Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Ranken leaped to obey. As he struggled to drag Beter’s one arm over his shoulder, Beter weakly tried to help him, clinging to Luke as best he could. That’s when Micah got a good look at his mouth. Chemical burns? The flesh appeared to have been melted. His lungs must be toast. Had he failed to get his mask on in time? Could liquid nitrogen do that?

  Micah jammed the tracker down the front of his suit, slung his rifle, and wrapped an arm around Beter’s back on the armless side.

  “Let’s move.” He drew his pistol and they headed due south through the moonlit shadows.

  In his ear, Luke’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps, whispering, “Oh, God, oh, God. Where are they?”

  “Keep moving. Ten minutes, and we’ll be home free.”

  “Charlie Two … you … contam … On General … I am … ap…”

  “Ap as in Apache?” Luke asked. “They’re sending us gunships?”

  “Probably.”

  Or an unknown general had just ordered Logan to approve some action. It was the word “contam…” that bothered Micah. They were contaminated?

  Beter suddenly spasmed in their arms, his back arching so violently, they couldn’t hold him. “Put him down!”

  Once on the ground, Beter continued to writhe and flop in that bizarre inhuman silence.

  “What’s happening?” Luke cried. He had tears in his eyes.

  The smoke shifted, this time spinning around them in asymmetric patterns. Animate. Human. Almost as an afterthought, Micah shoved his hand down his suit and jerked out the tracker. The instant he saw the screen … he knew they were in trouble. He shoved it back down the front of his combat suit, unslung his rifle, and shouted, “Luke, they’re coming in from the south.”

  “Where? I don’t…”

  The words died in his throat.

  They appeared in the eddying smoke like shimmering statues. Ghostly silver. Too pale to be real. They moved to surround Micah and Luke.

  He shook his head, denying what he saw with his own eyes.

  Whump, whump, whump. The familiar sound barely drew his attention.

  When it registered, Micah’s gaze shot upward. The two Cobras hovered in the distance like giant birds. One hung much farther away, as though covering a different position. Behind the choppers, colors spun, lasers shredding the smoke. The moment was straight out of Revelation. The guns made no sound when they opened up. The ground churned, and the dunes literally evaporated. The air became metal-flavored sand. Then the roar struck and almost knocked Micah off his feet.

  “Luke, run!”

  Micah charged blindly through the strobing barrage of flashes that fractured the world, flashes too numerous and brilliant to survive, and he knew it.

  CHAPTER 13

  SEPTEMBER 25. 4:00 A.M.

  Martin took a few moments to listen for the roar of jets. “Do you think it’s over?”

  Anna shook her head. “No. They’ve just temporarily shifted the focus of the operation. Bombs are still falling in the distance.”

  Martin and Anna crouched on the narrow canyon ledge facing one another. Barely three feet across at the widest, the trail rose and fell with the geological formation. On Martin’s left, the cliff dropped two hundred feet to the dry riverbed below. Other than this trail, there was no way to climb up or down, not without equipment and a lot more skill than he possessed.

  “Are you sure this is the right path?”

  “This is the only trail that’s just below the rim and directly behind the church of Saint Thecla. It must be,” Anna said. “I don’t think we have much time to find the cave, Martin. Come on.”

  They started walking again.

  Moonlight reflected from the cliffs with supernatural intensity, but that was probably just adrenaline. Or maybe a mushroom cloud was drifting over him, and Martin didn’t realize it. He kept his eyes focused on the lithe, muscular form of the woman ahead of him. He had so many questions about her. Anna had known they’d be walking into a war zone. She’d known it the instant she’d seen the Thunderbolt fly over. How? Had she been part of the planning process before she’d left the military? Did historical cryptographers plan combat missions? His ignorance of the military was truly colossal.

  Martin called, “Is this a U.S. war, Anna?”

  “Are you asking if those are all American planes? Yes. Looks like a single massive operation targeting Egyptian villages.”

