“Corinthians,” Kotter mused.
“What?” Adam asked, turning to the man who now drew Arabic symbols in the sand with a dirty finger.
“Treachery,” the man said, looking up to Adam with those wide, hurt eyes. “Can’t you taste it in the air?”
Adam looked back to Keller.
“So where are we headed then?” he asked.
Keller sighed. “We stay as close to the mountains for as long as we can. After I’m sure we’ve passed Ali Sadr, we head due east until we run into the Caspian Sea…unless anyone has a better idea?”
“You think they’d be watching for us in Ali Sadr?” Kotter asked.
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
“If we don’t, then there’s no way we’ll make it to the retrieval site before our time runs out.”
“And if we do and they’re waiting for us there, we’ll never make it to the extraction point at all!”
“Mûwth,” the man said. He retraced the markings he had carved into the ground:
מףת
“What does that mean?” Thanh asked, lowering herself to her haunches to look into the man’s eyes.
“It is my name,” he said, matching her stare with rich brown irises, fathomless with depth.
“It’s Hebrew…” Kotter said.
When the man turned to face him, the markings on his face glistened like the black scales of a viper.
“It means death.”
Chapter 2
I
Northern Iran
“THERE’S A WAY THROUGH ALI SADR,” MÛWTH SAID WHEN THEY WERE nearly upon what appeared to be a fortress crafted from stone. The foothills themselves appeared to have grown toward the desert, leaving a massive pile of debris as though the mountains lording over them had broken free and tumbled eastward in the form of enormous rocks. Its walls were steep columns of sandstone, between which a multitude of wide fissures formed thin passageways leading into the heart of the monolith. Where the desert sands met with the abrupt uprising, they formed sloping dunes of loose sand, driven before the wind into the dead end, where they could be blown no more.
There was no way of scaling the nearly vertical walls that stood more than one hundred and fifty feet above their heads, not without the proper climbing gear, and even then, the sandstone was likely to crumble before allowing a post to be driven into it.
From where they stood in the shadow of the mountainous crag, there were only two options. Either they could head to the west into the mountains and risk the treacherous terrain, slowing their progress to the point that they were unlikely to reach the retrieval spot in time, or they could follow the face of the stone outcropping to the east, which would surely bring them right into Ali Sadr.
“We’re not going through Ali Sadr,” Keller growled, his jaw thrust forward from his reddened face in obvious frustration. He pressed himself to the cliff and reached for the first handhold he could find, which immediately crumbled away, dropping a scorpion the size of a man’s hand onto the sand. Even as the black creature arched its stinger to prepare to strike Keller’s boot, Mûwth raised his sun leathered, chapped and bleeding bare foot, and smashed the scorpion, grinding it beneath his callused sole.
“I did not mean that we must go through the town,” he said, raising his foot to pluck the carcass from where it was lodged into his flesh by the stinger. He ripped the entire tail portion from the squashed exoskeleton, innards squirting out in gray gobs, tossed it aside and offered the remainder to each of them in turn before taking several quick bites. “I only meant that we could bypass it entirely without detouring from our present course.”
Adam stared at the man. His voice dripped with an Arabic accent, but his English was nearly flawless. He was the furthest thing from the typical refugee who had passed through camp. Of course, none of them had shown the ability to heal with their touch, either.
“How?” Keller asked, planting his fists on his hips. He pinched his one functional eye against the desert sun.
“Forty years ago,” Mûwth began, his molten irises glazing over, “a young boy discovered a series of caves while looking for a lost goat. He was a shepherd, a simple peasant boy of no means. His mother died during his birth and he never even met his father. He was taken in by his maternal grandparents, who were the only surviving blood relatives as his mother had no siblings, and there was no way to even begin tracking his father’s lineage. He began shepherding the goats by the time he was seven, and it was said that the animals held an incredible affinity for him, that he could speak to them in their own tongue.”
“We’re wasting valuable time,” Keller said, eyeing the sun that was now descending from the apex of its journey. “Do you know a way around this or not?”
“All will be revealed if you will allow me to continue my story,” Mûwth said, looking patiently to Keller, who finally threw up his hands. “I was saying that the boy was able to communicate with the goats. When one wandered off from the herd, he could simply listen to the others to find out where it had gone. He was able to quickly track it down and file it back into rank.
“There was one day in particular when the boy was ten…a mischievous male slipped away from the herd. This was the biggest goat in the herd: long sharpened horns that could easily gore a man, a shaggy gruff like a lion’s mane, and a head so scarred from battling the other males that it looked as though his lumpy skull was exposed. When the boy noticed that the goat was gone, the others in the herd pointed to this very ridge before us, only several miles to the east. Many times the boy got close enough to the goat that he was able to see it, but each time he got close, the animal’s hind quarters caught fire with a brilliant orange and red flame like the setting sun. His twin horns glowed like two golden spires pointing to the heavens. So the boy continued following this animal, over hills and around stone pillars for many hours, each time the beast allowed him to come just a little closer until finally he cornered the creature before this very cliff.
