The Immortal City Read online

  In her defense, Penelope had done everything she could not to get caught up in what she couldn’t prove. She had stuck to facts, scraping away at the added mystery of the few primary sources she had, such as the one from Plato, trying to get to the heart of the mythic civilization.

  Forever the realist, her father did his best to disregard the esoteric. The fact that Penelope’s dream had been to find Atlantis since she was ten years old had caused him countless headaches. He couldn’t look at her bookshelves, crammed with as many mythology collections and fantasy novels as academic textbooks and journals, without rolling his eyes.

  “You’re just like your grandmother,” he often muttered in his Irish brogue. “She was mad by the time she died, leaving milk out for brownies and God knows what else.” At times like that, Penelope regretted never having the chance to meet her grandmother. Both her parents were painfully atheist, believing only what could be proven by scientific theory.

  Scrolling through her inbox, Penelope deleted the university newsletter and staff room spam until an unknown name caught her attention.

  Who on earth is Marco Dandolo?

  She opened the email, silently hoping he wasn’t another crazy person.

  Dear Doctor Bryne,

  My associate, Doctor Alessa Christiano, gave me your paper on the Atlantis Tablet. She believes you might be able to assist in identifying markings I encountered this evening at a crime scene. Please forgive me for contacting you so directly, but our experts are at a loss and time is particularly short regarding this case.

  Please find the attached photo of a sample of the writing. I would appreciate any help you might be able to provide.

  Regards,

  Inspector Marco Dandolo

  A crime scene? Penelope read the email twice. The footer had his official titles, the police station, and its crest. It wasn’t spam. Penelope prayed it wasn’t a virus before opening the attachment. The glass of wine fell from her hand, splattering red all over the tiles.

  “Impossible. This can’t…” Penelope zoomed in, trying to get a closer look, but the resolution of the photo only blurred. Five minutes later Penelope picked up her phone and called Carolyn.

  “I knew you couldn’t go three days without ringing!” Carolyn said triumphantly, “What’s up, Bryne? Have another panic attack caused by your shit brain father?”

  “Carolyn, don’t freak out”—Penelope took a steady breath—“but I’m going to Venice.”

  THE LECTURE ROOM at the State Library was filled with students, scholars, and the curious. Penelope squeezed her notes together and tried to remind herself that this was not the first time she’d been forced to stand in front of people.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Carolyn had assured her. She had a doctorate in Esoteric Religions and knew a tough crowd when she saw one. “This is a great turnout, Pen. The more people who know how brilliant you are, the more money they will give you to continue your research.”

  “Thanks, Caro,” Penelope replied, her mouth dry. She tightened her ponytail and smoothed the lapels of her blazer again.

  It was the first time she was going to present her paper on the Atlantis Tablet, and she was a bundle of tightly wound nerves. There were people in the audience who could help fund her dig off the islands of Crete. She had to be brave and confident. The Tablet demanded it of her.

  Carolyn gave her a helpful shove after she was announced, and Penelope mumbled her thanks to the university and the State Library for allowing her to use the space for the lecture.

  She began by providing a brief overview of the days leading up to the discovery. She had been diving off the islands of Crete after a statue of Poseidon had been found in a fisherman’s net. Underwater shots were projected behind her as she moved through each slide of her PowerPoint.

  “When I first discovered the stone fragment it was almost invisible due to the coral surrounding it,” Penelope said, a trickle of sweat sliding down her back. “But this symbol here in the corner caught my eye.”

  She clicked to the next slide. A magnified version of the glyph appeared.

  “As some of you may be aware, it looks like Sumerian cuneiform with its straight lines and triangle accents, but this curve at the end of the glyph doesn’t fit. In fact, it looks almost like Sanskrit. You might be thinking, ‘this is an absolute hoax,’ which was my first thought too, until I read the results of the carbon dating tests we did at a lab in Athens.”

