Kajin and Vampyr walked in. Vampyr halted on a narrow ledge overlooking a huge cavern. Light that hurt Vampyr’s eyes reflected down from a five-meter orb overhead. The far end of the cavern was a half mile away and the walls, which Vampyr recognized, were curved. When last he had seen them, they had been open to the light of the sun and stars. A hundred feet below was something else Vampyr had last seen under an open sky: the Black Sphinx.
“The Hall of Records,” Kajin said. “The Grail is within. The Ark and sword, though, are gone.”
“The Ark? What sword? Who took them?”
“When the Israelites rebelled, a woman and man came here. They knew the tunnels. They were able to get into the Black Sphinx, as they had their own key with them. They took the Ark and the Grail, and the great sword Excalibur, and left, joining the Israelites in their Exodus. Forty years later, one of my order came here with the Grail and put it back inside. Then he left with the key and went far away. I do not know any more than that.”
Vampyr had never heard of this Ark or the sword Excalibur. He suspected the man and woman who had come here were the same that had freed him so many years ago — Donnchadh and Gwalcmai. Troublemakers. Trying to upset the order of things, something Vampyr could understand quite well. The woman had said she hated the Airlia Gods, and that was also something Vampyr felt a kinship to.
Stairs cut out of the rock itself led down to the floor on which the Sphinx rested. Its paws extended almost sixty feet in front of the head, which rose seventy feet above the floor. The body stretched one hundred and eighty feet back from the head, making the whole thing almost three hundred feet long. Between the paws was a statue about three yards tall, which Vampyr recognized — a statue of Horus, one of the six original Airlia.
“You have no idea where your order hid the key?” To have the Grail so close yet be unable to get to it grated on him.
“None. He who took it never returned.”
Vampyr cursed. He believed the Watcher, as it was what he would have done.
“Take me to where they sleep.” “It is guarded.”
“Take me there.” “You will not—”
“Now.”
Kajin’s shoulders slumped in resignation. He led the way, moving through the tunnels. Three times he opened hidden doors. They were going deeper into the Roads than Vampyr had ever been.
Kajin paused. “The way beyond is guarded by the golden spider. We can use the cloaks to hide from it, but if we move, it will come to us.”
“How far is it to where they sleep?” Vampyr asked.
“The corridor beyond goes straight for twenty feet, then splits into two branches. The Gods sleep to the right. To the left is another duat, directly underneath the Great Pyramid.”
“What is in that duat?”
“A horrible weapon that my father said could destroy the entire plateau.”
“Is there another door to the chamber where the Gods sleep?” “No. This is the last door.”
“You will open this door, then you will go to the left, toward the weapon,” Vampyr said. “If you do that, I will let your brother and mother live.”
Comprehension came over Kajin’s face in a cascade of emotion. Fear, anger, then resignation. “Why should I trust you?” “Because you have no choice.”
Kajin put the medallion to the wall and another hidden door appeared and slid open.
“Go,” Vampyr ordered.
Kajin took a deep breath, pulled his gray cloak tight about his body, then entered. Vampyr watched him as he went straight, then turned left. Vampyr remained perfectly still, and his patience was rewarded as the strange glowing gold creature with black metal legs appeared, scuttling across the intersection from right to left.
Vampyr then sprinted into the lowest level. He turned right and the tunnel descended. He saw a red glow ahead and skidded to a halt when he came into a large chamber. There were six platforms on which rested black tubes. Vampyr ran to the closest. The lights on the control panel were dark. He realized this tube had been either Isis’s or Osiris’s and was empty. He moved to the next. Also dark.
The third was lit. Vampyr tapped in the commands shutting the tube down. The screen went dark. He moved to the next three, doing the same thing.
A scream echoed into the chamber from the corridor outside.
