The Mongol Objective [Oct 2011]

by David Sakmyster

  Alexander made a sound like a laugh.

  “What?” Montross glared at him.

  “Get it wrong and there are no second chances.”

  “Really? Your dad would be that ruthless? Kill his own son if he made the wrong choice?”

  Alexander shivered again. “He said I would know when I figured it out. And if I didn’t know for sure, I should never try it. No hunches or guesses.”

  “I see. Well, then,”—Montross smiled—“I’d better get this right, for both our sakes.” He touched the peg on the top row, grasped it, and pulled it out sharply. Alexander winced, then they both looked at each other and smiled.

  “Nothing’s going to happen yet, right?” Montross asked. “Not until I set everything in position. Put all the pegs where I want them, and then try the door. At that point, either it opens . . .”

  “Or,” said Alexander, “we both get squished.”

  “Squished?” He looked up at the ceiling, then the cracks along the walls. He cocked his head. “What’s he got up there? A trap ceiling? Something to crush the hapless intruders? Or do the walls close in like that garbage compactor in the first Star Wars?”

  “It was actually Episode Four,” Alexander corrected.

  “First for me,” Xavier said. “So, how do you know there aren’t hidden blades that might come out and slice us to pieces?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about fire? A release of natural gas and a spark? And after the inferno your mom can come down here and sweep up our ashes?”

  Alexander grimaced. “I don’t know, but I’ve dreamed of stuff like that.”

  “Have you now?”

  “Traps just like that taking care of people like you.”

  “And what kind of person am I, Alexander?”

  Without pause he said, “A thief.”

  Montross smiled. “You know, your Uncle Robert came here with me. Is he a thief, too?”

  “I don’t believe he’s really with you, but I guess he is if he came to take something that doesn’t belong to him.”

  “He did, and let this be an early life lesson for you, kid. Some people will do anything for power. Anything. And the kind of power promised by that artifact in there, it can make friends turn against friends, family against family. You just can’t trust anyone. Can’t trust your mom and dad, can’t trust them even to come home and see you again after a night out. Can’t trust the world, can’t trust God or Fate or anything. The only thing you can trust are your visions, and sometimes not even those, not until you’re really sure your head’s not fu—” He smiled, catching himself. “Your head’s not playing games with you.”

  “What are you talking about?” He looked to the stairs at the other end of the room, and thought he might be able to make it if he burst into a run, sprinting with Dash-like speed, but then he was struck with the thought that if he left, the treasure would be defenseless.

  He was its protector. While it was true he hadn’t quite figured it all out, he had spent more time down here in his short life than anyone else had. He was closest to it, and sometimes he felt that just by being outside of the entrance, in this testing room, he could feel its power. Feel it calling to him, feel it changing him. Making him stronger. And he could be more patient, since he knew it was there, his birthright.

  “Never mind, kid. We’re going in. Sorry to cut short your lesson and interfere with your dad’s teaching plan, but I’m going to cheat and give you the answer.” He started pulling out pegs and resetting them. Alexander tried to look around his broad shoulders to see where he was inserting the pegs, to see if it made any sense.

  “What have you figured out so far, my boy?” Montross said after placing the third peg in a new position on the lower shelf.

  “I learned that I’m not to share what I’ve learned with thieves.”

  “Very good,” Montross said, shaking his head. “But I’m guessing you at least understand the basic concepts of alchemy, one of the key tenets which is ‘As Above—’”

  “‘—so Below,” Alexander whispered, completing the mantra he had learned years ago.

  “Correct. All that mumbo-jumbo about recreating the heavenly aspects down on earth, in architecture as well as literature, reflecting the orientation and movements of the heavens onto the earth, but also doing the same thing spiritually. Becoming more than mortal, achieving the immortality promised by heaven.”

  Alexander swallowed. “So is that what you’re here to steal? Immortality?”

