The Son In-law They Mocked Found The Lost Vault

CHAPTER 38: THE RISING WATER

The water was at Adrian's knees.

It came up so fast. He stood on the ledge with the bronze lamp held against his chest, and he could feel it climbing up his legs, cold as ice, cold as death. The roaring of it filled his ears. The little cracks in the dome were pouring water from every side now, long silver ropes of it, shining in his wrist light.

The air was getting thick. Wet. Hard to breathe.

"The door," Mei Lan said. "We swim for the door. Now. While we still have air in our chests."

"We will never make it." Adrian looked down at the black water filling the great hall below. "It is too far. Down to the floor, across the hall, under the gap. With no tanks. We will drown halfway."

"Then we drown trying."

"No." Adrian's mind was racing. "No. Think. Think."

The old builders did not make traps just to kill people. His grandfather had told him that a hundred times. They were not cruel. They were careful. Every trap has a door, little crane. Every lock has a key. They only want to stop the wrong person.

The bell tower had a song. A safe path across the stones. What did this place have?

The lamp.

He looked down at it. The bronze crane, sleeping, with its wings folded and its long neck curved. The little round dish on its back for oil. The tiny holes along its sides, so small he had not even noticed them before, between the carved feathers.

Holes. Like the bronze feather. The feather that wrote words with its shadow when the light was right.

"Mei Lan," he said. "Do you have fire?"

She stared at him. "What?"

"Fire! You smoked a cigarette at Uncle Su's house. You had a lighter. Do you still have it?"

The water was at his waist now. Mei Lan's eyes went wide. Her hand went to the front of her rubber suit. There was a small pocket there, with a zipper. She pulled it open. Inside, wrapped in a tiny plastic bag, was a small silver lighter.

"I always keep it dry," she said. "Old habit."

Adrian held up the lamp. He looked into the little round dish on the crane's back. At the bottom, there was something dark and hard. Old oil, gone thick and black with time, like tar. And sticking up out of it, a short piece of something gray. A wick. Old and dry and crumbling.

Whoever the dead man was, he had kept oil in this lamp. Until the end.

"Light it," Adrian said.

"It is a thousand years old!"

"Light it!"

Mei Lan's hands were shaking. The water was at her chest. She held the lighter up over the lamp and pressed it. Click. Nothing. Wet fingers. Click. A spark, but nothing. Click.

A small orange flame jumped up.

She held it to the old gray wick. For a moment, nothing happened. The flame touched it, and the wick only smoked. Then, slowly, so slowly, a tiny blue light began to crawl along the end of it. It flickered. It almost went out.

Then it caught.

A small yellow flame rose up out of the dish on the crane's back. Weak. Thin. But burning.

And the dome above them lit up with words.

The light from the little flame shone out through the tiny holes along the crane's body, and the shapes of the holes threw shadows onto the curved stone ceiling above their heads. Not just shapes. Writing. Lines and lines of old marks, spread across the painted clouds and cranes like a page of a great book opened in the sky.

Adrian tipped his head back and read.

The water was at his chest. He held the lamp up high, above it, to keep the flame dry. His arms were shaking. He read fast, his lips moving, the old marks swimming in front of his eyes.

"What does it say?" Mei Lan shouted over the roar of the water. "West! What does it say?"

"Wait!"

He read it again. His heart was pounding. He read it a third time, slowly, the way his grandfather had taught him. When the page is too hard, slow down.

Then he said it out loud. In simple words, the way it came into his head.

"The hand that takes will drown in the dark.

The hand that gives will find the light.

Return what you carry to the one who kept it,

And the water will sleep again."

Mei Lan stared at him. The water was at her shoulders now. "What does that mean?"

Adrian looked at the lamp in his hands.

Then he looked at the corner of the ledge. At the bones of the dead man, half under the water now, still sitting with their back against the wall. Still with their bony hands open in their lap, where the lamp had been. Waiting.

Return what you carry to the one who kept it.

"I have to give it back," he whispered.

"What?"

"The lamp. It is a test. Like the riverbank. Like the feather." His voice cracked. "If you take it, you drown. If you give it back..."

The water was at his chin. He tipped his head back to keep his mouth above it. The small flame on the lamp was still burning, just above the surface, throwing its shaking light across the dome.

He waded across the ledge to the corner. Every step was slow, pushing against the water. The bones were almost covered now. Only the skull was still above the surface, leaning against the stone, looking out at nothing with its dark empty eyes.

Adrian reached down into the water and found the bony hands.

He put the lamp back into them. Gently. Carefully. The way you put a sleeping child back into its bed. He folded the thin fingers around it, one by one.

"Thank you," he whispered. "For keeping it safe. I am sorry I took it."

He let go.

The lamp sank down into the dead man's lap, where it had been for all those years. Its little flame touched the water and went out with a soft hiss.

For one terrible second, everything was dark.

Then there was a sound.

