by D B Nielsen
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Description
SEED: Part One | DISCOVERY
SAGE | ARTEFACT
ASSISTANT KEEPER
PUNISHMENT
COMPLICATIONS
QUARANTINE
DARKROOM
APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEARANCES
INQUISITION
INVESTIGATION
FUNDRAISER
GUARDIANS
PARTNER
PARIS
REVELATIONS
WANT MORE?
About the Author
Also by the Author
Praise for SEED
Acknowledgments
BrixBaxter Publishing – Experience New Worlds
Copyright
SEED: Part One of the Keepers of Genesis Series
Copyright © DB Nielsen 2017
First published in Great Britain as a paperback and ebook by LBLA Digital in 2015
Republished by BrixBaxter Publishing in 2017
Cover Design by XLintellect Pty Ltd
Photograph Copyright ©
Shumskaya Tatiana/Shutterstock.com;
Joop Snijder/Shutterstock.com; Captblack76/Shutterstock.com;
Cover Image Copyright © A. Brix-Nielsen / XLintellect Pty Ltd
The right of DB Nielsen to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form, or with any binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locals is entirely coincidental.
Description
A powerful, hidden artefact is unearthed and, with its discovery, an ancient conflict is reignited. Seventeen-year-old Sage Woods, the daughter of an eminent archaeologist, uncovers the artefact’s disturbing secret and is placed in terrible danger. Unwittingly, she has stumbled into an invisible war between two primordial dynasties of a supernatural order – a war in which she has a fateful role to play in a race to control the power of the SEED.
Embroiled in a quest that takes her from the British Museum to the Louvre to the Vatican Secret Archives, Sage realises that her blossoming romance with the mysterious, alluring St. John Rivers is inextricably tied to the artefact. Up until now, St. John has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Sage is determined to delve deeper to uncover his dark secret and his connection to the SEED. It is a decision that will have a devastating effect on humankind...
SEED: Part One is the first book in the Keepers of Genesis Series
SEED: Part One
DISCOVERY
PROLOGUE
Southern Iraq, Present Day
The helicopter rotors sliced the arid air as the military chopper descended amidst a flurry of dust particles and whirlwinds of dry desert sand. A small, elite ten-man team of British paratroopers, weapons at the ready, alighted first as the rotors decelerated, churning slowly in neutral. When they gave the all-clear signal, assessing the immediate area for signs of hostility, a motley group of historians and archaeologists descended from the aircraft and into the sweltering desert heat.
The team, comprising of both international and local Iraqi archaeologists, had been assigned to spend three days in Basra, surveying eight of southern Iraq’s most important archaeological sites from Ur to Tell el-Lahm on a mission to preserve the area’s cultural heritage since the United Nations had stopped all archaeological digs continuing in the area due to the on-going Middle East conflicts. It was proving to be a difficult mission. The odds were stacked against them, despite current peace talks and the impending withdrawal of military forces. Decades of violence. Open hostilities. Damage caused by mortar shells, looters and the egos of tyrannical leaders. And limited time at each site; ranging from as little as forty minutes to two hours was not nearly enough time to give a proper assessment of the damage.
But it was all they had.
Professor Robert Woods’ clumsy descent from the helicopter went unnoticed as his younger, more athletic colleague gracefully vaulted from the chopper onto the ground, lightly landing beside him. Crouching low, the middle-aged historian and his younger companion moved out of the way of the others and the vibrations of the aircraft which were loud enough to drown out normal conversation and headed off in the direction of the ancient ruined city, observing the sight before them.
Both men were transported back over three thousand years to the cradle of civilisation, ancient Mesopotamia. Very little had changed if one could ignore the obvious destruction of war; the cities razed to the ground, the misguided efforts to rebuild. In the distance, the eyesore of Saddam Hussein’s reconstruction programme which had begun in 1985 using new thermalite blocks over the top of existing ancient ruins could be seen, casting a pall over the barren beauty of the landscape. It was perhaps lucky that he never had the opportunity to complete his vision – to build a lavish palace over the ruins in the form of a ziggurat and to start work on a cable car over the ancient city. Even luckier perhaps was the tabling of plans to restore Babylon – the aim being to make the place a theme park with hotels, resorts and shopping malls. It was ironic that the on-going wars had preserved southern Iraq’s cultural heritage while simultaneously destroying it.
The two heads were bent together – one dark with the onset of silvery streaks, the other shining golden under the harsh desert sun – as they discussed their plan of attack under the strict schedule they needed to keep. Behind them, a French Assyriologist surveying the damage was complaining loudly to another colleague in accented English, ‘...unrecognisable ... like Verdun ... Trench after trench after trench ... Looting on an industrial scale...’ while the Project Manager from the British Museum was shaking his head in barely concealed annoyance after having been told by the military commander that they only had forty minutes at this location as the survey was being conducted in a war zone.