  Montross began work on the middle shelf. “You wouldn’t understand my motives, Alexander. Not until you’re a little—no, a lot older.” He took one peg from the middle and moved it two holes to the right, then he stood back, nodding.

  “My dad,” Alexander whispered, “did you hurt him?”

  Montross turned, regarding the boy quietly. “Did you see something?”

  His eyes filling with emotion, Alexander nodded. “Under the ice.”

  Montross turned away, lowering his head. “I think he’ll be okay. Sorry, but I needed the Morpheus Initiative out of the way, preoccupied. Needed their focus elsewhere, so they wouldn’t be tipped off about this.”

  “There was a woman,” Alexander said. “She’s scary.”

  “God, kid, you’re good. Maybe you’re more like me than I thought.”

  Alexander withered under the man’s gaze. He felt like he was being analyzed by a crocodile looking for a hint of fear, or just the juiciest area to bite first.

  Montross said, “I saw my parents killed before it even happened. It did wonders for me, let me tell you. That kind of freedom, at such a young age. I spent so many years believing that what I saw, what I drew, could have the power to kill. That it was my fault.”

  “But that’s not what it does. You’re just seeing the future.”

  “I know. But when I was your age, I saw the world a little differently. Thought I was so much more.” Montross looked down at his empty hands, and Alexander wondered if the thief imagined himself holding some scepter of kingship or a torch of knowledge. Whatever it was, Alexander didn’t care.

  “Are you going to kill me and Mom?”

  Montross turned to him and sighed. “Listen, I’m not a killer, not normally. That’s why for those times where it’s necessary, I use someone like that woman you saw, like Nina. But no, you can help me. You and your mom will be having pie and ice cream in no time, waiting for your daddy to come home. Just a nice happy family again”—he bent to the lowest shelf, took out a peg and moved it all the way to the left—“minus one Emerald Tablet, of course.”

  #

  Up at the farmhouse, Lydia sat at the kitchen table, the two mercenary types standing at the door, hands on their guns, while Robert made another pot of coffee.

  “Robert,” she whispered. “It’s not too late. Call this off. Send these men out of here before someone gets hurt.”

  “I’ve searched too long for that tablet, given up so much. We both have.”

  “I know, but if Caleb does have it, he only has our best interests at heart. And, knowing him, he’s probably rigged the lighthouse basement with some god-awful traps, and heaven help you if Alexander is down there when they go off.”

  “Montross has it figured out. Don’t worry, I trust him.”

  “Like I trusted my husband?” Lydia shook her head. “Robert, this artifact is too powerful. It makes liars out of everyone. How do you know he won’t just turn around and kill us all once he’s found it?”

  “He won’t.”

  “He could be just like Waxman. Have you thought of that?”

  “I have, and he won’t. Besides,” Robert patted his side where Lydia could see the outline a gun strapped under his heavy sweater in a shoulder harness. His face darkened and his eyes tinted with a heady sense of power she had never seen in him before. “We Keepers have our defenses.”

  Lydia shook her head, eyeing the two guards. “This is insane. And my son—your nephew—might be down there.�
��

  Robert smiled. “Something tells me Alexander can take care of himself just fine.”

  #

  “I don’t understand,” said Alexander, a little braver now that he didn’t feel like his life was in immediate danger. “I felt like I was close, but couldn’t figure it out. How do the shelves relate to the ‘As Above, So Below’ thing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I could get it if there were just two shelves—a top and bottom, above and below, but the middle one messes everything up.”

  “Because you’re not seeing the full picture.”

  “But the above and below puzzle at the door, it doesn’t make sense. The letters don’t match. They’re not mirror images, and it’s not even like the lower one is the reverse of the top. The letters don’t move, they’re not on blocks, you can’t—”

  “Just settle down, kid.” Montross worked faster now, rearranging pegs, moving from top to bottom, then to the middle, setting them into different holes. Occasionally glancing back to the other side.

