The Phoenician Code

by Karim El Koussa

  The Church is at work… Paul grinned.

  .20.

  The Mystery Chamber, Gebel

  Saturday, October 30, 10:15 PM

  It was Friday afternoon when Paul received yet another email from Padre Joseph with three encrypted paragraphs. The first was about the investigation the Police had been meticulously undertaking, and the hidden message revealed that they had found a strange mark, branded with a heated iron on the victims’ chests.

  Police experts in ancient symbols had suggested that the odd mark they’d found on the bodies resembled the 18th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet: Tsaddi, (ץ).

  It took him about ten seconds to realize that these events were unfolding in a very mysterious and perilous way. His life could be at stake, so were the life of his friends and the Padre’s. His heart throbbed as he felt the blood draining from his face. He could hear his own breathing, as it dawned on him that this letter could mean death. “Death!” he wondered aloud.

  Without another thought, Paul stood up, left the table where he had his laptop, and walked to the balcony. He just wanted to be in a place where he could breathe easier, see clearer, and think more calmly. He just wanted to pull himself together. I can’t possibly back off now! he thought again. Although death was a tough enemy to defeat or escape, he strongly believed that he had succeeded in escaping from it back in Montreux.

  Back in front of his laptop, minutes later, he began decoding the second and third paragraphs, in which the Padre asked him to go to the Archaeological Site in Gebel, and get into the underground chamber of the Great Phoenician Temple, without being noticed by the Police, who were guarding the place. He was to look for the Cup of Life, placed on the Great Altar, as the sketch on the Stone had shown. The last sentence said, ‘Should you find it, Paul, take it immediately, and keep it in a safe place away from Gebel.’

  A shudder ran down his back. Paul couldn’t believe the complexity of the mission Padre Joseph had entrusted him with at such a critical time. He left the house, and walked down to the beach. Perched on the rock that had hosted one of his former moments of meditation, located almost in the middle of the sandy shore, he observed the orange-red disk sliding down to meet the Mediterranean Sea. An encounter of the two elements of Nature occurred—Fire and Water. In a way, similar to that of the Pythagorean brothers, the Historian silently indulged in an exam of conscience, and moments passed.

  At the first signs of nightfall, on the second day, he decided to face with courage whatever was hidden underneath the Great Phoenician Temple. Surprisingly, Padre Joseph’s voice murmured soothingly in his mind, and at once, he resolutely walked into the Archaeological Site, surpassing the Police squad, installed there to secure the area, and hid behind an ancient wall, close to the ruins of the Phoenician Temple.

  From there, Paul tried to assess the exact location of the entrance stone that lead to the underground chamber. This stone he knew well, for he had marked it with a special symbol, which no one else would recognize. In fact, he had been the one to cover the hole, after receiving the Padre’s call, beckoning them to leave.

  When the blue sky turned dark-blue, and a few lit spots appeared, twinkling now and then through its infinite surface, Paul crawled down towards the Temple, and lied down next to the stone, hearing footsteps approaching from behind. He lingered breathless for some time until silence reigned again.

  Silently and cautiously, he began digging through the ground and around the stone, using only a tiny light from his mobile phone, a hand pick, and a trowel, which Maya had left behind, in the midst of their escape, last week. Half an hour later, he had managed to move the stone enough, to allow him a narrow entrance into the chamber. Realizing he was on the verge of success, he tied himself to a thick brown rope he had previously fixed to a large rock nearby, shoved the stone farther away, and slinked into the hole, a meter down. Still hanging, he pushed the stone shut from the inside, leaving a small gap for the rope to pass through, and sloped easily all the way down, until his feet touched the ground.

  “I’m Ok… I’m Ok!” he muttered, assuring himself.

  There was a long silence, as he held his breath in apprehension, wrapped in total darkness. He then took the flare that he had in his jacket and flashed it in front of him.

  “Oh! Mother of God!” he uttered, and the thought reached his ears in sporadic beats that added to his dread. Paul gasped for air, quicker, deeper…

  The rotten smell that met his senses conveyed the first warning that he was trespassing into a long-forgotten past, perhaps thousands of years old, forbidden underground. Paul waved the flare on the ground, revealing layers of dust, patches of mud and, here and there, a multihued floor, lying beneath.