‘We should split up to cover as much area as possible,’ the Project Manager, Keeper of the British Museum’s Middle East Department, called out to his assembled colleagues in a tone that still displayed his irritation. Not wasting any time himself, he set off in the direction of the monstrous ziggurat looming ahead.
The archaeologists followed while, behind them, the crack troop fanned out. While the civilians stumbled along, the soldiers moved with balance and purpose, rifles in their hands, packs of various sizes – all laden with climbing gear and archaeological equipment – on their backs.
Above them, soaring gracefully over the desert, was a small shape, a bird of prey.
It was a good fifteen minute walk from the helicopter landing site to the ziggurat, made impossibly sluggish as the civilians’ boots sank into the soft sand underfoot. Professor Woods didn’t mind walk; but he did mind the sun beating down on his unprotected head, having accidentally left his sunhat back at the helicopter in his desire to start exploring. Trailing behind the others, he observed his younger companion – a new addition to his team at the British Museum – veer off to the right, away from the rest of their party. He decided to follow, figuring that there were more than enough Assyriologists heading towards the ziggurat to explore that area and its surrounds.
Moving past the Processional Way that led to the Ishtar Gate, damaged in recent years due to
occupying forces, the professor strode off after the younger man. But his colleague was moving now at a phenomenal speed with lithe motility, and the middle-aged professor’s struggling efforts could barely keep up as soon the brass coloured curls were disappearing in the distance behind another mound of ruins.
Stumbling along, his throat parched and raw from his exertions, the professor came upon his colleague assessing a newly-formed crater in the earth.
‘My God!’ Professor Woods breathed, looking down the shaft into the hollow chamber beyond.
Something winked and sparkled momentarily from the dark recess below, exposed to the early morning sunlight.
The sharp excitement in the professor’s voice could barely be contained, ‘Do we have time? Do you think we might be able to...?’
‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ the British paratrooper pulling up the rear, armed to protect them, interjected, ‘We don’t have time for any detailed exploration of the site. We have only forty minutes on the ground. Take photos and measurements, by all means. But make it quick; we need to be back on that chopper in twenty. You can come back and excavate when this war is all over.’
At this, the professor’s younger colleague turned to face them, anger and determination written upon his handsome face. ‘I doubt we’ll get that opportunity. This cavity has been caused by mortar damage but has not, as yet, been explored ... By the time we come back it will have been looted and vandalised like the other sites we’ve visited. As an historian, I’m not about to let that happen.’
The paratrooper frowned. ‘With respect, Sir–’
‘I think my colleague’s right, young man,’ Robert Woods interrupted before the soldier had an opportunity to voice his concerns, deciding to muddy the waters as a senior member of this archaeological team, ‘Much of the reconstruction from ’85 to 2006 has been on top of unexplored and unexcavated monuments and artefacts. They’ve been preserved for thousands of years, buried under the sand. Exactly how long do you suppose they will remain in that condition when exposed to both the elements and to looters? We need to, at the very least, perform a preliminary survey.’
The paratrooper looked from one obstinate face to the other.
‘I think I’d better radio-in my commander,’ he stated, moving slightly away from the archaeologists to talk in hushed tones into his radio microphone.
The professor barely heard him, squinting down into the darkness beyond.
‘I’m going down,’ the younger man stated, stepping closer to the edge to lean into the yawning cavity for a better look, unafraid of falling in. Turning briefly back to face the paratrooper, he instructed, ‘Tell your team to bring the equipment.’
This time the soldier didn’t even bother to contradict, simply shaking his head in disbelief as he radioed-in his latest orders.
Within ten minutes they were surrounded by both members of the military troop and several archaeologists, including the Keeper of the British Museum’s Middle East Department who was quarrelling loudly with the soldier’s commander. The commander was insistent that they leave immediately but the Project Manager’s final statement, ‘And I’m telling you that this expedition is funded by the British Museum so the point’s moot.’ brought an end to the argument.
The soldiers busied themselves. The Assyriologists watched in tense silence. The observers shifted restlessly, aware suddenly of a musky, damp scent; of sweat that emphasized their nervousness; of an escalating excitement, anticipation and fear.
The chamber they were about to enter had not been opened for over two and a half thousand years, possibly since Babylonia had fallen to Cyrus, the ruler of the Persian empire, in the autumn of 539BC when indigenous rule over Mesopotamia finally came to an end. It was indeed a history-making find.
The soldiers drew back from the black yaw in the floor of the desert and inspected their labour. Anchors, runners, racking and other equipment had been rigged together for members of their mission to abseil down.
A strange odour crept up from the pit, disturbed by the soldiers’ endeavours – sweet, musty, the sickly stench of decay. The waft was distinct; a reminder of the long dead and buried. Trapped air and something else – like rotten apples – had stood guard over things mere mortals were not meant to see.
