Brimstone

{ Epilogue }

A chill November sun illuminated, but did not warm, the bleak stone ramparts of Castel Fosco. The garden was deserted; the marble fountain purled and splashed for no one. Beyond the castle walls, dead leaves swirled over the gravel of the parking area, obscuring the tracks of the many vehicles that had come and gone earlier in the day. Now all was quiet. The narrow road leading down the mountainside was empty. A single raven sat on the battlements above, gazing silently over the valley of the Greve.

The coroner's van had removed Fosco's body around mid-morning. The police lingered a little longer, snapping photos, taking statements, looking for evidence but finding nothing of value. Assunta, who had discovered the corpse, had been borne away, ashen and distraught, by her son. The few remaining servants had also gone off, taking advantage of the unexpected vacation. There seemed little reason to stay. Fosco's nearest relation, a distant cousin, was vacationing on the Costa Smeralda of Sardinia and would not arrive for several days at least. Besides, none were eager to linger in a place to which death had made such a gruesome visitation. And so the castle was left to brood in shadows and silence.

Nowhere was the silence more profound than in the ancient passageways that riddled the rock far beneath the basements of the castle. Here there was not even the rustle of the wind to disturb the dusty tombs and stone sarcophagi of the forgotten dead.

The deepest of these passages, carved by Etruscans into the living rock more than three thousand years before, twisted down into black depths and came to an end in a horizontal tu

The ancient tomb that lay behind the brick wall was just large enough to contain a man. Inside that tomb there was no sound. Darkness reigned so profoundly that even the very passage of time seemed suspended.

And then a muffled sound broke the stillness: a faint footfall.

This was followed by a rattle, as if a bag of tools had been set down on the ground. Silence descended briefly once again. And then came an unmistakable sound: the scrape of iron against mortar, the sharp rap of a hammer against a cold chisel.

The rapping went on in a low, measured cadence, methodical, like the ticking of a clock. Minutes passed, and the sound stopped. Another silence, and then there were the faint sounds of scraping, the abrasion of brick against mortar; a few more sharp raps-and suddenly a faint light appeared in the tomb, a glowing crack that outlined the rectangular shape of a brick in the upper portion of the wall. With a soft, slow grating, the brick was withdrawn, millimeter by millimeter. Then it was gone, and a soft yellow light shone through the newly opened hole, penetrating the darkness of the tomb.

A moment later, two eyes appeared in the glowing rectangle, gazing in with curiosity, perhaps even anxiety.

Two eyes: one hazel, one blue.