  Mosaics!? he mulled over, as he sank to his knees in a swift motion, frantically sweeping away the dirt. The exposed scene rendered him speechless and motionless, as he gazed in total awe, at the Mosaic image of the legendary Phoenix, holding a Cedar branch on its right talon, and engaging in what looked to be an eternal combat against an ugly devilish beast, trying to take hold of a world map.

  “What’s that on the walls?” he mumbled, breaking his idle state of bewilderment. His words, although barely audible, bounced back in an uncanny echo that agitated him, “Walls… walls… walls…”

  He gasped aloud. Amused by his instincts of self-preservation, he shuddered. His pupils widened, to take in the surroundings. The first thrill of discovery dimmed, in light of this new, bloodcurdling situation. Paul swallowed with difficulty. Spiders had spun their webs all along the walls, capturing all sorts of hideous insects, from flies to cockroaches. Even small reptiles couldn’t escape the spiders’ many traps. And some insect’s wings were still fluttering. A few serpents’ skins lay scattered around, or hanging loose from the crevices between the ancient stones of what, he believed, was a copy of the Ritual Chamber of the Great Phoenician Temple. He took a deep breath.

  Out of irritation, surely not fear, he unconsciously shook his hands up and down, as if something had stuck to them. He hastened to reassure himself with a forced grin that he would get rid of this feeling in a moment. He flashed some light on the rusted torches he’d noticed hanging from the walls, and proceeded to clean up the walls in spasmodic, random movements, revealing bizarre shapes, numbers, and inscriptions.

  “Wow! It’s beautiful!” he exclaimed then heaved a sigh. He experienced the Historian’s sense of awe, in admiration of the amazing work of the Ancients.

  In the middle of the room stood an Altar of cubical shape, flanked on either side by an odd pillar, just as the sketch had shown, but something strange caught his attention and perplexed him. On the roughly pointed top of the left pillar rested a golden stone. It sparkled in a yellowish light, adding even more light to the Mystery Chamber. The other stone, perching on the top of the right pillar, glowed in a reddish-purple light, somewhat similar to a crimson-rosy color, a precious stone, a kind of ruby.

  Yet, something about the tarnished wall behind the Great Altar attracted his interest even further. He realized that there was more to that façade. In frantic expectation, he shoved away the spiders’ webs, thick with ages, and nervously dug his shaky fingers in the patches of soil, hardened by time. Paul could almost perceive his heartbeats, echoing in the arcane chamber; heartbeats that almost came to a standstill, when he stepped back to scrutinize his discovery.

  The ancient wall revealed what looked like a Phoenician priest, skillfully painted, performing a sacred rite, the finest ever, that of Wine and Bread, here shown, lifting his hands towards the ceiling, as in sacrifice. Paul looked up in that direction, and was surprised to see that the ceiling stretched out in a perfectly clean condition! Amazingly, time had spared the beauty of the painted blue sky above him, enhanced with the Zodiac. The Taurus Constellation took shape, predominantly, among all other constellations, and finally, the seven heavenly bodies in a rotational movement.

  “The Constellation of Taurus… The celestial sign of Thot-Taautus…” Paul
whispered aloud, remembering his friend, Jim, and marveling at how the eye of the artist in him had been able to perceive it, in the odd inscription written on the Stone.

  He stood speechless with admiration, gawking all around the place, where a fine harmony of colors; purple, green, and turquoise pervaded. Astonished at his discovery, and the twist of fate that had brought him here, he reveled in the presence of a unique work of the Ancients’ most refined art.

  A resurrection of the past! A treasure! he thought, and the sound of his thoughts produced a bizarre resonance in his whole being. An impression of déjà vu dazzled him unexpectedly. He breathed deeply, trying to concentrate, in order to extract from the depths of his memories images similar to these. From a time, far away, shapes and colors surged, swiveled, and materialized, as his mind dazed before the similarities. He gasped, mystified, thinking about the sketch on the Stone and the Seven-Pillared Temple of the Kabbirim.