Vampyr saw a rack of six spears, the ones the Gods had used against him and the others so long ago. He grabbed one on his way out of the chamber. He ran up the tunnel but just before he reached the intersection the golden spider appeared, blood dripping from two of its metal legs. Vampyr leveled the spear and slid his finger into an indentation on the grip. He pressed it and a golden bolt came out of the end of the spear and hit the orb. The creature was knocked back several feet and Vampyr fired again, smashing it against the walls. The legs gave way and it fell to the ground, inert.
Vampyr stepped over it to the intersection. He paused. Kajin had said there was a powerful weapon in the other duat. Vampyr knew there were other Gods, sleeping in other places. The high priests had been certain of that and Aspasia’s Shadow had confirmed it. A powerful weapon could be useful.
It could also be dangerous.
Time was pressing. Vampyr headed for the surface, arriving at the place where he had left the Watcher family, not surprised to find they had fled and left the outer door open. He exited onto the side of the Great Pyramid. Dawn was not far off and he had a feeling Aspasia’s Shadow wasn’t either.
Turning to the west, Vampyr fled into the desert, heading for the spot where he had left his tube.
Mount Sinai, Arabian Peninsula: 671 B.C.
It wasn’t the tallest peak in the region, a mountain to the southeast being a few hundred feet taller, but it dominated the terrain all around. The locals called it Jabal Mosa for the Hebrew leader who had brought his people here on their Exodus from captivity in Egypt on the way to Israel. Of course, if one drew a straight line from Egypt to Israel, Jabal Mosa was not anywhere close to being on that line.
Even before the Israelites came to the foot of the mountain, the place was one of reverence for the people of the desert. They worshipped the moon God, Sin, for whom the entire peninsula was named, but the mountain was one they feared and avoided. There was always a cloud around the top of the peak, even on the clearest day, a most unnatural thing.
There was rumor of a creature, who might be a god but looked like a man, named Al-Iblis, who haunted the mountain and the surrounding area and who traveled to Egypt and other distant lands on occasion. This legend stretched so far back in time, that none had heard of a time when the shadow of Al-Iblis did not stretch over the desert.
Deep inside Jabal Mosa, which the Christians would not rename Mount Sinai for several centuries, Aspasia’s Shadow had cultivated his persona as Al-Iblis among the people of the desert for centuries. He had no Airlia blood running through his veins and thus was required every normal life span to return to Mount Sinai to have a new body regenerated and his memories and personality implanted into the new clone, much as he had been “born” with Aspasia’s memory and personality so many years before.
He carried these memories in a small device that hung on a chain around his neck in the form of two hands outstretched in prayer. It was called a ka and he kept it as updated as possible. Against the unlikely event he died while away from Mount Sinai, a fresh body was always ready in the regeneration tube and the memories through his last visit were in the Guardian computer. If he did not return by a specified year, the memories would be implanted, the body brought up to speed, and Aspasia’s Shadow would live once more, lacking only the most recent memories since the last update.
As alarms sounded and the Guardian informed him of the trouble in Egypt — that someone had penetrated the Roads of Rostau — Aspasia’s Shadow had other matters on his mind. He had just returned from a foray into the Mediterranean to assess the burgeoning civilization in Greece. He was impressed with what the humans were accomplishing, but they were millenni
a away from being a threat to Aspasia, who was his charge. However, the journey had taken a toll on his body and a fall from a horse while traversing Anatolia, which would later become Turkey, had wrenched his back, leaving him in agonizing pain.
Aspasia’s Shadow walked up to the Guardian computer — a golden pyramid buried deep in a chamber inside the mountain — and sat in a chair just in front of the ten-foot-high object. A golden glow came out of the Guardian and encompassed him. His body hurt, not only from the bad back but also from the arthritis that often plagued a human body beginning to succumb to age. He was immediately updated on the situation in Egypt from the various surveillance devices hidden there by the Airlia.
Great changes had occurred while he had been away and Aspasia’s Shadow slowly reviewed them.