  Penelope clicked to the slide of the detailed report, and a rolling murmur went through the room as one by one the academics realized what they were looking at.

  “As you can see, the stone dates from anywhere between 9000–10,000 BC. The oldest form of written text found so far has been protowriting, pictographs or symbol systems, like the Jiahu symbols found at Neolithic sites in China. The Bronze Age is where we see different alphabets emerging, one of the oldest being these hieroglyphs on the seal impression of the tomb of Seth-Peribson, dated at 2690 BC. Like the Phaistos Disc found at Knossos, the Atlantis Tablet is an anomaly, completely unusual and undocumented. As the Tablet is fragmented, we may never be able to decipher a full alphabet without further research into the site where it was found.”

  Penelope continued her hypothesis of how the tides could have been responsible for the location of the Tablet from a different site lost under the waves.

  “Forgive the interruption, Doctor, but are you talking about Atlantis right now?” Doctor Phillip Brown’s voice was filled with mock amazement. Of course, he would have to be in attendance. He had been one of Penelope’s teachers long ago, and she had never forgotten the arguments they had about Mycenaean cultures. They had quarreled about Atlantis even then.

  “As a matter of fact, Doctor Brown, I am,” Penelope replied. “I want you all to forget the stories and fairy tales. I want you to think about the possibility of a highly civilized culture on a group of islands located in the Mediterranean between Crete and Egypt. We have enough evidence from the island of Thera that proves a large-scale volcanic eruption occurred that could have been enough to destroy a culture already weakened by civil war. It is highly likely that the islands themselves would have had their own volcanos as they would have been on the same fault lines as Crete and Thera.”

  The room grew deathly silent as she continued, and Penelope wished someone would interrupt her again, even if it were the insipid Phillip Brown.

  “What about magic?” an accented voice said from the back of the room.

  Penelope lifted a hand against the spotlight but was unable to find him against the glare.

  “Pardon me, did you say magic?” Penelope could barely keep the disbelief from her voice.

  “You are claiming that the Atlanteans not only existed but that they were highly advanced. Surely you have read studies about them being a people of magic and science,” the man persisted from the shadows.

  Penelope tried to stay professional. “I’m talking about a real civilization, sir. I don’t believe in magic, though their science could’ve been perceived as magic by outsiders who were less advanced. I don’t believe in a city powered by magical crystals or theories of black magicians, such as Madame Blavatsky peddled to her followers.”

  “But you would have us believe you have uncovered a lost Atlantean language? I don’t think considering the possibility of magic is much of a stretch,” he argued, prompting chortles of laughter from the room.

  “I see you’re going to be persistent until you get my personal opinion.” Penelope smiled at the shadow. “To answer you honestly, if the Atlanteans existed and they had magic and science, I believe they would’ve been intelligent enough to know the difference between an aqueduct and astral travel. They would’ve been completely different branches of study. My Tablet proves there was another people, a lost people, living in the Aegean before 10,000 BC and the only lost culture from that area that we have ever heard of, albeit through academically unreliable sources, is Atlantis. My hypothesis isn’t unbelievab
le…”

  “I don’t believe the possibility of magic is either. The Atlanteans are meant to be the precursors to the Greeks, a highly magical and religious society,” the man argued, and Penelope ground her teeth. “This Tablet looks religious to me.”

  “I didn’t realize I had another Atlantis expert in the audience,” Penelope said, covering the bite in her tone with a nervous laugh. “I would be happy to discuss any theories once the lecture is over, sir. I’ll even listen to a magical theory if there is wine involved.”

  The audience chattered politely, but the white smile at the back of the room only grew wider.

  PENELOPE JERKED awake as the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac with a hard bump. She ran a hand through her loose curls, trying to shake the dream and memories from her head. She wouldn’t forget that night as long as she lived. If she’d known ahead of time how poorly it would go, she would never have agreed to do that stupid lecture.

