoffrey lives in Sydney, Australia.
Copyright © 2011 by Geoffrey Knight.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc.,
2246 Sixth St., Berkeley, CA 94710.
eISBN : 978-1-573-44682-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
p. cm.
1. Gay men--Fiction. 2. China--Fiction. I. Title.
PR9619.4.K57C87 2011
823’.92--dc22
2010052871