by David Wood
Bones removed his backpack and tossed it to Jade, who retrieved the disc and leaned down into the sarcophagus.
“There’s a space just above his head,” she explained, “that looks to be the mirror image of the Aten symbol side of the disc. It might be nothing, but I wonder…”
Jade’s hands were not visible from where he sat, but Maddock could see the look of concentration on her face. He watched her lean back down into the sarcophagus, biting her lip. There was an audible click, and then a roar like the grinding of great, invisible gears. He looked up to see the platform descending toward them. He, Bones, and Amanda sprang to their feet almost as one.
“Careful, now,” the Elder cautioned, training his gun on Maddock. “I won’t have you crushed underneath the platform. Move slowly toward me.”
Maddock took a hesitant step toward the Elder, his heart pounding. He needed an opening and he needed it soon because he had just understood the final clue, and now he knew what lay on the platform. All the pieces fell into place: the glowing veins in the stone, the increased intensity of light and heat as they moved closer to this place, the decaying capstone, even the deformed creatures. It was all connected.
“Elder, you have the wrong translation of the final clue.” He held out little hope that the man would listen to reason, but he had to try. “It should read ‘…the ten is impure.’ Not the tenth. The ten.”
“Meaningless.” The Elder gave him a dismissive glance. His eyes flitted back to the platform and a beatific smile spread across his face. “The wealth of the treasure is a mere pittance compared to the power the Dominion will now wield.”
“You can’t even touch it!” Maddock shouted. “It kills anyone who puts his hands on it! Don’t you remember the stories?”
“You’ve seen too many movies, Mr. Maddock. Besides, I shan’t touch it. The four of you shall.”
The platform was no more than thirty feet above them now. Maddock was sure he could feel the heat emanating from it. His eyes locked on Jade’s and a look of horrified realization dawned on her face. She understood. Her expression became stern, and she tilted her head ever so slightly toward the Elder. Maddock couldn’t say for certain how he knew, but the message was clear— Let’s get him.
“Bones,” he whispered. His friend gave an imperceptible nod and tapped Amanda, who paled visibly and also nodded her assent.
A golden light fell upon the Elder’s face and he looked up toward its source, letting his grip on his gun slacken.
In a flash, Jade snatched the sun disc out of the sarcophagus and sent it hurtling, Frisbee-style, at the Elder. It cracked across the bridge of his nose in a spray of blood, and he cried out in surprise and pain. Maddock and Bones were on him before he could recover. Bones ripped the gun out of his hands and Maddock wrested the staff away.
“No!” The Elder grabbed futilely for the staff, his eyes filled with tears from the pain of his broken nose. Maddock cracked him across the forehead with the staff. Instead of boils, a dark stream of flies erupted from the Elder’s forehead and engulfed him in a dark, buzzing cloak. The Elder shouted and staggered back, flailing his arms at the swarm that now completely enshrouded him.
“Come on!” Maddock cried, taking Jade by the hand and sprinting down the pathway toward the exit. He heard an anguished scream behind him, and he stole a glance over his shoulder. The platform had completed its descent, settling neatly between the tombs of Moses and Nefertiti, and the Elder had not made it out from underneath. His head, arms, and shoulders jutted out from beneath the massive stone block. The swarm of flies was gone. Maddock heard Bones gasp, and he realized they had all stopped in the doorway, staring back at what the platform held.
The Ark of the Covenant.
Jade took two steps back toward the island, entranced by the sight. Maddock took her by the arm and yanked her back, not bothering to be gentle.
“You can’t,” he said. “Don’t you feel it?” His body tingled as if he was badly sunburned. “We have got to get out of here!” As if to punctuate his statement, the water that had been pouring from the leaking capstone chose that very moment to become a deluge. The movement of whatever mechanism it was that operated the chain had put undue stress on the surrounding rock. Cracks appeared at the pyramid’s peak, creeping down the walls like the claws of a hungry predator. “The ceiling’s going to come down! Let’s go!”