  Penelope had done her best to dismiss all the unexplainable aspects of Atlantean culture, including the odd events surrounding the discovery, such as the way the dive crew had been forced to a different site due to unusually high tides and choppy weather, or that the water had been so cloudy she could barely see meters in front of her, how it felt like an invisible line had tugged her toward an outcrop, how when her hand had touched the stone she felt a pulse pass through her.

  Penelope shouldn’t have been able to free the heavy block from the tight coral it was stuck in, but she’d only had to wriggle it once before it came loose. She had been fiercely protective of it, but the curators on Crete refused to let her leave the country with it. The government let her claim the find and permitted her to study it for as long as she wished, but her finances soon forced her back to Melbourne and into a contract role writing and tutoring students on Mediterranean history and archaeology. Her Tablet was to remain in Greece, and she had felt the ache of being apart from it. It’s just a bit of rock, her father had said, one that doesn’t prove your theory on where the city is located.

  Penelope had only agreed to the lecture to try and raise financial support to get herself back to Greece. It was just her luck that there had to be an argumentative nut in the crowd. That fucking guy. She had seen him across the foyer after the event, but the glare on her face must have scared him away because he never did try and discuss his magical theory with her.

  In the weeks after the lecture and her publication in the Journal of Oceanic Cultural Research she had a few potential investors interested, but one by one they had disappeared, along with the possibility of any grant money. She was rejected more than once on the basis that it wasn’t an Australian discovery and she was acting like a treasure hunter, not an academic.

  The black moleskin notebook Penelope had bought at the airport on her connecting flight in Sydney had fallen to the floor, and she placed it securely in her handbag. She had been filling the thick, lined pages with notes and initial observations about the wall in Venice. Penelope took out her phone and looked at the photo again. Should she dare to get excited? It was that over-ambition that you hung yourself with last time, Penelope.

  It took an hour to get through customs at the Marco Polo Airport and find a bathroom. Penelope put on some eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss to get the look of travel off her face. She was about to charge into a police station. It couldn’t hurt to look good.

  It took twenty minutes of her taxi’s rally driving through tight motorway traffic to reach the Questura di Venezia in Santa Croce. It was only when she was clinging for dear life to the door of the Alpha Romeo that Penelope realized just what she had done. The terra-cotta roofs and blue canals of Venice loomed in front of her, and her heart began to race, sweat moistening the back of her neck as panic gripped her. This was, even by Penelope’s standards, one of the most impulsive things she had ever done.

  They parked in front of the police station and Penelope all but leapt from the car in her eagerness to be on solid ground. She took a deep, steadying breath, picked up her small suitcase, and opened the door of the ochre brick building. The officer behind the desk eyed Penelope as she approached. He looked her over distrustfully, and Penelope tried not to flinch.

  “Mi scusi, parla inglese?” Penelope asked nervously.

  “How can I assist?” the officer said.

  “I’m looking for Inspector Marco Dandolo. Is he here at the moment?” Penelope opened the email Marco had sent her and showed it to the officer. “This is the right police station isn’t it?”

  “Take a seat.” The officer gestured to some uncomfortable waiting room chairs and picked up the phone. Penelope didn’t sit. She’d been sitting for hours. Instead, she filled a plastic cup with water from a cooler and slowly paced. The officer’s eyes watched her as he spoke rapid Italian, too fast and low for Penelope to catch the gist of the conversation.

  Finally, he hung up and glared at her. “He’s coming.”

  Ten minutes later a man appeared, cursing at the duty officer who pointed toward Penelope with a smirk. This time she caught part of the conversation. The duty officer thought she was a disgruntled lover and Marco was trying to deny that he knew her.

  Unlike the officer wearing the blue and gray uniform of the Polizia de Strato, Marco Dandolo dressed in a black suit with a white button-down shirt. With only a few gray hairs in his curling black hair and some minor stress lines around his mouth, he looked about forty. He had olive skin, black stubble, and probably would have been handsome if he smiled, but at the moment he wore a deep, intimidating scowl.

