The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1)

by Rae T. Alexander

  When the three of us had arrived in the basement, after we searched for a truck, the middle table was all that remained of the laboratory equipment. After a few minutes of searching for the stones, I placed my golden globe on the table, while Peter and Robbie stood spellbound. It flattened and formed Arabic words on it, in response to a mystical chant of mine. I had to know what to do next. The prophetic stones never lied.

  “Sana Hamsa?” Robbie asked as he did not understand the meaning of the Arabic words.

  “The stone says our justice will be waiting after five years,” I responded, smiling devilishly. “We will capture Haj, and bide our time.”

  I translated the inscription.

  You will find your justice in five years time at the place of the Gazelle!

  “We will find any last remaining members of the Ani Nvya to reveal to us the exact and the last known location of the deer people. This must be our destiny,” Peter added.

  Suddenly, a cloud started to form in the basement room, so I had Robbie and Dred step out quickly. I wanted to lure Haj first with the bait of love. Maybe I could convince him that I was truly Aysha, just for a moment, I thought.

  Out of the cloud leaped Haj, but without his bag of jewels that he had left with. He had a beard of considerable growth and was covered with dust. As he spoke, the cloud faded behind him.

  “Do what you will!” he proclaimed. “The stones are safe! Take me, but leave my friends alone!”

  Peter bolted into the room suddenly and asked, “How did you get here without the stones?” Robbie quickly followed in behind him.

  “We Priests have our secrets also!” Haj answered with confidence.

  I knew then that something had changed within this Haj. Haj had obtained religion, or perhaps some kind of faith. He was a dangerous person. A man of conviction is always dangerous. He was a believer, perhaps changed by true love, or maybe it was a new and powerful belief in the Living Spirit. He had to be contained.

  “Grab him! Now!” I screamed to Robbie.

  Dred and Robbie secured Haj. But before he was gagged and bound, Haj muttered something about Mattie and David. I asked Peter to tell a lie to David and Mattie. “Say that he fell and died, somewhere in the cave, and plant some cut ropes for David to find. Make it seem like he got the climbing ropes mixed up. We will make him feel some guilt along with it!” Later, I even waved my ring over the ropes, saying some words of enchantment to encourage some guilt in David, even to excess.

  We then obeyed the stone of prophecy, and we waited for five long years. We looked forward to the day when we would kill all of the Guardians and finally use the stones for their noblest purpose. We planned to open the portal to our ancient world. We believed that only then we would have our complete justice!

  Chapter 24

  The Words of Ani Nvya

  “I am a dying breed. I am the last surviving member that is aware of his heritage. I was a former member of the Prophets, and later the Ani Nvya. I was the last Guardian in the Americas.”—the Ani Nvya spoke to his visitor in his small house located in the woods of Banner Elk, North Carolina. He lived alone and had few visitors, except for the people who delivered meals that were offered on occasion by local churches. He had wrinkled and worn skin, but genuine and keen eyes. He had little facial hair and thin, long black hair.

  He was visited by an old man dressed in a poncho. He had long white hair and wore moccasins. The visitor claimed to be a Guardian from the land of England. Trust was won that day as each of them shared their stories and mended distant fences.

  The story of the Anakites was revealed, and their origin was debated. The Ani Nvya was clear on several points, and the visitor took many notes concerning their story.

  There had been two creations, it was said, but there was more. The Anakites came from the sky and not from the ground. The Anakites came to this planet, many eons ago, in a past long forgotten and unknown.

  The Anakites came in a ship that sailed through the stars, above the heavens. They arrived on an earth populated mostly by animals. They believed that they were alone, except for the animals. Their ship had strayed from a group of ships and had gotten lost in the sky. They were separated from their people, and their ship was badly damaged when it crashed into the earth.

  To this day, there are many landing strips that remain from those that had once attempted to rescue the members of the lost ship, but the rescuers never found them. The Anakites that had crashed into the earth were assumed to be dead by their own people after many attempts to search for their bodies.

  The Anakites were never a people that lived without servants, and they were thrown into a harsh environment that was difficult to survive in. Some Anakites did not survive the crash, and others had various types of diseases that struck their bodies. The first Anakites had narrow and circular double eyelids. They had dark green skin, and they had black mole-like nodules behind their ears. They had triangular nails on their fingers, and their hair grew out in several strands at a time, instead of single strand hairs. In other respects, they looked humanoid.

  The Anakites first thrived and lived in the area now known as Iraq, long before humans were ever there. Some of them migrated to what we now call Africa. The Anakites attempted to mate with each other, but they gradually became sterile. Eventually the Anakites, although they had grown into a group of about one thousand, ceased to reproduce.

  Their lifespan was significant, able to live for thousands of years, and they ate mostly vegetables and grass. However, they knew that once they stopped producing offspring, it would be the end of them entirely.

  Once, they attempted to build a great tower in order to send messages to the sky—messages that passing Anakite ships could see if they were there—but this attempt failed to attract any ships from the sky.

  When the Anakites felt the most helpless, it was the second creation that revived some hope. It happened in Mesopotamia when the great one, known as the Living Spirit, walked among his people in a magnificent garden called Gan Eden.