Chapter 33
Maddock led the way back across the stepping stones. The water level was rising, and by the time he reached the final stepping stone, it was underwater. He clambered out of the hole and helped the others out. They dashed through the cathedral-like treasure vault, where the canals there were also roiling with the increased flow of water. He spared a glance at Solomon’s throne as they sprinted by, a pang of regret pinching the back of his throat as he realized it might be the last time human eyes gazed upon its beauty.
“Maddock!” Bones shouted. “Behind us!”
Maddock looked over his shoulder to see a pack of the chupacabra creatures pour out of the doorway from which they had just fled and hurtle toward them with relentless rage, gaining ground with every leap. Where were these things coming from? “Keep running!” he shouted to Jade and Amanda, and turned to face the beasts.
Bones dropped to one knee and opened fire with the Elder’s gun. He brought down the one in the lead, but the others jumped over him and kept coming. When he brought down two more, the rest slowed down. Apparently they had some degree of intelligence, because they spread out, encircling Bones and Maddock.
“Any ideas?” Bones muttered, letting the Elder’s gun fall uselessly to the floor and drawing his knife.
Maddock’s mind raced. Could they survive an attack from seven of these beasts? Then he realized he was still holding the staff. In his desperation to think of a way to get everyone safely away, he had not spared it a thought. It obviously had power. The creatures slunk closer.
“Maddock?” Bones’ voice was strained.
What could the staff do? Assuming what happened with Issachar and the Elder held true, he could kill one of the creatures by striking it, but one at a time was not going to be good enough against these lightning-fast predators.
“Get back!” he shouted, striking the end of the staff to the floor. He immediately felt foolish. Were these beasts truly going to obey him like a well-trained pet? But then…
“What the hell?” Bones stepped back as a hole appeared in the floor where the staff had struck it, and out poured… frogs!
Hundreds of the small amphibians poured forth, hopping in all directions. The chupacabras began to turn in all directions, sniffing the air and snarling.
“They’re confused! They must rely on their sense of smell!” How long would it be, though before they singled out the scent of humans? He and Bones took off toward the exit, leaving the confused beasts behind, but not for long. They had not gone forty yards when the monsters again took up the pursuit. “Leave me. Find the girls and get them out of here.”
“No way. We stay together.”
They turned to face the charge of the remaining beasts.
Figuring he had nothing to lose, Maddock struck the floor again, and this time a writhing, contorting ball of bronze grew out of the floor. The ball split into seven pieces that each twisted into a bronze serpent that slithered out to meet the chupacabras. The beasts never smelled the snakes, which must have been actually made of bronze. The snakes went for the creature’s throats, and with each bite came instant death. Maddock and Bones slowly backed away from the scene as, one by one, the bronze serpents swallowed the beasts. Then, as the final creature was devoured, the serpents flowed together, melted into a ball, and dissolved into the floor.
“Time to go,” Maddock whispered.
They sped out of the cathedral and down into the water gate chamber. Here, the canals had overflowed, and the water was an inch deep. The spiral staircase that descended to the room of waterfalls was now a waterfall itself, and they took care
to keep from falling. Jade and Amanda waited at the bottom.
“Thank God!” Jade cried as she wrapped her arms around Maddock.
“You don’t know how true that statement is,” Maddock replied. “Let’s go.”
“There’s a problem. Amanda and I already tried going through the waterfall. The bottom level is completely submerged. You can’t even see the tunnel we came down. We could try to swim for it, but the current…” She shrugged and stared at the curtain of water that blocked their view of the next room.
“Should be no problem,” Bones said. “You’ve got Moses’ staff. Did he ever let a little water get in his way? You know, ‘…and Moses stretched out his hand over the sea…’”
“‘The waters were divided,’” Amanda whispered.
“You two left out a little bit in the middle,” Maddock said, “but I get your point.” Maddock’s first thought was that Bones was crazy. There was no way he could do what his friend suggested.
