The tunnel walls were rough at first, loose soil had been dug away and pushed out through the entrance. Stone had been crushed. It was a giant burrow. But just fifty feet in the scene changed. The tunnel became square and gray. Man-made. Old.

“Merlin was a busy man,” Alexander said.

“You buy that story?” King asked.

Alexander paused and gave King a lopsided smile that said: Remember who you’re talking to.

“Right,” King said. “If it’s possible Stonehenge was created by Merlin, what would he have buried beneath it?”

“Given Ridley’s interest, I would assume some form of ancient knowledge regarding the mother tongue. In what form, I can only guess.”

King didn’t like guessing, or the perpetual feeling of being two steps behind, which he felt in regard to Ridley and Alexander. He lacked a complete picture of both men’s motivations, and that disturbed him.

They paused at the change in tunnel structure.

King moved his light over the wall, which was made from lines of giant rectangular blue-tinged stones. “Its bluestone,” King said. “Same as many of the henge stones. You think this runs all the way to Stonehenge? Two miles?”

“It seems likely. Perhaps a symbolic journey to the underworld.”

“Or literal,” King said as he started moving forward.

“Let’s hope not,” Alexander replied, breaking out into a quick jog.

King wasn’t sure if Alexander’s reply was serious or an attempt at humor, but followed without a word. He wasn’t about to look like a fool by asking. The two ran in the near darkness, dimming their flashlights with their hands as much as possible to conceal their approach.

They ran blindly, unable to see or hear anything ahead. When King judged they’d run almost the entire two miles, he slowed. “Were almost under Stonehenge,” he whispered.

They walked a short distance more with their flashlights off and then stopped to listen. All was quiet. They continued forward in darkness, hands on the tunnel walls for balance and direction. Then the walls fell away on both sides.

After what felt like a lifetime of quiet breathing and listening, King flicked on his flashlight. He scanned it back and forth, handgun in hand, looking for a target. He found nothing to shoot. The circular space was devoid of living or animated targets, but it held plenty of fascinating finds. The floor was covered in two-foot-tall vertical stone poles that looked like the stumps of a petrified forest. They were arranged in a classic glyph pattern with some rings of pillars being larger than others. The room was constructed entirely of bluestone. A large sarcophagus sat at the middle of the room, encircled by rings of stone.