  “Why are you—Oh! Wait.” Alexander looked at the left wall, then back to the right. Then back to the door, pointing to the letters. He blinked, the room’s colors shifted, and for a moment, he saw it. In his mind he saw lines of light stretching from the letters to the shelves: the above left letter, Theta, with a line angled down, concurrently with the bottom shelf on the right wall; the above right letter, Delta, highlighting a trail to the bottom shelf on the left wall. Then the lower letters doing the reverse.

  “But what about the ones in the center?”

  Montross turned to him, smiling. “Ah, welcome aboard. You’re close now. So close. See, isn’t it great figuring things out intuitively?” He set the last peg in place. “Course, it helps if you can cheat. Although, eight years of trying to remote view this thing I’d hardly call an easy cheat.”

  “But the middle ones!” Forgetting all about the danger, Alexander ran to Montross. “I get it. Above and Below are maintained, but in the whole system, the whole room, not just the letters at the door. The Delta letter, top right, lines up with the bottom left shelf, so that’s why you put the peg in the . . . Hold on! The seventh hole?”

  “Egyptian, boy. Think like an Egyptian. They wrote—”

  “Right to left!” Alexander smacked his own head. “I would’ve gotten myself killed.”

  “You can thank me later.”

  “It’s the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, so the peg goes in the fourth hole from the right.” Alexander moved closer, looking in the dim light. “And the top shelf on the left, matches up with the letter Theta on the right-most letter on the floor. The eighth letter in the alphabet, so you’ve got it.” He counted off the peg holes. “Eight holes from the right.”

  “Yeah, okay, you’ve got it, kid. And I did the same on the right wall. Omega for the first hole and Theta again for the eighth.” Montross approached the door, smoothing his sweaty hands on his pants as he reached for the great bronze handle.

  “But the center ones, I don’t understand those. Omega on the top . . . Why’d you match that up to the right wall, and Delta went to the left? I don’t see any signs, anything that could—

  Montross stopped, hand inches from the door.

  “Oh no,” Alexander said, looking at the back of Montross’s head. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “You should go back up the stairs, Alexander. In case I’m wrong.”

  “You guessed?”

  Montross gave him a steady look. “I guessed.” He turned his head slightly just as his hand settled on the handle. “I spent months trying to view which way was correct, but I never saw it, never asked the right questions, maybe. But what I do know is that I saw myself—visions of myself—after this moment. So I know, I just know whatever I choose, it won’t get me killed.”

  Alexander frowned, taking a step back. “That’s a little sketchy. Thought you said not to trust Fate, or your visions.”

  “Touché. Call it a hunch, then. I trust those. But as I said, get on upstairs if you don’t believe me and don’t want to risk being squished flat or sliced into cubes. But I’m going in or dying a horrible death, with or without you.”

  Alexander frowned, looking again at the letters above the door, then at the position of the pegs. He sighed, then stepped closer, right behind Montross.

  “So you believe me?”

  “It was a good hunch,” Alexander said, pointing. “The only one where you wind up with both Deltas on one side and both Omegas on the other. So if you orient the room on its side instead, you’d have the same arrangement. One Theta on top and bottom, and then two like symbols. It’s the only way that works.”

  Montross smiled and rubbed his hands together. “See, you figured it out after all. Now, let’s go. Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

  5.

  “No broken bones, just two sprained ribs and some nasty bruises. And some frostbite on your neck and fingers.” The medic, a middle-aged woman whose skin seemed far too tan to be in this climate, looked him over again, shaking her head. “Lucky.”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said, holding his side. “What do they say, better to be lucky than smart? I should have seen this, should have known it was a trap.”

  “How could you?” the medic asked, and Phoebe, standing beside her brother, coughed into her hand. “Just trust us, he should have seen it.”

  “We all should have,” Orlando Natch said. “And I’m a bonehead for missing it. Got too damn excited about a match on the freakin’ head. Rookie mistake that almost got us killed. Sorry boss.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Caleb said. “And I’m not your boss.” Then, lower, “Nina. She’s alive.”

