Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 After the first three hundred stairs, Dan was breathing hard. By five hundred, he was ready to cough up his lungs and leave them on the flank of Mount Song. A few times, orange-robed monks and kung fu students puffed past, running up the endless steps. No wonder the Shaolin fighters were unbeatable. If they trained here, they could probably bench- press the temple, and maybe the whole mountain with it. He lost count somewhere around seven hundred fifty, and the Bodhidharma statue was still nowhere to be seen. Perspiration dripped from every pore of his body. I'm turning my precious wushu outfit into sweat rags! Dan glanced at his watch— he'd been climbing

第14章爬了前300级楼梯后，丹呼吸困难。 到了五百岁，他已经准备咳出自己的肺，把他们留在嵩山的侧翼。 有几次，身穿橘色僧袍的和尚和习武的学生气喘吁吁地走过，跑上了无尽的台阶。 难怪少林拳手是无敌的。 如果他们在这里训练，他们可能可以卧推整个寺庙，甚至整座山。 他数不清七百五十个左右，菩提达摩像仍不见踪影。 汗水从他身上的每个毛孔里滴下来。 我要把我珍贵的武术服变成破汗服！丹看了看表——他一直在爬山

for nearly an hour. Where was the Beard Buddha— on the moon? Another group of monks jogged past, this time on the way down. There was a distinct chill in the air now. Surely he was near the top. The stairs twisted abruptly to the right, and there towered his childhood nightmare, twenty feet tall. An involuntary yelp escaped him. He looked around in embarrassment. No training monks, no wandering tourists. He was alone. He examined the huge base and then let his eyes wander up the folds of Bodhidharma's robes. There were no markings or symbols— not even a crack in the stone where a secret message might be hidden. Was I wrong about the Beard Buddha? As he circled Bodhidharma's bulk, his eyes fell on a small shrine constructed behind the statue. He stepped inside. Chinese writing was everywhere, but a lone sign in English read: DHARMA HOLE. An arrow pointed to an opening in the stone. A cave!

差不多一个小时了。胡子佛在月球上的什么地方？ 另一群僧侣慢跑而过，这次是在下山的路上。 现在空气中有一股明显的寒意。 当然，他已经接近顶峰了。 楼梯突然向右扭了一下，他儿时的噩梦矗立在那里，有二十英尺高。 他不由自主地叫了一声。 他尴尬地环顾四周。 没有训练有素的僧侣，没有游手好闲的游客。 他独自一人。他检查了巨大的底座，然后让他的眼睛在菩提达摩长袍的褶皱上徘徊。 石头上没有任何标记或符号，甚至连一条可能藏着秘密信息的裂缝都没有。 我说错胡子佛了吗？ 当他绕着菩提达摩的身躯转时，他的目光落在了佛像后面建造的一个小佛龛上。 他走了进去。到处都是汉字，只有一块孤零零的英文牌子：DHARMA HOLE。 一支箭指向石头上的一个开口。 一个山洞!

Oh, how he didn't want to go inside. In the course of the Clue hunt, he'd been in enough tunnels, shafts, pits, and catacombs to last a lifetime. And in some of them, it had very nearly come to that. But he hadn't climbed that stairway to heaven for nothing. He got down on all fours and crawled inside. It was dark and tight, the rock cold and damp from the misty air. About fifteen feet in, the cave faded to utter blackness. The shut-in feeling was unendurable— ancient stone pressing on all sides, zero vision. It was as if he'd been swallowed by Mount Song. He began to hyperventilate. Asthma? No, the gasping breaths were bringing air into his lungs, but they were accelerating, and he was powerless to control them. What was happening to him? Was he sick? I'm having a claustrophobia attack! He shut his eyes and tried to pump all thought out of his mind. He was not wedged into an unimaginably tight seam inside millions of tons of solid rock. He was just— chilling.

他是多么不想进去啊。 在寻找线索的过程中，他经历了足够多的隧道、竖井、坑和地下墓穴，足以让他度过一生。 在其中一些国家，它几乎已经到了那个地步。 但是他爬上通往天堂的楼梯并不是没有意义的。 他四肢着地爬了进去。 那里又黑又紧，岩石被雾蒙蒙的空气吹得又冷又湿。 大约十五英尺深的时候，山洞里一片漆黑。 那种闭门不出的感觉令人难以忍受——四面都是古石压着，没有视觉。 他仿佛被嵩山吞没了。 他开始呼吸急促。 哮喘?不，喘气让空气进入了他的肺，但速度在加快，他无力控制。 他发生了什么事？ 他病了吗？我的幽闭恐惧症发作了！他闭上眼睛，试图把脑子里所有的想法都挤出去。 他并没有被塞进数百万吨坚硬岩石中难以想象的紧密缝隙中。 他简直令人心寒。

