InEscapable

InEscapable Part 1

InEscapable

By

Anna Banks

Let us beat our swords into plowshares.

-Inscription on a statue at the United Nations Headquarters, New York City

Prologue

Snake Island, Black Sea

Present Day

Dr. Forsythe stares beyond the floor of the lighthouse, into the cavernous hole dug below and the large white marble square in the center of it. Spears and shields and ancient pots and cookware his team had unearthed are scattered about the hole in a sort of organized disarray. All through the night, his laborers worked to debris the box-like, monumental figure in the middle with stroke after meticulous stroke of their brushes until it was ready for the doctor's inspection.

And now the moment has arrived.

Dr. Forsythe's knees crack like branches as he squats and signals for his assistant to bring him the ladder. Stephen, a towering, loose-jointed boy drags it over, making a god-awful scraping noise in the process. The boy lowers the ladder in a nervous, clumsy dance that makes the doctor roll his eyes. Stephen tests out the sturdiness by bouncing on the first step, almost losing his balance and falling to his death. Satisfied that it's almost-safe, he nods to the doctor.

Tool case in one hand, life and limb in the other, Dr. Forsythe descends, each step percussing a rickety metal sound around him. Planting his feet at the bottom stirs dust from the pit-and excitement in his stomach.

Dr. Forsythe retrieves a brush from the case and sweeps it along the top of the white square, the height of which comes to his waist. Ancient marble powder wafts up, swirling into a chalk cloud in front of him. It reminds him of a sleeping child waking, stretching and arching, eager for the promise of a new day.

And sure enough, the promise is kept. The doctor's giddiness triples as the bristles of his brush uncover tiny trenches in the surface-trenches too structured, too beautiful, to be carved by anything other than human hands. The ruts give way to symbols, the symbols to recognizable Greek.

Which is expected, of course. The entire reason for coming to this speck of an island was to re-discover these ruins, to excavate the temple of Achilles, thought to have been disrespected in the early 1800s when someone presumed to build a particularly ugly lighthouse over it.

Glancing around him, Dr. Forsythe nods to the gargantuan pit dug into the bottom of that same ugly lighthouse. It's a hole his predecessors had never dared to dig, a pocket no one had ever dared to pick. After all, lighthouses are an endangered species of the past, protected by laws barbed with stout penalties. But no one ever had the likes of Liam Chenault backing them, either. Turns out, the UN's new security council hot-shot has a penchant for ancient history-and enough pull to get around the inconvenience of laws.

His bottomless bank account helps, too. With a little smile, Dr. Forsythe continues his task, the lulling swish of the brush mingling with the impatient squawk of gulls outside. The sea breeze sighs a haunting echo through the lighthouse, but doesn't have enough bluster to ease the sweat beading on the doctor's forehead. He stops over a cluster of symbols. Squinting in the dust cloud, he deciphers them. Tomb of Achilles, Greatest of Warriors.

"No," he whispers. Then he laughs. "No, of course not."

This is a temple, a shrine to Achilles, a memorial to a fictitious character who has starred in literary works for thousands of years. This is a trumped up version of his deeds in battle, a collage of a man who never actually existed but whose legend never died. The doctor shakes his head. This isn't a tomb. Someone who did not exist cannot leave behind a corpse.

Still, the excitement of "what if" gets the better of the good doctor. Could the swords and spears and helmets strewn about the burial chamber-could they be trophies, keepsakes of the past conquests of the great Achilles? It's a common enough ritual of the ancient Greeks, after all, to bury such things with their revered warriors. And as legend spells out, Achilles was just the sort of man to keep such a collection of trophies.

"But Achilles didn't exist," he reminds himself, breathless. His glances back at the lone shield in the corner. He's noticed it before, admired its majesty, really, but had moved along after ascertaining it wasn't Greek and therefore did not sing the praises of Achilles. He'd dismissed it as just another ancient weapon for Liam's collection.

But now the shield stands out like gold among coal. Because now, with new eyes, he sees that it's unmistakably Trojan.

Hektor's shield, is what Dr. Forysthe won't let himself think. But his brush strokes become erratic on the tomb. The symbols, the words, stretch onward around the rim of the marble block, outlining the celebrated feats of Achilles, listing the great warriors he'd vanquished during his lifetime.

When Dr. Forsythe gets to the bottom, the name he won't dare to breathe seems to lift off the tomb, screaming at him in three dimensions.

Hektor, fallen Prince of Troy.

Dr. Forsythe steps away from the marble slab. "Impossible," he breathes. He glances at the shield again, his stomach unfurling with excitement. "Impossible," he reiterates to himself, but with much less certainty. How many diggers before him have proved that "impossible" doesn't really exist-and that "impossible" usually coincides with prominent headlines and extra zeros added to paychecks?

Especially if those paychecks come from Liam Chenault. To Liam, the find was already a treasure trove, more valuable to him than a mountain erupting with gold nuggets. He'd already said as much, even when he'd thought they'd only found a puny temple full of useless artifacts several yards away from this dig. Fragile bowls and pots, jewelry, scatterings of small animal bones-the usual lineup of tokens left behind by zealous devotees. It all interested Liam.

But this? The intricate carvings in the marble, even the size of the marble creation itself, suggests this could be something more than just a shrine. Something much more. But the tomb of Achilles? Possibly the shield of Hector? Move over, Howard Carter!

"What's impossible, sir?" Stephen says from topside. "You find something good?"

Slowly, Dr. Forsythe nods. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looks up.

"Boy, go get the boat ready. We need to call Mr. Chenault before we go any further. And we're going to need a bigger team."