A click. Deep in the stone. Like the one before. But this time, it was different. This time, it was softer. Like a door closing instead of opening.

And the roaring stopped.

Adrian could not believe it. He turned his head. All around the dome, the little cracks in the walls were closing. The silver ropes of water pouring out of them were getting thinner. Thinner. Then they were only drips. Then nothing.

The water stopped rising.

It was at his mouth. He was standing on his toes, with his head tipped all the way back, breathing through his nose. The air pocket above him was so small now that the top of his head was almost touching the painted ceiling. Beside him, Mei Lan was the same, her face tipped up, her eyes wide, her nose just above the black surface.

But it had stopped.

They stood there, breathing. Just breathing. In the dark.

Then, from under the water, Adrian felt something.

Something moving under his feet. A small stone sliding. Sinking.

He took a deep breath and ducked under. He turned on his wrist light. Its beam cut through the black water.

At the corner of the ledge, beside the bones of the dead man, the little square of lighter stone with the carved crane, the one the lamp had been sitting on, had sunk down into the floor. And under it, a small hollow had opened.

Inside the hollow, catching his light, something was shining. Green and gold.

Adrian reached in. His fingers closed around it. Cold. Thin. Curved.

He pulled it out and held it up in front of his mask.

A feather. A bronze crane's feather. The same as the one from under the bell. Every tiny hair carved by hand. A thin line running down its spine like a road.

The second feather.

He came back up into the small air pocket, gasping, holding it above the water.

Mei Lan looked at it. Then at him. Then, very slowly, she began to laugh. A soft, broken, amazed laugh.

"You gave it back," she said. "The most beautiful thing either of us has ever seen. And you gave it back."

"It was not mine," Adrian said.

Mei Lan stopped laughing. She looked at him for a long time, her dark eyes wet in the dim light.

"No," she said quietly. "No, it was not."

He tied the feather tight inside the plastic bag on his belt, next to his drawing of the river and the first feather. Then he turned and looked at the bones in the corner one last time. The skull was under the water now. Only the very top of the lamp's long crane neck was still above the surface, curving up toward the painted sky.

"I will come back for you," Adrian whispered. "I do not know who you are. But I will come back. I will find out your name. And I will bring you home."

Then he turned to Mei Lan.

"How far is it to the door?" he asked.

"Too far."

"How long can you hold your breath?"

"Longer than you." She almost smiled. "Breathe deep, West. As deep as you can. Then follow my light. Do not stop. Not for anything."

They breathed. Five times. Ten times. Filling their chests as full as they would go. Then Mei Lan nodded, and they went under.

Down. Down past the pillars. Down through the black water, so cold it made Adrian's head ache. Down to the muddy floor of the great hall. Mei Lan's light was ahead of him, swinging back and forth, and he kicked after it with everything he had.

Across the hall. His chest began to burn.

Past a fallen statue. The burning grew.

To the great stone doors. To the narrow gap at the bottom. Mei Lan went through first, flat on her stomach, like a fish. Adrian went after her. His tank was gone now, so he slid through more easily. But his lungs were screaming. The black spots were back.

Then he was out. Outside the temple. On the stone stairs.

And Mei Lan was grabbing his arm and pointing up, and kicking, and pulling him, and they were going up through the black water, up and up and up, toward a faint gray light far above.

Adrian did not think he would make it. He was sure he would not. His mouth was opening by itself. His body was begging to breathe.

Then his head broke the surface.

He gasped. Air. Cold night air. Stars.

They were near the edge of the lake, far from the white boat, close to the shore under the willow trees. Mei Lan had led them perfectly. They swam the last few strokes and crawled up onto the muddy bank on their hands and knees, coughing and shaking and alive.

Adrian lay on his back in the mud, looking up at the stars. He was laughing. He could not stop laughing.

"We did it," he gasped. "Mei Lan, we did it."

She did not answer.

He turned his head. She was kneeling in the mud beside him, very still. She was not looking at him. She was looking up the bank, toward the willow trees.

Then the lights came on.

Big, white, blinding lights. Four of them. Five. Six. From the trees. From the top of the bank. From the side of the road. They hit Adrian's face so hard that he had to throw his arm over his eyes.

He heard footsteps. Many footsteps, coming down the bank through the mud. He heard the sound of guns being lifted.

And then he heard a voice. Warm and soft and pleased, like honey poured into tea.

"Adrian," Victor Han said. "There you are. I was starting to worry."

Adrian lowered his arm and squinted into the lights.

Victor stood at the top of the bank in a long white coat, with his hands in his pockets, smiling. Six men stood around him, holding guns. Shen was there too, at his shoulder, his diving suit still wet, his eyes cold and angry above his black mask.

And kneeling in the mud beside Victor's white shoes, with his hands tied behind his back and his gray hair wild and his face pale with pain, was an old man.

Robert Feng.

He lifted his head and looked down the bank at Adrian. His lips moved. No sound came out.

But Adrian could read them anyway.

I am sorry, son.