PART 6
Gabrielle and Autolycus had slowed as they traveled through what was part of the most desolate part of Thrace. They were almost as far west as the Hellespont and the land was partially rocky and partially wooded with fragments of forgotten ruins and stone columns still sitting abandoned after several hundred years. Five hundred year old trees clogged ancient roads, and thick foliage forced them off and back over their route dangerously close to the cliff near the Aegean Sea. Their horse disinterestedly carried them further through the silent depressing land. Gabrielle looked forlorn and upset at the surroundings and peered disconcertingly over timeworn landmarks.
"It's all so changed." She mumbled. "The sea's further away than it was. My friends and I used to play in these woods. There were houses everywhere."
"Gabrielle…" Autolycus looked at some of the ancient oaks stretching to the sky. Some of them were thick enough to be hollowed out into a home. Some of the older ones looked half buried in ancient untold landslides. There were no animals in the dense brush and the road was long gone, yet, Gabrielle continued unabated as if she knew where she was going.
"Gabby," Autolycus got her attention. "This place is...well, upsetting. Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"Sure." She looked ahead as the ground descended down to the shore. "Down there."
Partially obscured by a rocky cliff, Autolycus saw the remains of ruined dark columns and temples similar to what he saw as a boy on the acropolis at Athens. These structures and once fine architectural wonders, however, were ruined and falling apart to the elements. Deserted and unattended for centuries, perhaps even millennia, the structures and squares were covered in weeds, vines and wild brush reaching up to the sky as the land stretched into the water. A creek poured through a submerged roadway and a waterfall fell over the roof and into a torrent pouring out the entrance of an old shop buried almost to the roof in the sand. An old courtyard was on sand descending into the water. Some of the structures appeared chiseled out of the rock as other parts were completely covered in twisting and turning weeds. It was obvious that the city had been decimated and abandoned in the mad catastrophic repercussions from the sinking of Atlantis some five centuries before.
"Gabrielle," He replied. "There's nothing left to steal here much less an amulet."
"This is Abydos." Gabrielle answered. "It was built on top of Antequeria."
"Wait a minute," Autolycus didn't like this anymore. "How did you know about this? This is way too old for you to have known about it."
"Over here." She looked down an old well in the center of a courtyard surrounded by cliffs and other forgotten structures crumbling in the sand. She picked up a rock and dropped it in as she listened for the sound of it hitting bottom. Autolycus hadn't heard the rock falling much less hitting bottom, but she somehow had.
"Fifty cubits… give or take." She estimated from the sound of the fall. "You got enough rope?"
"I always got enough." He tossed his hook and latched on to one of the ruins. Testing it to hold, he dropped the other end down the well. "Ladies first." He offered. Determined and unafraid, Gabrielle grabbed the rope and overzealously began descending down into the earth. Autolycus came behind her as the inky darkness began to overwhelm him. The sky above them coming through the opening began to dwindle to the size of a solitary star as they dropped lower and lower with nothing but the rope to go by to lead them.
"Gabrielle, are you okay?"
"Sure," They continued descending through the eternal night for a long period of night, the well opening growing dimmer and dimmer to show how far they had fallen. After an hour of nothing but rope and dark air around him, Autolycus realized he wouldn't be doing this if the conditions weren't so dire. A lost amulet to exorcise three friends… just how good of friends were they?
"Gabrielle?"
"Yes?" She struck a torch. Looking down, Autolycus saw himself a few feet above a tiled floor covered in sand. The bright star of sunlight from the top of the well was completely gone. It had been replaced by the pitch-black roof of a cavern partially held up by the scant illumination of ancient pillars shaped like men and women. It was best described as if they were in eternal night in a city surrounded by high mountains and one lone barely noticeable light over them.
"You first this time." Gabrielle gave him the torch as she followed behind him.
"Where do I go?"
"Down there." She pointed to a small crack in the cavern guarded by two time wrought statues. Just wide enough for them to enter, he continued on a few feet then felt hit his boot step on a loose tile.
"Back!!" There was a whoosh of air as several metal spikes dropped out of shafts in the rock ceiling to pierce them. Missing them by mere inches, he grinned at the trap. "Those ancestors of ours weren't very bright. Bloodthirsty, perhaps, but not bright." He squeezed between them pulling Gabrielle behind him. Another step and the floor gave way. He pulled out his collapsible staff to stop their fall as the floor he was on continued sliding down deep below him through a long chute to an unknown fate. As it crashed to a stop beneath them, the ceiling slid down to meet it in an effort to crush anyone unfortunate to be between it. Missing the top part, Autolycus looked back to Gabrielle in the partial light of the still flickering torch.
"I've known Egyptian tombs that were more challenging than this." He hid his bead of sweat.