  As the first people to live on the earth, the Anakites were jealous of a new people, but they had a plan to use these humans to their advantage to save their own species. They thought they could mate with the humans to keep their kind alive. The plan was to mate with the humans and to enslave them. The humans would be their servants and their lovers, they thought.

  The great Living Spirit found out about this plot to mate with humans and appeared to the leader of the Anakites. The Living Spirit made a law. It was forbidden by the Living Spirit for the Anakites to mingle with the humans. The Anakites agreed that they would not touch another human being, except by the free will of the humans. It was decided, by both the Living Spirit and the Anakites, that the choice of the destiny of the humans would be in the hands of the humans alone—but there was an additional problem.

  The Anakites brought with them things from their planet that had begun to corrupt the world. They brought with them diseases and plants from their other world that would be deadly if eaten or even touched by a human.

  One such plant was taken from the Anakites by the Living Spirit and placed in the garden for the humans to eat—but only if they ate it in direct disobedience. As a test, the Living Spirit agreed to command his created people to not eat of the plant. If they ate of it, then the Anakites could have their way with the humans. They could touch them and even mate with them. That was the deal.

  The plant flourished in the garden and grew into a tree. The created humans were told to not touch or eat it, by order of the great Living Spirit. Also, the Anakites were not allowed to enter the garden to entice them to eat of the tree, forbidden under penalty of death. However, the Anakites had an ally.

  There was a great and powerful creature. It had the power of shapeshifting. He was called the Light or sometimes the Great Beast. He transformed into a lizard, and he stood up as a man and walked the earth. The Great Beast allied with the Anakites in their efforts to enslave the humans. The Great Be
ast told the Anakites that he had been created by the Living Spirit and then cast away for no reason at all. He said that the Living Spirit killed many of his people. His people were the people of the spirit—they could not be seen, but only felt. He told the Anakites that he hated the Living Spirit. He told them if they allied with him, then he would live peaceably with the Anakites. It was an enticement that carried a subtle threat.

  The Anakites had never seen the Light’s people, so they agreed to let him help them by enticing the humans to eat the fruit of the tree. They did not fear a spirit army, for the Anakites had great powers. They had the power of telekinesis and mind control. Some legends said that the Anakites had special weapons of enormous power. They did not fear a spirit—anything that could not be seen—but the Great Beast did not reveal to the Anakites the real reason that he helped them. The Light wanted the possession and control of a new army to fight the Living Spirit. He needed the Anakites to fight and battle the Living Spirit, but that is another story.

  The humans did eat the food of the Anakites, and the Living Spirit banished them from the garden. When they left they took stones from the garden that held deep and mystical powers, but no one knew their true origin. The Living Spirit placed a powerful Guardian in front of the garden that stood watch over the entrance with a flaming sword. It was a powerful and special creature. No one would ever enter the garden again.

  The humans and the Anakites mated, and the humans became slaves of the Anakites. The Anakites enforced their every will and intention. Then, after years of this pain, the humans cried out to the Living Spirit for help, and the Living Spirit answered their cries with what would be known as the Great Destruction.

  The Living Spirit made rivers of water and mercury that flooded the earth and destroyed the Anakites, but the Living Spirit protected the humans with the help of a great ship that sailed on the waters. Only a few of the Anakites survived, in underground caves and passages, where the mercury could not penetrate.

  After the Great Destruction, the humans, tainted by the germs and the ideas of the Anakites, spread disease, death, and eventual slavery into the second creation. Gradually, the humans, who had learned the art of slavery, having been slaves themselves, started to enslave each other. Some of the mixed-race Anakites who survived the Great Destruction, to give them greater status on the earth, used a modified tale of the first and second creation. They were the first creation they claimed, and humans were the second. The truth was that the animals were the first, and the humans were the second.

  As to the spirit people, led by the Great Beast, the alliance continued as both the spirit people and many of the mixed Anakites had the need to be served. They both continued to hate the Living Spirit. There were times during wars between the spirit people and the Living Spirit that the Anakites were asked to join in the fight. They were reminded of what the Great Beast had done for them in the garden, eons before.

  The people of the Prophets kept these stories alive for ages upon ages until they died a natural death, or by butchery or disease. It was a story that once again was told by the Ani Nvya, but this time it was told to another Guardian.

  The visitor asked the man about the portal.

  “The portal that was sealed by the Living Spirit—where is it? And what happened to the Priests in Egypt?” he asked.

  “The great Priests were destroyed as the Prophets were destroyed. The living Anakites, who had first fled underground, the true bloods, enticed the Guardians to come below with a threat to destroy the humans. The Anakites told them that if they sacrificed their lives, then a great attack would not come. Now, many portals seal the tombs of the Guardians. Many Guardians died in believing that lie,” said the Ani Nvya.

  “Yes, but you have the maps? I am looking for a portal in Kanab, Utah!” said the visitor.

  The Ani Nvya showed him the maps of the Anakite portals. He added, “But they are all dead, and the Anakites are dead. They must all be dead now. They cannot be alive.”