  Time came to a halt as Paul came closer, carefully, to expand on his investigation, analyzing the precious golden and purple stones. His intuition told him that there must be something hidden here, somewhere on the surface of the Pillars. He searched for some engraved inscription, anything that would confirm his hidden expectation. His moves became slower, cautious not to miss any sign, his hands sweeping the surface of the Right Pillar, removing the dust, as he explored it, bit by bit, respectfully. His fingers halted at an indistinct shape. Time stood still. The vine!? On the Left Pillar, An ear of wheat!? he wondered. Uncertain, he drew closer, in order to scrutinize the engraving, when he suddenly heard a mysterious sound coming from the Great Altar, standing almost three meters away in the center of the Pillars.

  Paul seemed troubled as he walked towards it, his mind now focused on the beautifully ancient, cubical shape ahead of him. There was no sound at all, total silence. He wasn’t even sure he had heard anything in the first place. Perhaps, after all, the mystic chamber had affected him in some way, or maybe a metaphysical phenomenon had directed his unconscious mind towards the Altar.

  Reverently, almost religiously, he stood there, waiting for something to happen. It was then that he saw it. There, on the Great Altar’s perfectly smooth surface rested a Cedar-wood box, supported by an old iron stand.

  “What is that?” he asked himself aloud with a frown, as he rubbed his jaw in perplexity. ‘This is a box, not a cup,” he muttered under his breath. “Could it be… the Cup of Life!?” came his own reply in a hesitantly bewildered voice.

  Silence prevailed for few moments, before Paul managed to walk further ahead towards the Altar, to observe the box from all sides without touching it. Minutes passed as if in slow motion. Then, with gentle blows, he cleared the ancient dust off the box, and a superb aroma of Cedar wood gushed out, alerting all his senses.

  “Shall I take it off?” he asked himself, speculating.

  Completely hesitant, his hand faltered. A mixture of anxiety, fear, and excitement invaded him, impeding him from any other thought. His mind stimulated his imagination, which expanded in its own dimension. Then, without any further delay, he tried to lift the box from its iron stand, but it did not budge. Yet, suddenly, as if his efforts had triggered a secret engine of some sort, a shade materialized slowly on the lid of the box, clearly outlining the shape of what appeared to be, the palm of a human hand, the right hand!

  A loud gasp echoed throughout the Mystery Chamber. Dumbfounded, he remained completely still for a few seconds. However, the Historian in him began to think like the Alchemist in his teammate, Youmna, believing that—since the box could not be the Cup of Life he was searching for—it could be naught but the holder of the Philosopher’s Stone she had been searching for all her life. Yet, is there any difference between both mysterious objects? he mused.

  Wondering how this had happened, how the mark had appeared when it had not been there a moment ago; he started to think like the Alchemist again. It might be a chemical process, he thought. A Para-psychological phenomenon! he speculated. It seemed to Paul that when he had tried to move the box, shaking it slightly, something chemical might have evolved within, and hence, have caused the human palm to surface on the lid, after arising from lethargy.

  A few seconds passed before it dawned on him like a thunderbolt. “The palm of the hand is the key to open the box,” he mumbled, reasoning.

  “Shall I open it?” he asked himself with anxiety in his voice.

  Paul was watchful, yet his curiosity proved stronger than his uncertainty; a brilliant idea had formed in his mind. His right palm might fit the mark on the Cedar box. There is no way to back off now, he figured.

  He held his breath, as he edged closer, and all too slowly stretched out his hand, wavered a moment, in which he swallowed audibly, and then hastened to place his palm on the mark. The lid split open soundlessly, moments later. A breeze of ancient air seeped out. Out of the Cedar box, a tablet of marble emerged. Bemused, he swiftly sprinted back, and gasped at the phenomenon that unfurled slowly on the tablet. One by one, the letters of the Phoenician Alphabet took shape, as if an invisible hand was drawing them for him.