  “I know,” Phoebe said. “Seems like a nasty bitch. Had it in for you.” She gave him a sly look. “What, did you sleep with her and not call her back?”

  Orlando choked on a sip of hot chocolate. The medic raised her hands. “Sounds like a family moment. I’ve got a report to make, and my boss will want to debrief you before you leave, especially about Colonel Hiltmeyer’s actions.”

  “Have you been able to contact him?” Phoebe asked.

  “No, nothing.” She looked down. “Apparently he’s gone rogue. And again, I’m sorry.”

  “Got to get back home. Fast. And,” Caleb added to the departing medic, “we need a phone. Please.” He turned to meet Phoebe’s look of concern. “Alexander and Lydia are in danger. This was all a diversion. They’re going for the tablet.”

  #

  Montross had a moment of fear as something hissed and huge metal bolts pulled backwards from holding the great silver vault door in place. The door opened. Reflexively, he held back an arm to shield Alexander in case something deadly came flying out of the darkness. Shame, he thought, actually starting to like the kid.

  A moment later, the door opened all the way. Motionless now, Montross took a deep breath. “Inside,” he whispered, nudging the boy forward into the darkness that glimmered as oil lamps around a circular room ignited, triggered by the door’s opening.

  “You first,” Alexander said, trying to twist away but held fast. He stumbled forward into the vault—at last! He was finally here, inside after all that time, wondering and dreaming about it. Reading, studying, listening to his father’s stories.

  He was here.

  But then he froze, staring first at the beautiful zodiac images painted on the ceiling, and then at the lone pedestal basking in the glow of four lamps, and the single object resting at its apex:

  The Emerald Tablet.

  #

  “There’s a note beside it,” Alexander said, his voice cracking.

  “A note?” Montross took another step in, hesitantly still, as if expecting a rack of stainless steel, poisoned-tip spikes to come plunging down through the ceiling and skewer him at any moment. “I didn’t see a note.”

  “Maybe,” said Alexander, picking up the loose-leaf piece of white paper with a jagged left edge, “Dad only left
it for me recently.”

  “What does it say?” He glanced at the paper, frowned, then checked out the ceiling. “Looks Greek to me.”

  “It is Greek.” Alexander read the words and translated to himself: Son, this is your legacy now, and that means it’s yours to protect. If you’ve been forced here against your will, and if you have the chance, tap the pedestal twice, and then . . .

  He lowered the paper, dropped it, then inched his fingers toward the wooden outer frame. In another second, Montross had his back to him and Alexander seized the opportunity. He pressed the pedestal once, then again, and heard a click. And then he did just what the note told him to:

  He ran.

  Bolted straight for the door—

  —just as another door, a door made of vertical steel bars, came grinding out of a slot in the ceiling, crashing down.

  Alexander dropped and rolled under it into the sub-basement. The grate slammed onto the concrete floor with a force that echoed in his ears like a thunderclap.

  He turned, about to try to push the outer vault door shut, when he saw Montross standing there, gripping the bars like a prisoner in a cell.

  “Caught you,” Alexander said triumphantly.

  Montross released the bars and stepped back as the vault door drifted nearly shut. Breathing deeply, calming himself, he turned and scrutinized the room, seeing now the grate opening in the ceiling, the notches he should have noticed in his visions.

  The boy continued talking through the gap in the outer door. “Guess you didn’t see that coming, did you?”

  Montross stopped, lowered his head and gave the kid a stare, considering all this. Then he pointed through the crack. “There’s my sketch book. Look at the last page.” He turned back and approached the Emerald Tablet, saw it shimmering, giving off a surprising bit of heat, its strange symbols appearing not only three-dimensional, but multi-dimensional. Layers upon layers, hundreds of levels deep.

  His head spun and his stomach felt tingly, a little nauseous.

  “Oh crap,” he heard the boy say, the words so distant. “You did draw it—this exact scene.” Then he looked through the window, gathered his courage and yelled, “But you’re still trapped in there!”