A Dead Ringer
#44 of The Moonrise Chronicles
In the
morning, they tackled the problem of what to do with Emile and Corinne. While
he agreed with Maggie that they shouldn't be left behind, his car was just too
small. And then there was the problem of dressing them. Corinne was taller than Maggie in human form,
and Emile was smaller than he was and slimmer to boot. The best they could do
would hardly be consider a proper arrangement.
Maggie
came up with a suggestion that he didn't like, but the kids seemed to accept it
as being nothing worse than their present situation. They climbed into the
trunk in their feral form, trying their best to look and act like dogs. After that, Edward drove off, leaving the idyllic countryside for the first paved road he could find that headed where they wanted to go.. At the
first store where he could communicate his need, Edward bought two dog collars
and leashes.
It was
a couple of more hours until they got to the town of Amboise, and once there they made
their way to Chateau d'Amboise. He hoped that dogs were allowed, because he wasn't
going to leave the twins in the trunk. As they drove through the streets past
the towering walls of the immense fortress, even Maggie was awed. "This place is huge!"
"What?
And the Vatican wasn't?"
"Yeah
it was, but this place seems more impressive. I can see why Leonardo would have
spent his last days here."
They
parked down by the River Loire and walked up to the main entrance to the
compound. It was sprawling, and the chapel of Saint Hubert was in the back. They got a few looks with the "dogs", but no
one made any attempt to stop them. Edward whispered to the twins. "Don't you
dare do anything even remotely embarrassing." They may not have understood him
but they got the idea from his general tone.
They
walked around the grounds, not wishing to be obvious in their haste to reach da
Vinci's tomb. The chateau was magnificent, and many people were flocking to see
it first. There was a small parade of people who were walking through the
gardens and from there onwards to the chapel. The four of them went inside, and for some
reason everyone already there left hurriedly. It might have been the two dogs
Edward was holding on leashes. They looked rather fearsome.
Maggie
walked over to the slab embedded in the floor. It had the name Leonardo da Vinci
on it, as well as a round bronze casting of the master's face. She rather impiously stepped over the disc of
metal and jumped off as if shot.
"What's
wrong?"
She was
rubbing her crotch. "The ring just sent a shock though me!"
And it wasn't
on her finger... He chuckled. "That's a bit unusual. Let me try." He walked
around the railing and over the disc. His cock felt like a lightning rod in an
electrical storm. He too jumped forward.
"Ouch!"
It was
her turn to giggle. "So, it looks like there is something more to these rings."
The twins cocked their ears. They didn't know anything about any rings.
"So it
would seem. But is it the disc or something else, maybe below it?"
Edward
paced the floor around it. There was a rectangular stone insert that starkly
contrasted with the fleur-de-lis markings in the rest of the chapel. The plaque very likely led to the sub-chambers
below the chapel, as it wasn't very likely they had simply ripped up the floor,
dumped in his body and covered it back up again. The question was, how would
they get the seal up without ruining the chapel? As a werewolf, he could
probably do rip it out entirely, or at least enough for them to get through, but he hated
the thought of ruining such a beautiful place.
He
slipped his hand into his pants and slid the ring from its hiding place and
onto his finger. He waved it over the disc. He felt a sharp sensation, sort of
a pull, but less of a shock than before.
"Maggie,
get your ring and put it on your finger."
She turned and fumbled a little with her anatomy before turning back
with it on. She looked slightly embarrassed. The twins were looking at them oddly, with
their wolf faces having the most quizzical looks on them.
She
came over and stood by Edward. He held
his hand over the disc. "Can you feel that?"
She
held hers over it as well. "Yep! It's not so bad now. Inside me it felt like a
cattle prod."
"But
what does it mean?"
"Hell
if I know." He held the ring over the circle of metal bearing the master's face
in profile. The ring pulsed with life. "Give me the two boxes we haven't opened
yet."
Maggie
reached into a small bag and pulled them out. He set them on the disk. A faint
hum filled the chapel. Edward looked around, and a few visitors had walked in,
but because of the "dogs" they didn't stray close to where they were.
