Addison Cooke and the Tomb of the Khan by Jonathan W. Stokes

Author:Jonathan W. Stokes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

• • • • • •

After two flights the staircase opened onto a massive arcade the size of a cathedral. Shafts of light lanced down from holes cut in the mountain, filling the hall with golden light. Addison shut off his flashlight to save the batteries.

For a solid minute, the group stood with their heads craned back and their jaws dangling open. There were carved stone Buddhas everywhere. Large and small, skinny and fat, they filled the room.

“So this is why they call it the Thousand Buddha Caves,” Eddie breathed.

“Search for any place Sir Frederick might have hidden something.” Addison knew he was being vague, but he had no idea how to pin things down. They’d already used up all four sentences of Sir Frederick’s clue. He strode through the cavernous room, taking it all in. He saw the remains of cots, mattresses, cook pots, and books. “This must be where the monks hid from the Communists.”

Raj pointed to faded murals sketched on the pale rock walls. They depicted hundreds of monks, hunted by soldiers as the monasteries of Mongolia burned. “Think of it. All the monks who yielded their last, desperate gasp of life before embracing eternity.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Addison agreed. He didn’t quite understand Raj’s obsession with death, but somehow, in some twisted way, he felt Raj’s heart was in the right place.

“Over here,” Molly called. She waved them to the exact middle of the circular room and pointed, triumphantly, to a Templar symbol carved into the floor. “The eye is always in the center.”

Addison discovered the floor tiles were not mortared to the rock. Gaining purchase with his fingertips, he and Raj were able to lever a few square tiles out of the floor, revealing a dark, gaping hole.

Before they could take a vote, Molly had already taken Addison’s flashlight, clamped it in her teeth, and begun climbing down into the darkness. Raj and Eddie lowered themselves in after her.

Addison took one last look around the shrine and suddenly shivered, overwhelmed by the feeling of being watched. He lowered his legs into the chute and hurried after his team.

He found himself in a square shaft. Wooden pegs, driven into the wall, allowed precarious handholds and footholds. In some places the pegs were so sparse, it was difficult to find any safe route down; in other places the pegs were so dense, it was difficult to wriggle through.

Addison saw Molly’s flashlight glowing some ten feet below him. He had no idea how deep the shaft ran or how far he would plummet if his dress shoes lost their slippery grip on a wooden peg. His arm muscles were shaking with fatigue when he finally heard Molly’s triumphant call as she reached the bottom. A few more rungs and he stretched a tentative toe south until it tapped gratefully against the rocky earth. He touched down with both feet and then lay on his back for a minute until the world stopped spinning.

By the time he sat up, Raj was already exploring the narrow tunnel ahead.

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