“You already made boils, flies, and frogs, Mister Plague-Bearer. Then you made serpents that devoured the chupacabras. Does somebody need to whack you over the head to make you see the obvious? Now hurry up! This water is cold.”
Bones was right. Even more water poured out of the stairway behind them, and the level had risen almost to his calves. His feet were going numb from the cold. He extended the staff.
Nothing happened.
And then, as if a strong breeze were blowing into it, the waterfall in front of them wavered, and then the curtain of water parted. Down below, a channel opened along the pathway that led to the way out.
They walked between walls of roiling water. It surged and pulsed, and with every step he took, Maddock was more and more certain that it was all going to collapse in on them at any moment.
“It’s like Sea World!” Bones said. “But without all the cool fish.”
They reached the other side safely and ascended the exit tunnel that was now a vertical tube of water.
“Anybody else feel like a hamster?” Maddock asked, watching as the water raged around the circular passage. The path opened for them as they made the climb and closed behind them when they passed. The glowing cavern was soon left behind, and they had to rely on their flashlights to light their way.
They emerged in the gargoyle pit, which was now an angry vortex. Water gushed from the gargoyle’s mouths, swirling about the circular pit and spiraling into a violent maelstrom that was swallowed up by the tunnel through which Maddock had originally entered the pit. He had hoped that would be the avenue of their escape, but now they would have to retrace the path by which Bones and Amanda had come.
Maddock extended the staff again, and a pathway opened that led them to the stairs that wrapped around the pit wall. He took the steps two at a time, the narrow beam of his flashlight bobbing as he climbed.
When he reached the top, a flash of movement caught his eye, and before he could react, something struck him hard above his right ear. He crashed to the ground, landing hard on his back, the staff slipping from his grasp. He reached out in desperation but only succeeded in brushing it with his fingertips before it rolled out of his reach and disappeared over the edge of the pit.
He didn’t have time to even think about what had happened because something was hurtling directly at him. Bones and the others had not reached the top, but the faint light cast by their flashlights shone on Issachar, his face now little more than a mass of bleeding boils. With a bellow of inhuman rage, he hurled himself at Maddock. Maddock drew his knees to his chest and caught Issachar’s stomach on the balls of his feet, and grabbed his shoulders. Using his attacker’s momentum to his advantage, he kicked up, somersaulting Issachar into the pit.
He rolled over, snatched up his flashlight, and shone it down into the depths of the pit below. He saw nothing but dark, angry water.
“It’s gone,” he said in disbelief as the others arrived at his side. “I just lost the staff of Moses.”
“Brother, at the rate we’re going, there won’t be any biblical treasures left in a few years.” Bones clapped Maddock on the shoulder. “Next week let’s blow up Noah’s Ark.”
Faint lines of pink brushed the velvet sky on the edge of the horizon when the weary party found their way back to the top of Angel’s Landing. They replaced the cover stone and heaped mounds of loose rock over it. No one before them had found it, and likely no one would again, at least not for a long time. There had been no more sign of the Dominion or the chupacabras though they did find a Kalashnikov lying in a sticky pool in one of the chambers and had taken it with them just to be safe.
Now they stood together letting the first rays of the morning sun wash away the memories of their hellish night underground. Jade leaned against Maddock’s shoulder and he slipped his arm around her waist.
“None of it seems real now,” she whispered. “My life’s ambition realized and lost again in one night. And what do I have to show for it?”
“You’re alive,” Maddock said. “And hey, you’ve got me.”
“So it’s kind of a wash,” Bones said. “Life with Maddock can be an absolute pain.”
“So the Ark of the Covenant was radioactive?” Amanda asked after a long silence. They had all been too focused on getting out alive to discuss what had happened.
“I think the plates on which the Ten Commandments were carved were highly radioactive. Unbelievably so considering the half-life it must have for it to still be radioactive today.”
“How did you guess?” Now that they were back in the real world, Amanda was regaining some of her reporter’s instincts.