  “That’s alright!” said the visitor. “I am counting on the remaining Anakites to believe otherwise. There is an Anakite by the name of Peter Jenkins that should be coming here soon for the same information. You must give him only one map and one entrance to the cave and portal. The Guardians plan on trapping him and ridding the world of the last Anakite.”

  Chapter 25

  Tunnels in Kanab

  Part Two

  He wasn’t an old man. He was an experienced man, in a younger body. The attractive girl with him often spoke of their mismatch when they walked together. He was hunched over. He walked holding a long staff, covered with a cloth over its tip. He wore jeans and a cotton shirt underneath his poncho. The girl wore hip shorts, a T-shirt, and short combat boots. His companion seemed much younger and pressed him to continue.

  “We will be late if we don’t hurry!”—she grabbed his arm as if to steady it.

  “I have a lift just below,” he said as he pointed to the ground. She looked for a door on the ground and found a handle in the shape of a round circle. In the dust, camouflaged by its light brown color, there were two panels with handles, flat on the ground. They were padlocked, but provided no other security. The old man handed her a key, and she unlocked the rusted lock. She removed a chain that was around the metal circles.

  Both panels were opened and hit the ground with a loud metal echo. It looked dark below. There did not seem to be a supporting floor.

  “Surely you have faith?”—he placed his moccasin over the pit of blackness. He moved it to a side of the hole where there rested a ladder that supported his foot. They both stepped down the rusty ladder and soon made their way down to the next level that provided the promised elevator.

  Meanwhile, far below the Utah desert, the Guardians had arrived at their own destination via an adjoining cave underneath a lake. They swam just below the edge of a lake and found the entrance into a descending chamber that led to a short trek into the mythical caves of Montezuma. Haj was followed by David and Mattie. Sam and Tom journeyed to the caves from another route.

  The Ani Nvya had long known about the caves of the deer people. Their legend even told of many additional tunnels that connected to various parts of the continents throughout the whole world. The old man, the one who rode the elevator to one of those tunnels of the legends, knew of the Ani Nvya personally. He had spoken to one, recently in Boone, North Carolina.

  The old man descended downward in the elevator, along with his young, female companion. In his mind, he replayed the last conversation and interactions with the last Ani Nvya, just before he died several days later. The old man had obtained complete maps of the caves from his gracious and most generous benefactor, the Ani Nvya. In addition, the wise Prophet gave a special copy of the map showing a singular entrance to Peter Jenkins. This copy led Peter to another part of the cave—intentionally. It was a trap, and it was set in motion by the old man. A genuine copy was sent to a Dr. Haj Habib, with instructions about the trap, and Haj kept the details of the trap and the old man’s identity strictly confidential.

  Peter, as Dred, and Jesse, in the cloned body of Aysha, went into the tunnels the easy way, but so did Tom and Sam, who followed directly behind them at a safe and discreet distance.

  There was a little known but somewhat accessible small white building, the size of a small garage. It was located about five miles from the lake that the others had used to access the caves. It was owned by the federal government but seldom disturbed. The tunnels below had been found about a hundred years ago by settlers traveling westward. The area was once going to be used as a bomb shelter by the military, but this never happened. Due to a lack of funds, that project was terminated. The building had a gasoline powered freight elevator that could lower a single vehicle down to a platform. Beyond the platform was a rough but drivable path. It had been cleared by some unknown methods centuries before. Perhaps cattle or a mass number of people had cleared the tunnel’s pathways. There were numerous theories, and m
ost were without scientific credibility.

  There was no treasure of Montezuma ever found. It was assumed that either the tunnels were looted, or the treasure was entirely a myth. The tunnel from the lake and the tunnel from the shack led to the same end point—a dead end. The dead end was nothing but a solid wall with no apparent opening. The lake tunnel came in from the west and the shack tunnel came in from the east. The wall or dead end was on the north side of an open and grand space with an enormous ceiling of solid rock.

  Haj, David, and Mattie were the first of the Guardians to enter the cave, and all of them drew a weapon just before they entered.

  “Pointing a weapon! That is bad form, old boy!”—Dred suddenly appeared behind a rock and shouted at them as they came into the cave. He greeted them with an M60 machine gun. He fired just above them, and the bullets rattled against the jagged rock ceiling and walls. Threatened with the clattering bullets, the Guardians hit the dirt floor and flattened their bodies in avoidance of the projectiles.

  Jesse, the Aysha look-alike, sat proudly nearby on the car hood of a rented Cadillac. Her breasts pushed against a tight shirt of black netting. Her eyes sparkled like her fiery red ring. Her lips were blackened by cheap color, and, around her neck, she wore several layers of plastic beads. Around her shoulders, she wore a black vinyl jacket.

  “I will take the sword please, gentlemen!”—Peter barked his command as his eyes glowed with red intensity. The Guardians stood up, and Peter realized that a lady was present with them.

  “I plan to get all of my powers back, and then I will open up the tunnels to the north—with the help of your sword, of course!” Peter gloated. “Did you think that you were trapping me? It was I that was trapping you! Give the Guardians a mission, and they always bring their sword.