  He tilted his head back to gaze up at the night sky and swallowed hard. “For a while, I was scribbled with so many laser beams, I considered the possibility that we were the targets.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “I’m not paranoid.” Martin pulled his water bottle from his belt and took a long drink. “I’m terrified and excited. It’s a nauseating combo.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. This may not be the trail to the Marham-i-Isa. But it’s down here somewhere. I know it is.”

  Martin hooked his water bottle back on his belt and watched the enormous black gouts of moon-silvered smoke that drifted over the canyon when the wind shifted. “You should have seen Abba Taran’s face when you walked up to touch Saint Thecla’s relic box. He went white as a sheet. It was as though he knew you were looking for the place on the cliff that led down to this trail. And, Christ, it was invisible from the rim. If you hadn’t figured out—”

  “He didn’t know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He would have tried to stop us.”

  “Maybe, but I think the priest was occupied with more important things, like the death of his entire village.” Martin gestured to the sky and took another drink of water. The dust and smoke had turned his throat raw. The water felt good. He studied her from the corner of his eye, before he dared to bring up the subject again. “Why wasn’t your contact there?”

  “Unknown.”

  “You think he died from the plague?”

  “Maybe.” Anna had a deep husky voice anyway, but that word carried genuine dread.

  Wind whistled up the canyon, giving her just the excuse she needed to change the subject. “We need to move faster. We don’t know when the battle might return.”

  They broke into a trot along the narrow trail.

  Her boots made no sound. That was another of her curious traits. She moved like a silken cat. Once, when he’d been on a camera safari in Namibia, he’d seen lions. He’d had absolutely no idea they were stalking him through the darkness. When they’d suddenly appeared out of the night less than ten feet away, he’d been stunned. He had to admit, there were times when Anna instilled the same awe in him. Her talent for silence seemed vaguely unnatural.

  “There’s a cave up ahead, Martin.”

  “Where?”

  “Thirty paces. See it?”

  The dark hole in the cliff resembled a perfect black circle. His heart rate picked up. He slid around a bulge in the canyon wall and the ledge beneath his feet shifted. Just as he gasped and leaped forward, a chunk of the trail cracked off and tumbled into the void far below. He grabbed for any handhold he could find and held his breath, praying the weight of his pack wouldn’t pull him backward over the edge.

  “Martin!” Anna whirled around, grabbed his arm just before he leaned past tipping point, and slammed him hard into the cliff face, where he desperately sank his fingers into the cracks in the stone.

  “I-I’m all right. Thanks.”

  When some of the rigidity in his muscles relaxed, he shifted and carefully slipped out of the pack, lowering it to the ledge so he could breathe freely—or rather gasp. All across the canyon, in every dark hollow, eyes glittered. He’d probably awakened every night bird for miles. And any other living creature that might be out there. Including enemy soldiers, fleeing terrorists, and every form of angry survivor from the battle.

  Martin exhaled the words, “Well, I know I’m alive.”

  “Be careful.”

  Without the slightest evidence of apprehension, Anna turned and sprinted away. Didn’t she have any fear of death? Her
long legs ate the distance. In only a matter of moments, she’d curved out of sight around a bulge in the canyon wall.

  Martin granted himself a few seconds to figure out how to slip the pack back over his shoulders without overbalancing and toppling to his doom. By the time he started walking Anna was invisible ahead of him in the darkness.

  The ledge narrowed even more, which made it slow going for him. It was probably his imagination, but he swore his boot prints evaporated the instant he made them. Shadows—cast on the wall by the moonlight—seemed to be flapping after him, changing shape as though metamorphosing into monstrous creatures with horns and dark wings. Legends said the Marham-i-Isa was guarded by angels sent by God himself. In the ancient texts, the Angels of Light were interesting characters. Their most important function was to serve as the handmaidens of the Judgment. They poured God’s wrath over the world.

  When he finally reached the cave, he called, “Anna? I’m here.”

  Her voice answered from inside. “Good. I need you to look at this.”

  Bending down, he looked through the rounded entry, and found the cave pitch black. Why hadn’t she turned on one of their solar lanterns? “Anna?”

  “Over here, near the ossuaries.”