  “You are Penelope Bryne, the archaeologist?” he asked as he joined her in the waiting room.

  Penelope held out her hand. “I got your email, Inspector Dandolo.”

  He took her hand and reluctantly shook it. “You received my email and came to Venice to see me?” His frown deepened, and Penelope laughed nervously.

  “Of course! You can’t send a photo like that to an expert and not get a response.”

  “I expected a response, just not a visit.” He took a deep breath and gestured toward the door. “Come on. I need a smoke.”

  Marco led her to a smoking area that looked out over the police boats and offered her his packet of cigarettes.

  “No, thank you.” Penelope smiled politely. “So, the photo you sent me, are there any more?”

  “Why? Can you read it?”

  “Not the bad resolution you sent me,” Penelope replied as she opened the photo on her phone and held it out to him. “See that large fork-like glyph? That’s an alchemical symbol for Neptune or Poseidon. This one here is the water of life. The third is for a vessel or a woman. What was the crime? Was there a bull involved?”

  Marco choked on his cigarette smoke. “Why would you ask that?”

  “The symbols together allude to a sacrifice. People loved to sacrifice bulls during the Neptunalia to ensure fertility and a good harvest, but that is in July, not February. They liked to sacrifice horses, too, because Poseidon was the God of Atlantis, and it is said they were the first people to tame horses. It might be relevant.”

  “What about the rest of the script?” he asked. His tone was bored, but Penelope saw the flash of interest in his eyes.

  “You were right. It’s the same language I found on the Atlantis Tablet, but there’s far more of it. If I could have a look at the site, I might be able to help with a translation.”

  “You flew all this way to offer your services as a consultant?”

  “No. I flew all this way because that language hasn’t been seen in ten thousand years and I want to find out who the hell wrote it,” Penelope replied bluntly. “But I will also agree to be your consultant if it means we can find them.”

  Marco Dandolo studied her slowly and won extra points by not letting his gaze drift down from her face. “Let me go and talk to the Questore and see what he thinks. He can decide if you’ll be worth it.”

  “If I’m not, you can tell him good luck on finding anyone else who can help hi
m understand a dead language from a lost civilization.” Penelope folded her arms stubbornly, but because she had bills to pay, she added, “You can tell him my consultation fees start at €300 a day. The longer he makes me wait, the higher it will go up.”

  Marco let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Ha! I think I’m going to like you, Dottore.”

  QUESTORE ADALFIERI of Venice was a rotund man with oiled white hair and a thick mustache. He eyed Penelope shrewdly as Marco introduced her in Italian twenty minutes later.

  “Buon pomeriggio,” she said with a friendly smile. He gave her the slightest nod before talking to Marco in a deep bass voice, Penelope forgotten.

  You have insinuated yourself into a police investigation in a foreign country. You didn’t think it was going to be easy did you, Pen? She wasn’t bothered by their dismissive attitude toward her. She had spent her entire life around patriarchal academics who looked down their noses at her breasts and outspoken ways. She wanted to see the graffitied wall. Her mind burned with the images she had been shown, and if that meant playing nice, she was going to do it.

  Marco protested loudly as the word DIGOS was mentioned, but the Questore merely shrugged and pointed to the door. Marco threw up his hands in exasperation.

  “What’s going on?” Penelope asked, still smiling nervously.

  “He’s agreed to pay you, provided you produce something useful toward the case. I’m going to take you to your hotel,” he said as he directed her back toward the busy offices.

  “Does that mean you are finally going to tell me what type of crime scene it is?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Outside, Marco led her down to the docks where a blue-and-white patrol boat was being refueled.

  “We go by water from here,” he said, placing her suitcase on the deck before offering her a hand as she stepped in. “Adalfieri’s sister owns a hotel in Dorsoduro and has a room for you. Carnevale is a terrible time for space so it’s lucky she had some visitors leave for a family emergency, otherwise you probably would have been stuck on my couch.”