"Mags,
something is happening. Hold your ring over here." She complied. The humming
increased; a thrumming sound that was like the low, deep end of a large
speaker. The very stone of the chapel seemed to be alive with it.
"This
is weird!" she cried.
He
grabbed her hand and forced it to make contact with the disk. He did the same
with his. There was a momentary pause, followed by a scraping as the metal
plate lifted from its spot on the floor. It turned as it did, scraping and
rasping at the marble confining it. When it came free it rose in the air, not
by magic, but by an ingeniously design contraption built underneath. When it
was about three feet off the floor, it stopped, showing a gaping hole leading
to darkness.
Maggie
was suitably impressed. "Well fuck!"
The
twins came over and sniffed the dank air welling forth. Edward stuck his head
in, but his shoulders wouldn't pass. "Dammit! This was designed for smaller
people. Back in the fourteen and fifteen hundreds, human bodies were a lot
smaller than we are today. Better diets and what have you. You guys can fit,
but I don't think I'm going to be able to."
Maggie
scolded him. "Transform and drop your clothes inside. Then reform back once
your inside."
"What
if we get stuck?"
"This
is Leonardo we're talking about. I doubt we'll get stuck." Without further ado,
she dropped into the hole and disappeared. The twins got the idea, and changing
into their werewolf form, followed her into the darkness. Edward looked around,
stripped quickly and dropped his clothes and the boxes into the hole. "Catch!"
He then
transformed, thinning his body out like she had done in the past, and slipped
into the darkness below. Once there, he could see, but just barely. That ended when the hole above them sealed up.
With a great noisy clanking, the machine reversed until it was back in place.
Even if someone had seen them, there was going to be no way anyone was going to
believe their story.
"Great! Now we're completely cut
off from above!"
"Oh
father, do shut up. Aren't you the least bit curious about where we are?"
"I'm
elated over this development," he said sarcastically, "but I'd rather be able
to see where I'm going."
The
flash of light was harsh on his sensitive eyes. He had been trying to see in
the dark, and now there was a brilliant light. It was in Maggie's hands.
"I love
these hand crank flashlights. I picked it up in Rome, when I figured we might
come here. Thinking ahead is always a plus father!"
She
gave the generator a few more rotations and shone the light around the cramped
space. There was a metal contraption,
with gears and strong wires, cranks and pulleys, but there was no sarcophagus,
nor any recess in the wall indicating a spot where da Vinci was buried. But
there were passages leading off in three directions. Getting oriented, it was
obvious that one led to the chateau, one led towards the river, and the other
led towards who knew where.
He
tapped her on the head. "Which way Einstein?"
"I'd
say we might as well not bother with this one," pointing to the one that would
lead them to the main castle. "And if we follow this other one, it's most
likely a way of escape. We'll check it out later, if we can find no other way
out."
"So
onward it is!"
It
turned out to be not nearly so simple. The tunnel narrowed almost immediately.
The only things that could make it through the space were things smaller than
humans, like dogs. Or wolves. Edward bundled his clothing and held them in his
jaws, and Maggie did the same. The flashlight was given a bunch of turns and
they hoped it would be enough for them to get to the end, assuming there was
anything at the end of this tunnel to be concerned with.
Maggie led
the way, pushing the light as she scrabbled ahead. Edward came up the rear,
behind Corinne. It soon proved to be a mistake. His now sensitive nose was
often bumping into her back end, and he was getting whiffs of her scent. She
was nervous and it was causing her to emit a wide range of pheromones, and not
all of them were harmless. He had to fight down urges that were inappropriate,
both to the time and to the place. He forcibly shut down his nose.
After
what seemed like ages, he could see the light ahead change position, and they
finally stepped into a room. The space was no mere hewn limestone chamber, but
a brick lined cellar. It was mostly empty, except for a half rotten wooden
table, and recesses in the wall holding bottles. Since they were alone, the
twins transformed to human form, quickly loosening their collars.