  “Ossuaries?” Martin slid his pack from his shoulders and shoved it through the entry ahead of him, then crawled into the darkness. “Why didn’t you turn on a lantern?”

  “Just give your eyes a few seconds to adjust, and you’ll see why.”

  Martin blinked, trying to hurry his eyes. When he finally saw the large Aramaic inscription shining in the moonlight that sheathed the rear wall of the cave, he sucked in a sudden breath. He read, “‘And the Lord healed Lazarus.’ Dear God, this must be it. We’re standing in the Cave of the Treasure of Light.”

  Anna moved in the darkness to his left, saying, “I’m not sure of that yet.”

  The cave stretched about forty feet across, but there were two shallow grottos on the northern side. He walked over to examine them. A few personal items nestled on stone shelves: a ceramic cup and bowl, a tattered blanket for cold winter nights, prayer rugs for daily meditations, and stacks of unopened ammunition boxes.

  “Christ, Taran’s order has enough ammo to hold off an army.”

  “His order has been protecting this cave for two millennia. Help me examine these ossuaries.”

  Martin had to duck his head where the ceiling dipped.

  “First half of the first century,” Martin whispered when he got close enough to see the ossuaries. “Ossuaries like this were only produced for a short period, around the time of Jesus.”

  “All right, let’s start looking. It’s probably in the ossuaries. We should start with…”

  Martin grabbed her hand to silence her. Bombs thundered close by, and dust filtered down from the roof, coating their clothing. “It’s starting again.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The soft jolts of the earth revived Micah. Distant bombs hitting home. He blinked up at the night sky, trying to remember why he was here, and where “here” was. Desperately thirsty, he watched the smoke spinning above him. The ground kept quaking. Blanketing action. They were killing something big.

  He tried to sit up, and the pain knocked him down again. His lungs couldn’t get enough air. The earth became waves, rising and falling beneath his body, heading for some shore beyond his comprehension. His sense of geography had vanished. What country was he in? Find the stars. Orient yourself. Bolts of lightning crackled through the smoke overhead, red as blood. There were no stars. Just brilliant serpents striking at the night.

  He was alone. He couldn’t hear anything. The ground heaved as though in labor, giving birth to some ancient evil.

  I was on an op …

  Absently, he wondered if he was dying.

  With a shaking hand, he pulled on the chain around his throat and drew out her precious golden cross, which he’d worn day and night for two years. He steeled himself as he clutched it in his fist.

  Irayna’s face filled his memories. Beautiful black hair spilled around her shoulders. She gave him a confident smile and laughed, that chiding laugh that always made him smile in return, no matter how desperate the situation. “Well,” her soft voice echoed from somewhere far away. “You’re still alive. What are you worried about? Just keep fighting, and you’ll make it out of this.”

  “I’m trying, Irayna.”

  Colors spun around him like a kaleidoscope turning …

  He’d loved her.

  His body convulsed in agony and he stared wide-eyed at the night sky.

  Where am I?

  Blackness.

  When he woke, he was shivering and couldn’t stop.

  He’d once spent three days in a sensory deprivation tank as part of his training. That’s where he was now. Floating. Everything had melted into one silent cry of loneliness.

  If I stay here, I die.

  Smothering his cries, he dragged himself to his feet. A river shone in the distance. Villages. Water. He was so thirsty.

  He staggered toward it.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Martin, look at the ceiling.”

  “Why? What…” He looked up.

  Thousands of inscriptions covered the vault over his head, many running over earlier writings, some etched deeply, others barely visible as wispy scratches. At least six different languages made up the inscriptions.

  “Dear God,” he whispered. “Are those … they … they’re all healing formulas.”

  “Are they?” Anna said absently as she strode toward the top ossuary. “Come over here, Martin. What do you make of this one?”

  He went to Anna’s side to study the confusing overlay of words, some Greek, some Hebrew, some Aramaic, that adorned the ossuary. “There must be ten or twelve different inscriptions, all written over each other. It’s almost impossible to make out any single passage. All I can decipher for sure is the large Aramaic word Maryam, or Mary.”