“The goat stood before him for an eternal moment, fur ablaze, a fiery beard beneath his chin, horns forming a divine golden ‘V’. His eyes glowed a deep blue to shame an amethyst, to pale the sky, but before the boy could run to him, the goat turned and disappeared into the very mountain itself.
“It was this crevasse directly in front of us right now.”
“The same crevasse,” Keller repeated, no longer able to contain his frustration. “What the hell does this have to do with anything? By the time you’re done telling this story and my head stops spinning, we might as well just cut right through the center of town. Maybe a bullet might even be able to cure this headache you’re giving me!”
“Please,” Mûwth said, his soft eyes falling on Adam. “Come stand precisely where I am now.”
Adam walked over to Mûwth, who stepped aside just enough for Adam to sidle up next to him.
“What do you want me to—?”
“Look,” Mûwth said, his voice dripping with reverence.
As if by magic, the shape came into focus before him. The fissure in the rock formed the long bridge of a nose. Halfway up, a recessed ledge to either side of the fissure created ovular shadows that looked to be eyes chiseled from the stone face, though no human hand could have been so precise. Long ledges stretched to either side, furling with small plants to look like the curled hair on the tip of triangular ears, which sloped back toward the face to form the rounded swelling of the cheeks. Two more cracks, each symmetrical to the central crevasse arose from above the ears to the very top of the rock, tapering as they climbed until they reached twin points through which the early afternoon sun shown like the golden horns of the mythical goat.
He took a step to the left, and the face vanished as though it had never been.
One step to the right and it appeared again. That particular point was the only such vantage to bring the features into alignment.
“What is it?” Thanh asked.
“Stand right here,” Adam said, p
ulling her directly in front of him so that he could still see over her ebony hair. His hands cradled her shoulders.
“You’ve got to see this,” she said, looking first to Keller, then to Kotter.
“So this boy stood on the same ground that is beneath your feet right now, and watched the burning goat slip into that crack and disappear,” Mûwth continued as Keller slid into place behind Thanh. “The boy followed, led by the flicker of flames staining the walls from the goat that stayed just ahead of him, just out of sight, leading him deeper and deeper into the mountain itself until the boy reached the end of the path.
“The goat was no longer there. Instead, four hoof prints burned around a crumbled section of sandstone, as though the creature had balanced himself against the wall and then disappeared. The boy fell to his hands and knees between the rear prints, still burning a bright red, and began un-stacking the crumbled boulders and moving them to the side. Finally, after creating a mound of rocks nearly identical to the first, with the setting sun staining the sky as red as a goat’s blood, the boy uncovered a dark hole. He continued shoving the rocks aside until it was wide enough to accommodate his shoulders and slithered into the hole like a snake.
“Within this mountain of sand and stone were wonders that took his breath away. He found himself in a cave filled with water that stretched clear off into darkness as thick as tar. Droplets fell from the stalactites above like the patter of feet on the still, hidden lake. The boy realized that this had been a gift revealed to him by the spirit of the goat, a gift presented to him and him alone. Wading into the warm water, he swam deeper into the darkness, until the first cave opened into a second, and from there, a labyrinth unfolded before him. He swam through the night, winding through cave after cave until finally he reached a point where the rising sun shone like a light from God’s eye through a hole in the earthen roof above. The water shimmered with a pristine clarity as though the fluid itself was made from liquefied diamonds. Deeper down, where the sunlight pierced the water’s depths and spotlighted a halo on the cavern floor, something blazed with a brilliance even more breathtaking than the light itself.
“The boy dove beneath the crystalline surface, swimming deeper and deeper until the glow hurt his eyes and he had to shield them from the glare. Deeper still he swam until his breath had nearly staled in his chest and he began to doubt that he would be able to reach the surface even if he turned around right then. Yet something spurred him on, some force that held him as though with a giant’s fist driving him all the way to the bottom. His eyes closed, he slid his hand along the smooth bottom until his fingertips touched the arced edge of the creation, wrapping it tightly in his palm and swimming swiftly toward the surface, this time propelled from beneath on an unseen current.
“When he breached the surface, he held the circular medallion high over his head in triumph. The boy took too much credit for his discovery though, and was thus pricked by the prize, allowing but a single drop of blood to roll from his hand and over his wrist. When that lone drop of blood slipped free and dropped into the clear water, the entire lake around him changed to blood.
“Eventually, he emerged from the caves, on the other side of this mountain before you now, dripping with crimson fluid. No one believed the boy’s story. The boy was accused of slaughtering the goat, whether for sport or for profit, and received a lashing that nearly killed him. You see his mother’s parents were simple shepherds themselves, working the land for a powerful man who provided the scraps from his table in exchange for the sweat of their toil. The boy knew that the golden medallion would more than cover the cost of the goat, yet he kept it hidden from his master, preferring instead a hundred lashings that opened his flesh as though the cords had been knives, disfiguring him to the point that people feared his hideous visage.”
“So, you’re saying there’s a way around Ali Sadr through a system of caves ahead of us?” Thanh asked.