Emile
pulled down a bottle. The dust was thick on it. Edward couldn't tell what he
was saying, but he seemed pretty excited. The boy held the bottle up, speaking
rapidly in his native French. All Edward could seem to make sense of it was the
name handwritten on the label, Chateau Yquem.
It meant nothing to him, but the fact that the bottles were down here,
and that that were obviously very old, told him that no one came down here ever,
leastwise not in a long time.
Emile handed
him the bottle, pointing to the label. It had only a few words on it, but then
he noted the date. 1496. That was one hell of a vintage! He carefully returned
the bottle to the wall. There was a
door; old, stout and covered in iron and rust. He pulled the ring inset into
it, but nothing happened, not at first anyway. Then, as he held it, a series of
click and clacks could be heard. The door broke away from its frame and swung
inwards.
The
room beyond was also dark, but flashes of light from Maggie's flashlight
illuminated it, casting shadows from the numerous objects within. One of them looked like a metal lion, and its
insides seemed to be a mass of mechanics, probably similar to the ones that had
worked to door. There were scrolls and papers, books and drawings. And they
were all written in a peculiar hand, in a foreign language, and in some cases, apparently
written backwards. It had to be the work of the master himself.
So his
tomb led to his workshop. But where was the man himself, or rather, his tomb.
It was known that he died here in 1519. That's what the accounts said anyway.
So where was he?'
It was
Corinne who discovered the casket. It was sitting on a raised stone platform.
It was too short for Edward to have fit in, but probably was just the right
size for Leonardo. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, and a layer of verdigris
was below that. They wiped away the centuries of accumulated dirt to reveal a beautifully
made piece of art. On the top, molded into the lid, was a likeness of Leonardo
himself. On the sides there were scenes from his life, including one with a
woods and a wolf. There was a full moon in the background.
Edward
spoke in hushed tones. "This thing belongs in a museum!"
Maggie one-upped
him. "Everything here belongs in a museum. Can you imagine how much it would be
worth?"
"Millions
upon millions. But we aren't here to be thieves." Then he stopped. "Really, why
are we here?"
"Because
we have his boxes, and the boxes have rings and the rings are the key to our
survival I think."
"They have
certainly gotten us this far. But now what?"
Maggie was
running her hand over the casket, if that was truly what it was. It seemed a
weird place to be buried. Then again, why not? Pharaohs were buried with their
favorite belonging; why not be buried in your favorite place? Her hand ran delicately
across the right hand of the figure on the top, and felt a depression. She
stretched up to look, pointing her light at it. "Look."
Edward
gazed at the spot. It bisected where Leonardo's finger was. "You don't suppose?"
She was
already slipping off her ring. "We'll still have one if I'm wrong." She dropped
the ring into the slot. It shrunk to fill the gap, coming to rest perfectly in
place, fitting in snugly against the other metal.
It sat
there, unmoving. There was no sound, no movement, nothing. Then there was a
click. And a grinding sound. And another click. Then nothing. Edward noticed that
there was a circular depression on the side. Throwing caution to the wind, he
stuck his ring in it and held it against this spot. Again, the ring reformed to
fit the space. For five or six seconds nothing happened, and then, all at once,
the top of the casket sprang up, blowing out a cloud of vapor. It was icy cold,
like stepping into a walk-in freezer. The temperature in the whole underground
room dropped steadily for the next minute or two, until the atmosphere was much
like an autumn morning. The air was chill and hanging with ice crystals. Even the
walls were coated in frost. Spider webs formed fairy necklaces where they hung
draped from the ceiling.
As the
air cleared, they were able to look inside the final resting place of Leonardo
da Vinci. And sure enough, there was the body of an old man, wearing a long, full
grey beard. He was dressed richly, yet no more so than in a manner befitting his
station, and on his right hand was a band of metal that looked very much like
the ones Edward and Maggie were wearing. But the most amazing thing was the fact that
his body was perfectly preserved. He might as well have crawled into this
contraption yesterday.
If that
wasn't strange enough; and it was, they all jumped when he opened one eye and
looked at them. It gleamed red, and it wasn't a trick on the flashlight. The master was still alive!