Pulp Cereal part two

(there is a fair bit more to come, not sure how long it will be, but part three is written and it’s just getting started. probably 10-15 easily.)

It was just a bible. But it had been written in. Or rather, over, in a large hand, with ink and brush. For the entire book, and there were maps too, and other things I could not discern. It told of things unimaginable which I should recount here, but won’t, for time is short and you shall hear of them soon enough.

In two days I read through that book twice, and only then I found the the Map and the List. It wasn’t a proper map, of course. It was, so far as I could tell, a map of the town where we’d been stationed, and there was a line leading from our tavern and home to the destination. But that destination led to still further maps, scattered throughout the book, and many of the maps were details of other maps, and so it went. They were hardly labeled at all, and what labels there were it took me most of the second day to decipher. But eventually I did, and only at that moment did I begin to grasp just how grand this “adventure, of sorts” I had agreed to would prove to be. Once more I pondered, if only for a moment, not meeting up with Gary Dirin the following day. Of taking the bible and the gun and the bullets and the flask and hiding them away and forgetting about them and hoping Gary came through it all well.

But only for a moment. If such things as were written of in the book were true, why I had to see them with my own eyes. Even if we brought not a single coin of treasure, not a single jewel or goblet or trinket of value, such visions as I must see on this journey would be more than worth the going. And so I set my mind to it and looked through the book once more until I found the List. And then I slept, and I woke up on the third day and went to do my shopping.

One cannot simply shop for such things, of course. You must seek them out, and that takes time. I had a feeling I would not have time to return and plan things out later, which is why, after carefully loading the black bullets into the pistol and stowing it in reach but not in sight; after putting the book in easy reach in my jacket pocket, and after putting the flask in my breast pocket as Gary did with such things; and after tidying my room and taking what seemed at the time might prove useful in a pack I had for such purpose, and leaving the rest locked away in my trunk, I left the tavern for what would be the last time for some years.

The finding of things took somewhat longer than I expected, and I had to venture into parts of town I had never bothered to go before. As a result, I was running a bit late when, as I walked past, I heard announced on a radio that war had been declared with Germany, and that german soldiers were heading even then towards France. This of course made me a little nervous, as I didn’t exactly want to be traipsing around who knows where on an adventure, for who knows how long, when there was a war on. But if the book was even half true, then there was nothing to it; the war wasn’t going anywhere, but Gary Dirin was.

So it was that a little reluctant and a little concerned, and even a little homesick for London, I arrived late. Gary was already in the old mill, and he had two Spaniards with him: marksmen, I found out later. They both carried long rifles and wore heavy packs. I had managed to get everything on the List into my pack, and though it was heavy it wasn’t entirely uncomfortable.

Gary smiled when he saw me enter, and he clapped me on the back and his eyes glinted even in the evening gloom, and he asked if I had had to use the gun. I said I hadn’t, and he laughed and said that was good. I asked if his other business had gone well, he stopped smiling, only for a moment, but it was jarring just the same, and he asked if I’d happened near a radio that day.

I said I had, and I voiced my concerns about the adventure. The Spanish brothers, for as I found out later, they were brothers, laughed, and one of them reached into his coat and he pulled out one of the jewels of which I had read. It gleamed and seemed to absorb the last glow of the evening and hold it inside and glow like a dying candle. Well, that was all the convincing I needed.

We made our way down to the cellar, and found the hidden door there, down to the wine cellar, down through there to the secret vaults, and then spent some time searching. The Map gave directions, but the scale was all wrong. Parts of the maze had caved in years ago, and with all the dust and darkness, it took some time to find the doorway we sought, and even more to translate, and then understand, the directions for opening it. But eventually we did, and just as our lantern finally gave out, the door gave way, and we came through one of the last known entrances of the little known and long forgotten underground realm of Old Rome.