Читать книгу The Gates of Atlantis - I. R. Tagarian - Страница 5

“This room is called the unfinished hall,” Aime explained to her third group of the day. Since female voice did not resonate in the opening of the oracle room, and she lacked Medin’s juicy baritone, she had just been able to show the other groups, how a sound from a hole made those who had gone into the smaller chambers next to the big room feel as if they could hear heartbeats through the walls, over every loud word. “The 110 Hz frequency has been called the heartbeat of the Earth,” she then repeated sentences heard from doctor Medin. “And since there have been figurines found of the Mother Goddess here, the purpose of this sound was probably to take people into a trance-like state during the rituals held for the goddess.” For some incomprehensible reason that part of the sentence felt wrong for her from the start, but she repeated it anyways – in lack of a better one.

They had now reached the hall or room which archaeologists think was unfinished by the founders of the temple. There was a doorway in the wall with two pillar-like portals cut straight into the massive rock, which led to nowhere and a staircase which started from a closed wall and ended midway, before reaching the floor. She had no idea why she decided to try here what doctor Medin had done with the first group in the Oracle room. She pressed the voice recorder in her pocket for a brief moment and created a couple of right frequency drum beats. The whole construction appeared to start vibrating. On the wall in front of her, at the place where the unfinished doorway stood, an airflow flickered for a moment, which reminded…

“Excuse me, are you feeling ill, there is really no air in here, I have also felt for a while that my head will start spinning.” An older French lady was standing next to Aime and holding her hand while giving her a startled look. “I’m sorry,” Aime mumbled, not realising what had happened to her and who was that woman focusing on her. The woman also seemed to be a little confused. “It appeared to me that you were going to faint, your face went white as a sheet.” Aime collected herself quickly. “I am truly sorry; it sometimes happens to me… blood pressure.” It was the first explanation that seemed reasonable. There was no point in her talking about her peculiar ears or flickering walls here. It appeared to be working because the older man who had stepped next to the woman quickly started talking about the correlation of blood pressure and the pressure in underground caves which he had experienced in many underground facilities.

“Hey, tell us better about these elongated skulls which have been found here. Are there any of those exhibited right now?” a long-haired man with glasses asked, who had been trying the whole tour to stay behind the group and, regardless the prohibition, take secret photographs with his phone. “Is it true that there were 7000 of skeletons with this type of skulls here when this cave was found? Where could all of these skulls have gone?” The group moved onwards, and Aime quickly continued the tour with the text she studied in the morning.

“The most important thing is to tell them something that makes them think further in every room, that way you don’t have to say that much and if you forget something about one room, just move on to the next one. You have just one hour, and there are enough rooms that you can merely run through them,” the ticket-salesman Marco had calmingly explained to her during lunch while going over the official tourist text for the artefact. The sound show in the Oracle room was not held for regular tourists. The vibration effect had clearly been doctor Medin’s personal knowledge, which he simply wanted to test during his only tour in the last two decades. Aime borrowed the voice recorder of drum sounds and low male voice’s singing sounds from doctor Medin. “Well, when I forget the text and need a few moments to distract their attention,” was her excuse for asking. Her ingenuity had made Medin smile, and he gave her his voice recorder. This was the first, and the last time Aime tried to use it in an underground cave with tourists.

Marco was dealing with the cash register and was getting ready to leave. He wanted to switch off the power lighting the underground structure from the main panel and turn on the alarm, when Aime gathered herself and came up with a lie in order to cover an idea which had taken over her mind by the end of the day: „You know, I think I left my notebook down there with my phone, I put them behind a stone when I was showing the tourists that cave with the ceiling paintings made with ochre.” Marco sighed, he had just called the handicap taxi with wheelchair equipment to pick him up. Aime made a guilty face, which came out great as she did feel guilty. But she could not let the once in a lifetime opportunity go to waste – all alone and in peace going through the rooms of that mysterious structure that had brought her to Malta. To study these strange low doorways, as if intended for dwarfs, and the precisely cut walls of great, unique rooms. “But you can just go, I will turn on the alarm myself.” Marco probably did not suspect her of anything, even in its uniqueness, this was just a job for him, from where he wanted to get home at a reasonable hour. “Ok, I have an extra pair of keys in case you don’t get here as early in the morning as I do,” he smirked. “Bring me the keys next time you go on lunch from the excavations or see what suits you best.” Marco left and closed the door behind him. Aime waited until the noises made by the taxi went quiet in front of the house and then locked the door from the inside. She put the keys on Marco’s counter to get them when she got back.