‘Could it be a chamber exists under the ziggurat that once stood on this spot?’ one historian posited.
‘Impossible. Ziggurats were not burial tombs. This isn’t Egypt,’ another replied.
A flare was lit and one of the soldiers stretched his arm into the hole. When the paratrooper nodded, the young archaeologist began readying himself for the descent.
‘I’ll go first,’ he declared.
But, at this, the military commander put his foot down; he wasn’t about to lose one of these precious academics under his care simply because the man had delusions of heroism. So it was decided; they would abseil down together – the young archaeologist, the British military commander and a few handpicked members of his crack team.
‘Be careful,’ Robert Woods murmured to his young colleague as he assisted him with his equipment, feeling only the slightest twinge of envy as he ruefully acknowledged that he had no head for heights, ‘and bon chance.’
In reply, the younger man gave a brief salute before double checking that his gear was securely fitted.
Then, properly harnessed, the men began a cautious descent.
The shaft was deeper than they had imagined, but narrow. The air was bland and tepid, like that of a cave. This might have been best explained as the ancient city, situated in the area of the Fertile Crescent, was in the land of the two rivers; the Euphrates and the Tigris. While the Nile, the vital water source of ancient Egypt, flooded regularly and more or less predictably once a year, the Tigris and Euphrates, the two rivers that irrigated Mesopotamia, were less certain in their behaviour. One, swifter than the other, running higher between banks. The other, more meandering and mutable. The Euphrates would often spell disaster for the cities it deserted, as well as necessitating constant repair and excavation of the irrigation canals that depended on it.
Because of the high water table at the site, hardly any archaeological data were known from periods earlier than the first millennium. In fact, there was little evidence that Babylon was anything other than a small town before the Old Babylonian period. But then again, excavation in southern Iraq had been constantly disrupted by war.
As they descended, the shaft became narrower still and more claustrophobic. Displaced earth trickled past. And the strange odour was nearly overpowering. But the fear of encountering subterranean waters below was the least of their concerns. The commander had not exaggerated the danger of hostilities in the area. Silence was maintained, except for the abseilers’ harsh breathing, magnified by their narrow confines in the shaft.
But curiosity got the better of apprehension.
They reached the bottom at last. Boots crunched loudly on shards of terracotta, clay, basalt, and alabaster was ground into dirt, as though old monuments, artefacts and reliefs had been smashed under the force of mortar damage or deliberately vandalised by invading armies.
Another flare was lit, throwing into relief the head of a viper ready to strike.
The soldier holding onto the flare instinctively stepped back.
Then the rest of the creature was revealed. The body of a reptile. The front legs of a lion. The back legs of an eagle. The glazed tile relief was identical to its brothers decorating the Ishtar Gate.
The young archaeologist spoke authoritatively, his voice rebounding off the walls as he attempted to take photographs of the find, ‘It’s a depiction of the mushussu, the dragon-like animal sacred to the god, Marduk.’
But his statement was meaningless to the men who were in the chamber with him. They had no interest in ancient history. Survival was all that mattered. Instead, they began walking in tight formation, flanking the archaeologist who would have spent longer if he had been given the chance surveying his surrounds. But the
ir intention was to press on and he was given no choice. The forty minutes they were meant to spend at this site had already been exceeded.
They passed another painting; as far as he could tell, identical to the first. These were covered in a thin layer of dust and grime. He couldn’t see if there was any sign of water damage and didn’t have the time to investigate further.
He glimpsed a flash of white marble ahead. This time, two sculpted marble wolves were lying prone yet alert at the end of the chamber.
But the wolves were not ancient Mesopotamian in origin. They came from another period and another culture. They were Macedonian. Babylonia, having been conquered and invaded by Persia, was then further conquered and invaded by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. But centuries separated Nebuchadrezzar II’s Babylon from when Alexander the Great had purportedly spent his last days at the city’s famous Hanging Gardens.
It didn’t make any sense. This was all wrong.
Then he saw it. What he’d truly come for. Resting on a golden altar.
Placed beneath a detailed frieze depicting a winged, bearded deity believed to represent one of the Mesopotamian gods hovering over a stylized Tree of Life, it drew the eye, leaving the beholder awed and spellbound.
He stepped closer. Carefully, with reverence, he removed the object from its place on the altar. Surprisingly, its exterior held no dirt or grime to betray its long slumber in the dark earth. Instead, its rich tones captured what little light there was in the chamber. It was surrounded by strange symbols and drawings, an indecipherable script.
‘What is it?’ one of the paratroopers asked, suddenly curious. ‘What are those symbols? Is it an ancient language?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you read it?’ the military commander demanded. ‘What does it say?’
‘Who cares what it says!’ interrupted another soldier, ‘What’s it worth?’
The young archaeologist from the British Museum paused before answering, his eyes never once leaving the artefact he held lovingly in his hands.
