Empire of Gold by Andy McDermott Page A

effortlessly through solid stone now caused the figurine to light up with an eerie indigo glow.

    ‘Good God!’ cried Barley.

    Macy’s response was much the same. ‘Whoa!’ she yelped, flinching back. ‘It’s not radioactive, is it?’

    Nina lifted her finger from the statue, and the glow vanished. ‘Open the case, and we’ll find out.’

    Macy was about to put the case on Arthur’s coffin when a stammered protest from Barley prompted her to switch to the granite block. She opened it, and Nina took out a piece of equipment. ‘Geiger counter,’ she explained. ‘Macy, you hold it while I touch the statue again.’

    Macy held the counter at arm’s length, cringing as the figurine lit up. Nothing came from the machine except the intermittent crackles of normal background radiation. ‘I wish you’d checked that first, before maybe zapping us with gamma rays,’ she complained.

    ‘What causes that glow?’ Barley asked, stepping closer.

    ‘It’s a phenomenon called earth energy,’ said Nina, ‘but as for exactly how it works, I can’t tell you. Not because it’s classified – although it is – but because I genuinely don’t understand it myself. I’m not a physicist. All I know are its effects.’

    ‘Which are . . . ?’

    ‘Classified.’

    Barley sighed. ‘I suspected as much.’

    Nina placed the first statue on the block, then took the other from the case. It too reacted in the same way to her touch, filling the chamber with an unnatural light. But she noticed something as she put the second figure down beside the first: the effect was not uniform.

    Macy saw it too. ‘It’s brighter on the side facing the other one – like it’s responding to it.’

    Nina picked up the second statuette again and slowly moved it in a circle round the first. There was indeed a somewhat stronger band of light on one side of the figure, which changed position as the stone was moved, so that it always shone in the direction of the statue’s near-twin. ‘Like holding a magnet to a compass,’ Barley mused.

    ‘There’s a compass in the case,’ Nina said. ‘Macy, get it out; we’ll see if it’s some kind of magnetic effect.’

    It wasn’t, the needle unmoving. Nina picked up both statues experimentally, wondering if each would show a bright band when they were aglow. They did, pointing towards each other no matter the figures’ relative positions. Whatever caused the earth energy effect, whoever made the two statuettes had found a practical use for it – if somebody who could utilise the phenomenon had one statue in their possession, they could use it to find the other.

    But there was something else – another, barely discernible line of increased illumination on each. Whatever this pointed towards, it was unmoving. Still holding the statues, she walked back and forth across the chamber in the hope of spotting a parallax effect. None was evident. The cause was apparently some distance away.

    ‘What if it’s the third statue?’ Macy suggested.

    ‘There’s another one?’ Barley asked.

    ‘Yes – they fit together.’ Nina returned to the block and slotted the statues together, arms interlocking. This time, there was a change: the two lines merged into one, much brighter, still pointing in the direction of the fainter bands she had seen moments before.

    She turned the linked figures. The glow remained stationary, the band of light rippling over the crude carved features as she rotated them. It was a pointer. One that led to the missing third of the triptych.

    But what was the statues’ purpose, and who had created them?

    Nina let go, the illumination instantly vanishing. Macy tapped at the figurines, but nothing happened. Barley warily followed suit, with the same lack of result. ‘It’s only you, Dr Wilde,’ he said.

    ‘Must be my electrifying personality.’ Silence. ‘Oh come on, that was funny.’

    ‘Mm,’ said Macy, not quite a ringing endorsement. ‘Touch it again – I