It was only about thirty seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. At last, he was breathing normally and ready to press on. His probing hand struck a loose rock, and he felt a vibration in his palm. A second later, his knee rattled over the same spot. Odd. He reversed a few inches and tapped at the stone. It made a peculiar sound, not hollow, exactly, but— different. If only I had a flashlight! All at once, he realized that he did have a light. Not a very bright one, but better than nothing. He aimed his left wrist at the loose piece and pressed the small button that lit up the dial of his watch. The glow was dim, but it revealed an amazing sight. This stone was not native to the cave. An examination of the edges showed that it had been specially shaped to fit into that very spot. He scrabbled with his fingers and managed to pry one corner up. It lifted easily. He set it aside and activated the watch light once again. The exhilaration of discovery flooded over him. He was looking into a secret compartment carved

虽然只有三十秒左右，但似乎过了很久。 最后，他恢复了正常呼吸，准备继续前进。 他摸索着的手碰到一块松动的岩石，他感到手掌震动了一下。 一秒钟后，他的膝盖在同一个地方嘎嘎作响。 奇数。他转了几英寸，敲了敲石头。 它发出一种奇怪的声音，确切地说，不是空洞的，而是——与众不同。 要是我有手电筒就好了！突然，他意识到他确实有一盏灯。 不是很聪明，但聊胜于无。 他把左手腕对准那块松掉的东西，按下了那个点亮表盘的小按钮。 光线很暗淡，但却呈现出令人惊异的景象。 这块石头不是洞穴里的原生石头。 对边缘的检查表明，它的形状是特别的，正好适合那个地方。 他用手指摸索着，总算撬开了一角。 它很容易抬起。他把它放在一边，再次点亮了表灯。 发现的喜悦淹没了他。 他在看一个雕刻的秘密隔间

into the rock, not seen by human eyes for who knew how long. He leaned closer. There lay the tattered remains of a moldy blanket wrapped around— what? He drew the parcel out and tried to unwrap it. It was no use. This was a two-hand project, impossible to accomplish when one hand was occupied with lighting up the watch face. He reverted to darkness and replaced the stone over the empty compartment. Then he grasped the bundle in his arms and began the arduous journey, inch by inch, reversing out of the cave. Slowly, the light returned, and he was in the open again. A quick scan of the shrine and the area around the statue. He was still alone. Eagerly, he unwrapped the ancient fabric and examined the contents. His brow knit. Garbage. Literally! Pots and cups, broken glass, all scorched black and half melted. Who takes out the trash and hides it like it's something precious and top secret? He regarded the pieces. Those weren't cups, they were beakers. And the taller, thin ones—

进入岩石，不被人的眼睛看到谁知道多久。 他靠得更近了。那里躺着一条发霉的破毯子，裹着——什么？ 他把包裹抽出来，想把它打开。 这没有用。这是一个两只手的工程，当一只手忙于点亮表盘时，是不可能完成的。 他回到黑暗中，把那块石头放回空隔间。 然后他把那捆东西抱在怀里，开始了艰难的旅程，一寸一寸地倒车出了山洞。 慢慢地，光明又回来了，他又站在了开阔的地方。 快速浏览一下神社和雕像周围的区域。 他仍然独自一人。他急切地打开那块古老的布，仔细检查里面的东西。 他皱起眉头。垃圾。字面上!锅碗瓢盆，碎玻璃，全都烧焦了，半融化了。 谁会把垃圾拿出去藏起来，就像这是珍贵的绝密一样？ 他注视着那些碎片。那些不是杯子，是烧杯。 而那些又高又瘦的

broken test tubes and maybe glass pipes. Those were clamps, the screws charred black. This wasn't trash— it was lab equipment! And something had obviously gone very wrong, because the stuff was all burned. A fire. Wasn't that the Cahill way! His parents, Grace's home, cousin Irina barely a week ago. He could still see her as she fell, as the flaming beach house caved in around her. It was a terrible image— one that had returned to him, unbidden, over and over again since that awful night. Dan had witnessed a lot since Grace's funeral. But that was the first time he'd ever watched someone die. He remembered Irina's face and couldn't help but wonder if his parents had looked like that when their final moment had come. No— can't think about that…. His mind traveled back to the underground chamber in Paris. The mural of Gideon Cahill and his four children— Luke, Jane, Thomas, and Catherine— the forebears of the Cahill branches. That picture had showed a fire, too. Gingerly, he picked up a scorched shard

破损的试管，可能还有玻璃管。 那些是夹子，螺丝都烧焦了。 这不是垃圾，这是实验室设备！显然有什么地方出了问题，因为东西都烧了。 一场火灾。这不是卡荷尔的作风吗？他的父母，格蕾丝家，表妹伊琳娜一周前。 他还能看到她倒下时的样子，看到熊熊燃烧的海滨别墅在她周围坍塌。 这是一个可怕的画面——自那个可怕的夜晚以来，这个画面一遍又一遍地出现在他的脑海里。 自从格蕾丝的葬礼后，丹目睹了很多事。 但那是他第一次看到别人死去。 他想起了伊琳娜的脸，不禁想知道他的父母在最后时刻到来时是不是也是这个样子。 不，不能这么想.... 他的思绪回到了巴黎的地下室。 这幅壁画描绘了吉迪恩·卡希尔和他的四个孩子——卢克、简、托马斯和凯瑟琳——卡希尔家族的祖先。 那张照片上也有火。 他小心翼翼地捡起一块烧焦的碎片