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  “Yes.”

  Billy saw the extinguished lamp hanging from the sconce beside the masked man. He must have entered through the tunnels, using that torch. But how did he know Billy would be here at this time?

  “Today you’ll go into the tunnels?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must. If you weren’t meant to enter these tunnels, they wouldn’t be available for you, now would they?”

  The musty smell seemed to enter Billy’s head, prompting him to agree. The tunnels were like a drug, and his desire to enter them had kept him awake all night. He’d fought the urge to come down here since the first time he found the note in his locker urging him to do so, nearly three months ago.

  The dungeons contained discoveries wildly beyond any child’s imagination, the note said. And the children had been brought to the monastery with those discoveries in mind. It was only a matter of time before each had an opportunity to enter and experience.

  Billy turned toward the black doors. “How many tunnels are there?”

  “Too many to count.”

  “How deep do they go?”

  No response. Billy faced him. “Why do you want me to go in? And why won’t you show yourself to me?”

  “I won’t show myself to you because this is a secret matter. I chose you from among the other students; you didn’t choose me. Let’s keep it that way. And I want you to go in because I want you to discover the kind of power you were made for. As I’ve said, it’s why you were brought here in the first place. The only question is whether you have what it takes to fulfill your purpose.”

  The odor from the open door grew stronger. Billy wasn’t sure what power the monk meant, but he’d felt enough last night to make his skin tingle with excitement. For the first time in his life, he had felt himself—truly himself. Could that be evil?

  Billy stepped toward the door and peered in. Nothing had changed. Same damp cobblestones, same tall arching walls, same small desk off to the right.

  Same six tunnels, gaping black beyond.

  “Go deeper, Billy. And remember what I told you about Marsuvees Black.”

  Marsuvees Black? And what was that?

  The tunnels seemed to suck him toward their yawning mouths with a magnetic force.

  Oh yes. He remembered what the man had told him about Marsuvees Black. That the teacher was closer to truth than any of the others. That Billy must consider Black’s teaching on exploring the furthest reaches of good and evil.

  Billy took one last look at the cloaked man and then stepped into the forbidden dungeon. The door closed with a thunk behind him.

  ALMOST IMMEDIATELY the musty odor went to work on his mind, dimming or accentuating or what, he didn’t know, but time seemed to stall. It was a lovely feeling.

  After an indiscernible amount of hazy deliberation, Billy decided that of the six primary tunnels he should enter the tunnel to his far right first, maybe because he was right-handed. Or maybe because the torch flamed in his right hand, dispelling more shadows there. He wasn’t even sure why it mattered. He only knew that he had to enter one of these tunnels, and he had to do it now, before his chest burst.

  Billy approached the tunnel slowly, torch arm extended. The flame’s light lapped at the wall’s moss-covered stones. Moisture seeped through the rock and dripped unevenly on the cobblestones, sending echoes down the black hall. He swallowed, set his right foot through the entry, and glanced back at the small desk where he’d stopped last night.

  Don’t be a weasel, Billy.

  Billy entered the forbidden tunnel. He crept forward, one short step at a time, scanning the walls with peeled eyes. A cool draft kissed his cheeks. How deep was this thing? Go deeper, Billy.

  He’d taken about ten steps when he first saw the pink pipe running along the wall to his right. It was roughly four inches in diameter, and it ran for ten feet before tapering to a head.

  The pipe moved. Billy yelped and sprang back, striking his elbow on the wall. His cry echoed down the tunnel. The pipe bunched slowly, like an accordion, then stretched out and slid forward, and then paused.

  Rubbing his elbow, Billy glanced back and saw not moss but another worm, resting on the opposite wall.

  He leapt to safety and waved his light in an arch. No fewer than a dozen worms inched along the tunnel’s walls and ceiling, each trailing a thick band of milky mucus. It smelled like old damp socks.

  For several long minutes he remained rooted to the floor, quaking, gripping the torch with both hands. But the worms didn’t threaten him, and his courage returned.

  The gargantuan worms expanded and contracted silently past him, seemingly on a mission to nowhere. Like the worms of hell in the gospel according to Mark. Worms that do not die. Those worms would grow to this size, he thought. But they seemed harmless enough.

  He walked deeper. Then even deeper. Water dripped incessantly, and the worms slid along moist walls made slimy by their mucus. Beyond thirty feet, the tunnel faded into blackness. Behind him, the same now.

  How deep could this tunnel really go? A hundred yards? Five hundred yards? A mile?

  Had it been constructed by human hands? It seemed more likely to him that this forbidden tunnel hidden below the monastery where they’d all been raised to love virtue was nothing less than a shaft into the heart of darkness itself.

  And he was the lone warrior sent out to defeat that darkness.

  But that was rubbish. Even through the fog that clouded his mind, he knew that much. Or at least suspected it.

  Billy stopped and breathed deep. The intoxicating smell filled his mind with flowers, so to speak. It squeezed his heart with warmth. He looked at a large worm on his right, slithering through the translucent mucus. It struck him with sudden clarity that the odor was coming from the worms, not the tunnel itself.