  Blazed with light, one letter—the 18th—floated up to the ceiling, in strange circular movements. The light it cast inundated the Ritual Room, and dazzled his eyes. The Capricorn constellation that the Ancient artificers had depicted on the lowest part of the blue sky, above his head, shone fiercely. At once, the Mystery Chamber beamed with a heavy, alarming presence.

  Hanging in the air, amid the constellation, the letter of Death, Tsaddi, darted towards him like a ball of fire, like lux-feros! It stopped abruptly in front of him, faced him, and then hovered quietly above him. There was a different kind of sensation inside the Mystery Chamber that Paul felt—a unique and weird sense of strain. He totally ignored the outcome of the next phase, yet his eyes were still open, vacant.

  What was the ball of fire waiting for? He thought. His heart pumped faster. When he least expected it, a moment later, the light magnified, blinding him, and dispatching him into the unknown as a gloomy silence filled the place.

  .21.

  The creature from hell

  Saturday, October 30, 11:06 PM

  Turning and spinning at an extremely high speed, the ball of fire suddenly exploded and gave birth to a dwindling human-like form and to a great darkness. Paul leaped back, horrified. His heart felt whacked by the explosion and by the hazy human figure under the dim light of the torches. The blood seemed to have frozen in his veins. With great efforts, he gathered his courage and strength to face the nameless entity with such an atypical human form. From under its black hood, two shafts of light pierced Paul’s eyes, attempting to penetrate his mind… Or was it my soul he had aimed at? he thought.

  At the strength of its stare, where creepy shadows alternated with fiery sparks, Paul promptly lowered his. A filthy smell swamped the Ritual Room, nearly suffocating him. Paul breathed repeatedly, panting for clean air, but the presence of the entity became more and more offensive, and in an instinct of survival, Paul braced himself to defend the territory he claimed as his, against the incursion of a terrorist force.

  Was it an illusion? Yet… it looked so real. Was it Lucifer? How can I succeed in getting it out of here? his thoughts rushed in torment.

  “You have something that I need,” the voice rose, throaty, metallic.

  The Historian swallowed hard, but stood firm on his ground, wondering if the entity could read the hidden terror on his face.

  “If you give me what I need, I’ll give you everything in return,” its voice drifted gruffly through the short distance that separated them.

  “I know you’re a Historian who travels the world, to speak about your research. I can make this easy for you. I can make you succeed in attracting the minds of the intellectual community all around the globe. Isn’t that what you want?” it asked in an alluring tone of voice that seemed irresistible in its temptation. “I can offer you international exposure, allow you access to the mainstream marketpl
ace all over the world, and write your name in the Hall of Fame.”

  Paul did nothing but remain motionless. He had the impression that the black robe, which draped the strange entity, camouflaged something underneath, yet he could not fathom what it was exactly. Instantaneously, the entity sputtered angrily at Paul’s silence, obviously impatient. Then, in a swift motion that left Paul in dismay, the entity clapped its hands sturdily, transporting them—in the blink of an eye—out of the Mystery Chamber, and onto the top of a small mountain.

  “Never mind! I can do better than that,” it said. “Do you see this?” it pointed at one of the most beautiful mansions Paul had ever seen in his life, or even in his wildest dreams. “I can give it to you!”

  Paul glanced at the entity with doubt and caution. Who could it be, to express such generosity? Who might this entity be that seemed to have such great power of control? These questions harassed his reasoning.

  “Oh… oh, I can actually give you a lot more,” it spat with arrogance, before it pivoted on itself, clapped its hands again, and his conjuring power shoved them right into a showroom, where the most luxurious cars’ latest models lay displayed.

  “Just pick any your heart desires, and it’s yours,” it loudly proclaimed, its hands opened towards the various models. “What else do you want? A yacht? It’s yours,” its hands waved in the air, and a luxurious yacht appeared in front of them. “No? What then? A jet? You can have that too.” It enticed Paul again with a glamorous, private jet. “Maybe both, I suppose… ah!” It sneered and snorted, watching the temptation, as it coursed through the man. Paul did not answer, too startled to do so.