The Assyrians had overthrown the Pharaoh and held sway in the land. And Vampyr had infiltrated the Roads and shut down the tubes of the four remaining Airlia. Aspasia’s Shadow was not surprised by that. He knew the power of vengeance and he had let Vampyr live this long, expecting such an outcome sooner or later. The six Airlia who had been left in Egypt had overstepped the mandate given them by Aspasia prior to his departure to Mars with the rest of his followers to go into the deep sleep. They were supposed to set up a civilization with instructions to get the Great Pyramid built as a signal into space, not set themselves up as Gods. The last four had finally gone into the deep sleep — following two thousand years of rule— after the Undead had rebelled and killed Isis and Osiris.
The pyramid plan had failed. It had been built by one of the Pharaohs according to the plans passed down, but rather than signaling more Airlia, it had drawn in the Ancient Enemy of the Airlia, a spacefaring race known as the Swarm. The Airlia had immediately ordered the smooth limestone facing of the massive pyramid — which sent a massive radar signature out into space — to be torn off and the plan abandoned. Thus there was no longer a need for the four Airlia who slept beneath Giza and Aspasia’s Shadow felt no great loss at their deaths.
Aspasia’s Shadow had been imprinted with Aspasia’s memories and personalities, but layered on top of them were millennia of his own experience as a human on Earth. He was no longer that which he had been set up to be. He had awareness, a dangerous thing to give to something that is just supposed to be a tool. He knew that he existed simply to serve a purpose and that once that purpose was fulfilled and Aspasia came out of the deep sleep on Mars and returned — or Artad came out of his deep sleep under Qian-Ling in China — that the war would be renewed, one side would win, and he would no longer be needed regardless of which side won.
If Artad won, Aspasia’s Shadow knew he was doomed. But in a strange way, he had enough of Aspasia’s personality to know that even if his side won, he was also doomed. Aspasia would not allow a creature that held so much of his essence to live. Either way, the future was bleak if left to run its obvious course.
That was one of the reasons he had not bothered to track down either of the surviving Undead. They were a wild card that not only made things more interesting, but added potential allies, depending on how the future developed. One thing he could count on was their hatred of the Airlia.
With a sigh of pain, Aspasia’s Shadow left the Guardian chamber. He went down a stone passageway to another chamber. Inside, a body floated in a large vat of green fluid, a black tube pumping air into the mouth, thence to the lungs. The head was shaved and covered by a skullcap, with several dozens leads running from it to a main line connected to the command console. The body’s eyes were open but showed no sign of intelligence. Next to the vat was a black tube, similar in size and shape to the sleep tubes used by the Undead.
It was time to pass on.
Aspasia’s Shadow went to the control console and put his hands over the backlit hexagonal display. Quickly he tapped out a sequence, just as he had done hundreds of times in the past. The lid to the black tube swung up, revealing a contoured interior designed to fit his body.
Aspasia’s Shadow removed the ka from around his neck and slid it, two arms forward, into the small holes on the right side of the console. It fit tightly and a small six-sided section next to it glowed orange, indicating it was in place.
Aspasia’s Shadow went to the black tube. He stripped naked and lay down inside. The lid lowered onto him, trapping him in utter darkness. A few probes lightly touched his head, injecting painkillers. There were several minutes of stillness as the top of his head became numb. Then nanoprobes slid out of the lining of the tube into his brain, tapping into the needed sections for update.
His memories and experiences since the last download were transferred to the ka and the probes withdrew. Aspasia’s Shadow took a shallow breath, never prepared for what came next, because he didn’t know what it was going to be like. It was the one memory that was never transferred.
Out of small pockets in the lining of the tube, black particles, the size of grains of sand, were expelled onto his naked skin.
He screamed helplessly into the darkness of the tube as the particles dissolved flesh, muscle, and bone from the outside inward, triggering every pain response the body had. The only positive aspect was that it lasted for barely five seconds before the body was gone.
The console hummed as the data in the ka was integrated with the basic profile of Aspasia, then sent to the figure in the glass tube through the line, into the wires and thus to the brain. The imprinting took slightly over a minute. The probes were withdrawn from the figure’s head.