  A smattering of gel plopped to the ground two feet in front of his shoes. Seemed harmless. He bent down, touched it with his forefinger. Like thick oil or thin Vaseline. He brought it to his nose. His sense of well-being blossomed. Odd.

  Billy wiped the stuff on one of the few dry stones at his feet and resumed his push, deeper.

  He walked for a short time in numb contentedness until a large iron gate broke the wall on his right. What was this?

  He shifted the torch into his left hand and approached it. The gate was made of iron bars, long ago rusted and covered in moss. By his torch’s light he could make out a dusty earth floor and the faint outline of furniture beyond.

  Billy raised a hand to the iron gate. A sudden scurrying startled him and he withdrew his hand. An obscenely large rat ran from the room, through Billy’s spread legs, and down the hall, where it disappeared.

  Billy pushed against the bars. The gate opened with a screech. That was easy. Easy peasy. He stepped forward on weak legs.

  His torch flooded the room with yellow light, revealing three walls filled with antique hangings. Paintings that looked European and old, mostly portraits of historical figures he didn’t recognize. Candleholders made of corroded metals and some woods. Masks.

  More masks than he could count at the moment. The kind he envisioned at a masquerade ball in Venice, though he’d only seen pictures.

  Weapons were mounted on one of the walls. Chains with nasty spiked balls, large pointed mallets, double-edged swords, helmets with slits for eyes.

  Billy approached the wall and ran his hand along several of the weapons. Why such simple displays of antiquity pleased him as much as they did, he couldn’t guess. Maybe it was the setting. The sludge. But every surface his finger touched seemed to be magical. Surely forces hid deep in every angle, every form, every shape, every color in this room.

  Or, at the least, in his imagination, which was being pried wide open.

  In one corner stood a skeleton, one of those he’d seen in museum picture books. Beside the skeleton was an open wardrobe filled with costumes, presumably to go with the masks. Long black trench coats and flashy silver belts and broad-brimm
ed hats. Boots.

  Billy looked at the wall of masks again. He was sure the monk had been here.

  After some time, Billy left the room and headed deeper.

  Another room dawned on his right, this one empty except for some large rusted chests and shelves filled with small bottles. The milky contents of some bottles looked like the worm sludge but could just as easily be dirty water. Fascinating, but there was more, he could feel it.

  He walked on. He couldn’t walk forever, naturally. He had to find a place to rest. Not that his feet were tired, but his mind was overloaded and groggy with satisfaction.

  A third room loomed on his right. Once again he pulled the gate open, at ease now with the squeal it made.

  The scene illuminated by the wavering torch brought a warm flutter to his belly. On his right, a bookshelf rose to the stone cavern’s ceiling, stacked with scores of books. Directly ahead, two matching chairs flanked a large, dusty Queen Anne sofa. A large boar head glared from the wall above the sofa, its long, dirty tusks jutting from an angry snarl. A wagon-wheel chandelier hovered above an antique desk on his left.

  He’d found a study, carved here in the subterranean corridors.

  Billy walked to the bookshelf and lifted the torch to reveal the titles. A thin film of dust covered the books, and he ran his finger down one of the spines. Antonio’s Ball. He pulled the volume out and flipped it open. Old English.

  “Huh.”

  He smiled and blew along the spines. Dust puffed into the air. They were all old titles he’d never heard of before. Except one: Moby Dick by Melville. He backed to the center of the room and turned in a circle. Fascinating. Even more than the room of art and theater, this study seemed to glow with mystery and magic.

  Why was this place forbidden? Because evil resided here? According to whom? It seemed to him that the director himself would encourage the students to explore these magical halls. What harm was there in a little milky worm sludge?

  It occurred to Billy then, standing in the middle of the small study below the monastery’s foundation, that he had to bring someone else down here.

  Billy turned to the desk and approached its tall, wooden chair. Several dust-covered books lay on one side, similar to the book he found last night on the desk outside the tunnels. That one was blank. Probably journals. The quill and inkwell looked surprisingly fresh.

  He set his torch in an iron sconce and sat on the sofa.

  This was a place of mold and moss and dripping water and massive worms. It was a heaven of mystery and books and art and . . . well, he couldn’t describe it exactly, but he could feel it.

  Billy laid his head back and smiled. He could sit here in dumb pleasure for the rest of his life.

  ANDREW JACKMAN hurried down the dim hall, panting from the climb up through the monastery’s innumerable stairs. Flames licked at the rock walls on both sides, one torch every twenty feet. Parts of the monastery were powered by electricity, but they wasted their precious light in none of the halls. An electric light bulb was far less expensive to keep lit than an oil torch, but that would mean upgrading the monastery, and upgrading wasn’t a priority for David. Besides, it increased their risk of exposure.

  David Abraham would never risk exposure. The number of people who knew of this mountain’s secret could be counted on one page, and all went to great lengths to keep it that way. The fact that the large monastery was carved out of a wedge-shaped canyon no more than twenty meters wide at the top aided them in keeping its existence unnoticed, but even the best camouflage had its flaws. The school could be found, if one knew where to look.

  Today the risk of their discovery had grown. No, not only of being found. Worse.

  Andrew rounded a corner, hefted his robe with one hand to give his feet more room, and broke into a run.

