Nate touched the torch onto another brazier, and it lit up the next cavern.
"Whoa" he said as the fire went from brazier to brazier lighting up what was a ginormous cavern that fell into darkness below him. The platform led across the cavern to another staircase roughly cut into the wall that spiralled down, around the perimeter of the cavern with the oil filled stone channels following, lighting up the braziers as it went until even it was too far away for Nate to see below.
There were more boxes and crates and tables strewn about this area and Nate wondered what this was used for and how long it has been since anyone had been here. Whatever the answer, he knew it was as good as any place to hide priceless treasures. He approached a wooden table, chair on its side nearby, strewn with parchment that broke away at the gentlest touch, the contents lost forever. Next to the papers was a thick book, bound with leather, and as he picked it up a hand fell off the table
"Holy crap!" Nate yelped and jumped back in surprise, the cavern mimicking his words over and over. Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he looked over the side of the table and saw that the hand was attached to a skeletal body that had been sandwiched between a large box and the table.
"You found a good spot for hide and seek, did your friends forget about you?" he said to the skeleton.
The skeleton was dressed in similar brown garb as the skeleton he saw earlier, but this one had a sword sticking out it's rib cage. Nate grabbed the sword handle and yanked it from the monks' rib cage. Laying it on the table, he brought the torch close and examined it. It was extremely lightweight with a long slightly curved blade made of iron, rusted with age and a leather-wrapped hilt that curved into a horse-head pommel.
"Mongolian? What's a Mongolian sword doing here?" Nate wondered aloud. "Maybe from the invasion?" He picked up the sword and slid it in his belt, Sully would be interested in this.
Torch in hand, Nate checked the book, but it contained more rotted pages written in faded Polish, probably wouldn't be legible to scholars let alone himself. He closed the book and headed to the stairs. He peered over the side, it was nothing but a dark maw but he could hear the sound of rushing water and wondered if it was a natural cistern or maybe part of the Vistula ran through here, he must be close to river-level by now.
He descended the stairs, guided by the light of the braziers, sticking as close to the wall as he could. He passed areas where great chunks of the stair had fallen away and he had to shuffle across narrow parts reminding him that while these stairs may appear safe and solid, they could break away at any moment.
The air became noticeably cooler and after ten minutes of descending the stairs he came to a well-lit platform with a river running along one side and a shear wall face on the other. Braziers sat in the four corners of the platform and two more on either side of a set of 10-metre tall cathedral doors at the far end of the platform. He left his torch in one of the braziers and walked up to the door. It was thick, made of oak he guessed with two iron strips running horizontally top and bottom and large iron rings as handles.
He pushed the door, but it didn't budge so he grabbed hold of the iron ring and pulled and pushed but no luck. He tried the other door but had the same result.
There were no keyholes and no obvious way to unlock the door, so he tried knocking.
Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. It was never that easy.
Sighing, he stood back, looking around and it was then he noticed the plaque above the iron handles. It read:
isti sunt viri sancti facti amici dei
"These holy men have become friends of God" Nate recited, thankful for his days in the Catholic orphanage.
A flash of light caught Nates attention and he saw, on the right side of the door two pedestal bases and two fallen statues. On the opposite side of the door were two more identical bases with another two fallen statues. He walked over to the statues on the right and running his hand over one of them, found it was made of stone. He lifted the furthest one up and onto its base and examined it. It was a statue of a robed female holding a long pair of pliers.
"St Apollonia, how nice to see you," he said.
Moving to the next statue, he picked it up and it broke in half.
"Crap!" Nate muttered. He dropped the statue piece he held and picked up the bottom half. The statue had broken off at the waist showing only robed legs.
He then sat the other half upright, against the pedestal. It was a statue of a robed man with a beard and a bald pate. One hand he held a book and in the other Nate presumed were the keys to heaven, but they had also broken off and were long gone.
Saint Peter.
Both statues now sat upright against the pedestal and Nate realised he had seen these statues before. He walked over to the statues on the left and picked them up.
The first was a bearded man, holding a sword, point down in one hand and a quill in the other.
"St Paul, and that means you must be-" he picked up the remaining statue, the man holding the crozier, "the unknown guy."
Once they were all upright, he stood back and examined them and then pulled out his diary and opened to the page where he sketched the four statues in the church earlier.
It was the same four saints in the same position with the same reference to 'Friends of God' above them as the one on the door. The only difference was they were out of order.
Putting the diary back in his pants pocket, Nate proceeded to reorder the statues and place them on their pedestals. First, he dragged St. Paul to the inner right pedestal and lifted him onto it.
"Oh" he groaned. "You need to lay off the communion cookies, Paul"
Once he got the statue on the pedestal, there was a grinding sound and the statue sank down like it was on a pressure plate.
He spent the next fifteen minutes dragging the statues of Apollonia and the unknown St. to the opposite sides, Mary to the outer right pedestal and the unknown man to the outer left and cursing whoever made these statues and whoever moved them.
Finally, he had them both on their pedestals and both sunk on the pressure plate. It was now time to move the broken statue, St. Peter.
Dreading that this was all for naught if it needed a complete statue to unlock the door, Nate picked up the base, which was thankfully lighter, and carried it to the inner left pedestal and placed it on top.
He waited with bated breath and, like music to his ears, there was the familiar grinding sound and the statue sank down. The grinding continued and then the doors, with a great groan, slowly swung inwards.
Nate gave a whoop of joy, and yelled "Who's Picasso now, Sully!" before grabbing the torch and rushing through the door.