The eyes blinked, awareness filling them as Aspasia’s Shadow came to life once more. The green fluid drained, leaving Aspasia’s Shadow lying on the tube’s floor, trying to get oriented. The tube slid up and he tentatively stepped out. He wiped himself off with a towel, then pulled on the garments that had been left by his previous incarnation.
Dressed, he paused, staring at the black tube that had held his former self. A shiver passed through him, knowing that he would bring this body to that tube sometime in the future. Already, the green vat was humming, beginning work on the next clone to await his presence. Despite being in a body that was the equivalent of a very healthy twenty-year-old, Aspasia’s Shadow felt weary.
With great effort, Aspasia’s Shadow went back to the Guardian chamber and sat in his throne in front of the golden pyramid. He accessed the computer’s database.
Egypt was a mess. He’d known that before he’d regenerated.
The Airlia base at Cydonia on Mars was secure and all was well, according to data relayed from the Guardian on the Red Planet.
And Artad? What of him? It had been a while since Aspasia’s Shadow had checked on the other side’s leader in the civil war. All seemed quiet and Aspasia’s Shadow knew that it was very doubtful that Artad would break the truce without something dramatic changing and so far nothing like that had occurred.
Still. He would have to send a probe in that direction soon. Of course, for Aspasia’s Shadow, who thought in terms of centuries and millennia, the term “soon” was relative. At that moment, all he wanted to do was sleep.
Qian-Ling, China: 634 B.C.
A cold wind blew from the western desert, scouring the side of the three-thousand-foot-high hill. There was no doubt the formation was not natural, as the slopes in all directions were uniform and nothing grew on the wind-blasted dirt that covered the mound. It was a desolate place, normally empty of life and avoided by those who lived nearby.
There was one human currently in the area, though. A woman, heavy with child, staggered into the wind, holding a tattered cloak tight around her swollen body. She had one hand cradled underneath her belly, the other holding a small flask made of black metal that had not come from the Earth. Her teeth chattered in the chill and her exposed skin was growing numb.
She went downslope, following the power of gravity. She had no destination in mind even though her village was to the north, about fifteen miles away. She knew she would not be welcome if she showed up there and she doubted if she could make
it that far in her condition.
She was cursed and had been sent out into the wilderness to die along with what she bore inside her. She reached the base of the mound and peered about in the dark. A black line ahead indicated trees lining a riverbank and she staggered forward, heading for the water. She tripped over something and fell hard, cutting her cheek. She blinked in the moonlight, not quite believing what her eyes showed her as the cause of both her fall and the cut. A pile of bones.
The woman realized then that this was the remains of another like her, another sent out into the desolate land to die.
She did not want to die. A cry of pain and anguish escaped her lips as she got to her feet. She was only seventeen and had been a virgin nine months earlier when she had been chosen by her village to be their yearly sacrifice to the Gods of Qian-Ling. The choice had not upset her, as no one could remember a year when the Gods had taken the offering. Usually the chosen was taken to a spot a quarter of the way up the mound and tied loosely to a stake. Two days later, the priests would come back, and untie the girl, and take her back to the village — the duty done, the gesture made.
No one knew when the tradition had been started but it had seemed best to continue it. The girl had not been overly concerned when chosen; indeed she had felt she was being honored, as those girls who had been chosen in previous years had always returned to the village to acclaim. She’d walked in the middle of the processional to Qian-Ling and allowed the rope to be lightly tied around her waist and watched her people disappear to the north. Her greatest concern had been spending two nights alone on the mound.
That changed the first night when she heard a rumbling noise and the ground shook. She tried to untie the rope, but the knot was too complicated. Then a man had appeared in the darkness, holding a long spear. He’d cut the rope where it was attached to the stake and pulled her with him, taking her into an opening on the side of the mound, which sealed behind them.
The horrors that had happened after that she had blotted from her mind. One hand was still cradled under her swollen belly, while the other crept to her neck, to the shunt that had been put in place there.
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