  He always knew that the project could fail, yes, but he’d given a dozen years of his life to the hope that it wouldn’t.Now, the entire project teetered on the precipice of failure.

  Why? Because one boy had defied them all.

  He reached the tall door that led to the director’s study and banged hard.

  “David!”

  “Come.”

  He shoved the handle down and pushed the door in. Light streamed in from the large windows that faced the west, out of the canyon. David Abraham looked up from his large ironwood desk. A ten-by-ten-foot map of the world made of pearl and jade was built into the wall adjacent the long row of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Leather and clothbound books only. A large crystal chandelier hung over a thick cross section cut from a redwood. Eight leather chairs surrounded it.

  “We have a problem,” Andrew said.

  The director leaned back in his chair and tapped his hand with his pencil. “And what would that be?”

  How should he say this? David might be unshakable, but Andrew had little doubt the news would send an earthquake through his bones.

  “Billy’s entered the dungeons.”

  David stared at him.

  Andrew walked in. “He’s down there now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He entered the staircase two hours ago and he hasn’t emerged.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s entered the tunnels.”

  “Of course he has; we both know that. We have to put a stop to it! He’s not the only one who’s been showing curiosity in the dark side lately. I’ve warned against this! I demand we put a stop to it. Immediately.”

  David set down his pen. “No.”

  He was a big man, more than six feet, and powerful. His blond hair rested on broad shoulders, which were covered by a brown hooded cloak. When he wasn’t wearing billowing white shirts and black slacks, he favored the common dress of the teachers. It had been his insistence that they wear clothing befitting of a monastery, as he put it. But in Andrew’s eyes he looked more like a Viking than a monk. Not that David pretended to be a monk—he was a world-renowned collector of antiquities and a professor of both psychology and history, tenured at Harvard, before he left it all for the project.

  “Absolutely not, we can’t interfere, you know that.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I said no!” David stood. He glanced out the window at black storm clouds gathering in the valley near the canyon. “We knew this moment would come. Don’t overreact.”

  “We knew? I certainly didn’t know! I feared, but it was never a foregone conclusion. This wasn’t part of the plan.” Andrew was taken aback by the director’s lack of outrage. How could the prospect of failure not ruin him?

  “The storm clouds always eventually come,” David said. “We always knew the children would be tested. The only question is how they will weather the storm.”

  “Billy’s failed already, by going in. The subterranean tunnels will ruin him.”

  The director stared at him without speaking for a few seconds. His jaw-line bunched with tightened muscles. “Or give him the kind of power that you and I only dream about.”

  Project Showdown had been a highly controversial concept from the beginning. Its stated purpose was appealing enough to attract some of the world’s best-educated and pious men of faith, but if the less discerning public knew what was happening here in this mountain, they might cry foul. Even David’s decision, however reluctantly made, to exclude female teachers and thereby any maternal influence in the monastery would come under fire. But in David’s mind, single-mindedness of the male teachers was paramount. It was a monastery after all, not a college. Andrew agreed.

  The proposal that Dr. Abraham sent out to a select group of clergy was simple: Harvard University was conducting a closely guarded and somewhat speculative examination of faith and human nature. The study sought to test the limits of mankind’s capacity to affect nature through faith. In simple terms, Project Showdown meant to discover the extent to which a man could indeed move mountains (metaphorically or materially) through faith. A showdown of faith and natural laws, so to speak.

  Put anothe
r way, the experiment was nothing less than an attempt to test the speculation that a noble savage—a child unspoiled by the rampant effects of evil in society, struggling only with the evil within themselves—might be taught skills that the rest of humanity could not learn. Certainly spiritual skills, perhaps even physical skills. If a person had no reason to doubt, and as such possessed unadulterated faith, they surely would be able to wield the power of their faith to humankind’s advantage.

  There was one problem, of course. Noble savages did not roam the streets of America or any other country in droves. So David Abraham intended to rear the noble savages from birth.

  He took possession of this ancient Jesuit monastery hidden deep in the Colorado mountains and spent millions of dollars transforming it into an ideal setting for his study. He then selected thirty-seven orphans, most from disadvantaged parts of Europe, and arranged for them to be brought to the monastery, where they would be raised in community under specific guidelines. A lone child would not do because the children would be required to enter society one day, a prospect that could render them useless unless they had grown up in a functioning, if different, society of their own.

  Perhaps the most important element in the study were the teachers. Twelve monks and priests had each agreed to a four-year commitment, but most remained after they were free to go home. The money paid to their families and various charities only partially justified their commitments. Their desire to see the effects of a noble savage’s faith was motivation enough for most of them.

  For nearly twelve years they carefully taught each child in the ways of truth, virtue, and faith, and they meticulously recorded every move of every child. Other than morning prayers, conducted before breakfast, the faith was stripped of liturgy and focused on simple teachings from both Old and New Testaments. Religious, doctrinal jargon in particular had been abandoned.

  Naturally, they faced many challenges—arguments, jealousy, hurt feelings of one kind or another. But without the smothering influence of a world swimming in faithlessness, the children had matured remarkably well. There had been no overt acts of rebellion.