“I kept wondering what could be a greater treasure than what we saw in the cathedral chamber. What is associated with Moses besides the staff? Then I remembered what Bones said about Jimmy’s corrected translation: The ten is impure. The Ten Commandments! I thought of the Ark of the Covenant, and how the Bible said that if someone touched it, they died. And then it all fell into place: the glowing veins of minerals in the stone, the fact that every cavern seemed to get warmer and brighter as we moved closer to the final chamber, the chupacabras, which are probably descendants of population of native animal, maybe a mountain lion that has mutated for generation after generation. Their lair smelled of wild cat. Justin’s grandmother told me that her family has lived in that spot for generations. They’ve probably been drinking contaminated groundwater.”
“Why wouldn’t it affect the park?” Jade asked.
“I don’t know. It would probably take years of drinking it to have any effect. Besides, think about how far we traveled down there. The chambers are miles from here.”
“I get it!” Bones said. “The Ark of the Covenant is gold-plated, which acted as an imperfect shield. You could get close, but not too close.”
“How could Moses have carried the Ten Commandments down from Sinai if they were so highly radioactive?” Jade asked.
“The same way he parted the sea, caused the plagues, all that good stuff,” Bones said. “No matter how much science you throw into the mix, you can never quite factor God out of the equation, can you Maddock?”
“I guess not,” Maddock said. He and God had not been on good terms since Melissa’s death. The experiences of the past year, though, had made the universe a much bigger and more complicated place than he had ever imagined. It was certainly beyond his small capacity to comprehend. He looked at Jade, thinking of how he had every reason not to trust her, yet he trusted her. More than that, despite the hurt she had caused him, he wanted to give it a go with her. Maybe that was a small taste of what faith was like.
“Does it bother any of you,” Amanda remained in reporter mode, “knowing that Moses was, in actuality Akhenaten?”
“I don’t know.” Bones looked out across the beauty of the landscape. “Does it bother you to know that Akhenaten was really Moses? It doesn’t change what Moses did, or why he was so important. Heck, I think it’s cool. Things like that sort of bring us all a little closer together. Sh
ared history and all that. I don’t know. It’s not as bad as if we found out Elvis was really Tiny Tim.”
“You can ask Elvis next time we see him,” Maddock said. He noticed that Amanda had turned away from the rest of the group and was staring up at the sky. “Are you all right?”
“I was just thinking that I helped uncover the story to end all stories, and I can’t tell anyone. It’s got Pulitzer written all over it, but even if there is anything left down there, would it be a good idea for the world to know? Look at what the staff could do. What other powers might some of those treasures have? Imagine them in the hands of the crazies of this world.”
“The Elder indicated that no one is left in the Dominion who knows anything about any of this,” Maddock said. “That leaves Jimmy and the four of us. Personally, I think Fray Marcos was right. It’s too terrible a secret to share with the world. Someday, if it’s meant to be, the right person at the right time will find it.”
“So we weren’t meant to find it?” Amanda asked, returning to Bones’ side.
“I’m not a philosopher,” Maddock said. “But I think maybe we were meant to stop the Elder from finding it. I know that’s not much, but at least you know you were part of something important.”
“Man! I thought I was being cheesy,” Bones said. “But I think you’re right.”
“It’s all right,” Amanda said. “I think that with just a little digging I can come up with a major story on a respected bank president and community leader who was secretly the head of an underground paramilitary organization. I might even be able to blow the lid off of Central Utah University as well.” She looked at Jade, concern in her eyes. “But what are you going to do? I mean, you can’t go back, can you? Not with the university’s connections to the Dominion. And finding out the truth of the Seven Cities was your life’s ambition, and now you can’t even take any credit. Oh Jade, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Jade said. “But I did find out the truth, and that’s what matters. I guess I need a new life’s ambition. As for where I’ll be working,” she turned to look into Maddock’s eyes, “I’m a pretty fair diver. Know anyone who’s hiring?”