  “Look at the inscription below her name.” She touched the deeply carved passage.

  Martin frowned at the almost illegible Greek characters, some uppercase, some lowercase. “It’s barely legible. The letters are phi, pi, psi, sigma—a terminal sigma, one used at the end of a word, not in the middle—and other letters. I don’t think they’re words. Unless … is it an anagram? A palindrome? They’re hard to read. I’m not sure I’m right about some of the letters.”

  Anna propped her hands on her hips and stared at them.

  In the smoke-filtered moonlight, the letters seemed larger than life, relics of a mysterious hand that had feared to write words that might be understood by the wrong people. Martin unconsciously leaned closer to the letters to make certain he was seeing what he thought he was.

  “Anna,” he said softly. “The Hebraic passage below the strange inscription reads, ‘Light is an image of the Divine Word. It will stop the ravishment.’”

  “What’s the Divine Word?”

  “In Judeo-Christian thought, it’s the magical word God used to create the universe. ‘In the Beginning was the Word.’ It’s life itself. I wonder what that has to do with—”

  “The plague?”

  “It can’t refer to the current plague. This was written two thousand years ago. Unless … Do you think this is a prophecy?”

  The cave shook and dirt cascaded down upon them in a fine mist. Rhythmic earthquakes began to jolt the cave as the bombs fell closer to the canyon rim.

  A sudden flush of heat went through her, reddening her face.

  Martin said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. It—it’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “More like impossible.”

  “You’re a cryptographer. I doubt it. What do you see?”

  Anna lifted her hand and let her finger hover over the curious letters. Softly, she said, “It’s a simple substitution formula. It’s actually in English, but you—”

  “English?” Martin said. “The inscription is far too ancient to
be—”

  “Maybe not.”

  Anna’s face had an alert expression, as if waiting for one more puzzle piece to fall into place. She glanced at the door, obviously expecting someone, or hoping someone would duck through that entry.

  Martin said, “Anna, if you substituted English letters for the Greek, it would be nonsense.”

  She whispered, “It’s a reference to the Marham-i-Isa.”

  His shoulder muscles bulged through his shirt. “Well, I don’t see it.”

  Anna had adopted that eerie stillness again, as though she’d been standing in front of the inscription for centuries, waiting for the light to strike the wall just right, so she could decipher its secrets. But her eyes reflected a barely controlled inner panic, as though she knew she had only seconds to get everything she needed.

  A blast ripped the cliff above and Martin staggered sideways, bumping into Anna. Eerie reflections of the laser light show outside filled the cave.

  “Okay, if it is a reference to the Marham-i-Isa, then it’s in Maryam’s ossuary. Let’s open it.”

  She studied the stone box. “All right, but let’s take a look outside first. I don’t want to get trapped in here by a bunch of gun-toting monks.”

  “Got it.”

  He ran over, knelt at the cave entrance, and examined the canyon ledges outside. To the north, he saw what looked like the sleek black shapes of American jets, but he couldn’t hear them. “There’s nothing moving on the ledges, but there are plenty of planes and choppers in the distance.”

  Anna petted the ossuary. In a barely audible voice, she said, “Forgive me.”

  She gripped the heavy lid of the ossuary, and shoved. A groan of rock on rock reverberated through the cave as the lid slid sideways.

  “Let me help you.” Martin trotted back and helped her lift the lid off and set it on the floor.

  The small skull and bones gleamed in the moonlight. “The ossuary says this is Maryam’s body. But I’m not sure that’s a woman’s skull. It might be a child’s. And it looks like an archaic species.”

  “Who cares? Let’s—”

  “Wait.”

  She reached into the ossuary to reverently lift the skull; it was missing the base. A wad of cloth had been stuffed into the cavity where the brain would have been. Gently, Anna pulled out the cloth, and began unwrapping it. Hidden in the folds was a crudely made jar. He’d examined thousands of religious artifacts, and this was clearly the work of a poor potter, a man or woman without access to the finer clays and tempers available two thousand years ago.