“If the folklore is true,” Keller amended.
“Oh, I assure you that it is true,” Mûwth said.
“I’m sure you can,” Keller sighed. “We’re burning daylight. I’m the ranking officer now, so—”
“I was that boy.”
“You said that was forty years ago. There’s no way you’re fifty! You don’t look a day over thirty,” Kotter said, chuckling. “We’re just losing time now.”
“Is it proof that you require?” Mûwth said, a sly smile creeping into the corners of his upturned lips. He grabbed either side of the tattered, bloodstained fabric across his chest and ripped it wide with a sound like tearing denim.
His chest was covered with deep black markings that reminded Adam of the tribal designs of the Pacific Islanders: parallel lines turning to squares, widening into sweeping arcs, then turning back on themselves before moving in another direction entirely. It almost looked as though if he placed the tip of a pen at the man’s jugular notch, he could weave through the design like some sort of maze.
“It’s a map,” he whispered.
“As I said, the scars were unsightly, so I hid them beneath this design so I could find my way back again.”
“So where’s the medallion?” Keller asked.
The man pointed to a small whorl above his navel.
“It is waiting for us right here. It is the heart of the mountain. You will feel its pulse the moment you set foot in the water as though you’ve tapped the very lifeblood of the earth.”
“This is absurd!” Keller blurted.
“I assure you, sir,” Mûwth said, “I make no attempt to mislead you. I believe God showed me this place to prepare me for this very day, to lead you through the heart of the mountain. I believe this to be my destiny.”
“If my theory’s right, we can’t trust him,” Keller said, turning to the others, making sure to match their gaze one at a time. “For all we know, there could be a dozen Syrian troops in there waiting to slaughter us! We’re at war now, remember? We can’t afford to trust anyone!”
“Keller—” Thanh started.
“No, no. Why don’t we just go ahead and follow this Arab we don’t know into a dead end and hope that whatever mystical fate he believes to be—”
“Shhh,” Mûwth whispered.
The man moved with fluid grace, eliminating the distance between himself and Keller before the much larger man even suspected that he was coming. Keller tried to throw himself backward to the sand, tried to raise his firearm, but the darker man was so fast. He clapped his hand over Keller’s face, thin tendrils of smoke issuing from beneath the man’s palm.
It happened so quickly that none of the others even flinched, let alone thought to separate the men.
Keller opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. His legs gave out beneath him and dropped him to his knees before Mûwth.
“Arise,” Mûwth said, peeling his hand from Keller’s forehead. A red palm print crossed the bridge of his nose, the blunt edge of the palm circling his right eye, four fingers drawn across his left. “I trust that now you can see more clearly.”
Keller’s eyelids fluttered as though adjusting to a bright light after walking out of a dark room. No more than a moment prior, his right eye had been a useless, deteriorating sphere of dehydrated flesh. Now, that iris looked all around as though seeing everything for the first time.
“Christ almighty,” Keller whispered, running his hand in front of his face. “What did you do to me?”
“Are you ready to follow the path ahead?” Mûwth asked.
All of the others watched in silence.
“Yeah,” Keller said, rising from his knees. He rubbed his eye with a balled fist, then opened it quickly as though he expected it all to have been an illusion. “Lead the way.”
Keller whirled to face the crack leading into the side of the mountain.
Thanh recoiled, slapping her hands over her mouth to stifle a gasp.
Keller’s left eye was still as blue as a Caribbean coast, while the right had turned grapefruit red,
the pupil a fathomless pinprick of darkness.
* * *
The hole had been there as promised, though it had taken a few minutes to drag away more of the fallen sandstone to widen the opening enough to accommodate Keller’s broad shoulders. Mûwth was the first through that ragged maw into the impregnable darkness. A skittering of small stones trailed his skidding descent down a short slope, followed by the muted sounds of splashing.
Keller crawled through next, sliding down into the water with a splash.
“Can you see anything?” Thanh bellowed through the opening.
“Not much,” Keller called back, his voice echoing, betraying the enormity of the cavern.
Thanh slowly dropped her right leg through the opening, transferring her weight gingerly downward while she ducked her head. The darkness swallowed her whole, issuing but the sound of a pair of soft footfalls before a splash.
Adam looked to Kotter, who simply nodded and lowered himself to all fours and climbed through the opening into the pitch black. Adam was already on his hands and knees, scurrying through the opening and down the smooth rock surface inches behind. Loose gravel gave way to some sort of slime or mold, slicking the already polished surface. Adam heard Kotter suck in a deep breath a split second before he dropped into the waiting water.
“I can’t see a thing,” Adam whispered, the sheer size of the cave inspiring a sense of reverence, as though he had just walked into an ornate European cathedral. “How in the world are we supposed to—?”
He was swallowing water before his body even felt the fall.
Jerking his head above the surface, he spat out a mouthful of the vile fluid, and then retched until he finally caught his breath.
“For Chrissakes,” he coughed, dredging up more filth-infested saliva. “It tastes like sulfur!”
The Fall Page 7
