It was dark. A darkness I hope no man ever knows until the moment of his death. Carefully I moved with the water, hoping, as Kaji had said, it would come out at the Nile.
Turcotte stopped scrolling, excited. “That’s it!” He spun in his seat to Yakov. “That’s how we’re going to get to her. Through the Second Gateway to the Roads of Rostau, to the Hall of Records.”
“My friend.” Yakov’s voice was a deep, steady rumble. “Perhaps we should finish reading first. We do not know for sure that Mister Burton made it out exactly that way.”
Impatiently, Turcotte turned back to the screen. He hit the scroll.
I walked for perhaps a quarter mile. I knew my pace and had used it in the past when mapping unfamiliar territories. Of course, being waist deep in water certainly made the measurement questionable.
Be that as it may, it was some time before I realized I was not alone. I cannot tell you how I knew there was something else in that tunnel with me, but I have often had this feeling and it has always been right. Something moved in the tunnel behind me. A chill ran up my spine, the cold hand of death, as strong as I had ever felt it.
It—whatever it was—kept pace with me. I could hear a sound, a light clatter of metal on stone, but what caused it, I knew not.
I do not know why, but I felt that as long as I moved away from the Duats, as Kaji had called the chambers, it would let me go., But if I turned and tried to return, I was absolutely certain I would be struck down most grievously.
“What is he speaking about?” growled Yakov.
“His imagination was running wild,” Turcotte said. “He had just survived an attack on his life. He was in a pitch-black tunnel that led God knows where.”
“He was a brave man,” Yakov said. “A man who went where others feared to go. He would not have written this if it was only his imagination. He really felt something was following him.”
But Turcotte was already thinking ahead. “How far is it from the Giza Plateau to the Nile?”
“I don’t know offhand,” Yakov said.
“I’ve been there,” Che Lu said, “and it’s several kilometers at least to the river.”
“Good, we can—”
“Let us finish reading,” Yakov once more tried to douse Turcotte’s enthusiasm.
I went farther, the water level remaining relatively constant. I shouted, hearing my voice echo against the walls, trying to bolster my spirits. I didn’t stop to measure how far apart they were.
After a while, I felt that the threat was no longer close, that it was letting me go unscathed. But the water began to rise, moving more quickly. The tunnel was narrowing. Soon I bumped into the wall on the left. I kept my hand on it and continued to move forward. When the water rose to my chin and the roof of the tunnel was less than six inches above the top of my head and still declining, I realized that I would have to commit myself to fate once more.
I took several deep breaths, then threw myself into the surging water. The water filled the tunnel, top to bottom, side to side. I hit the wall several times, tumbling about until I had no idea which way was up.
I was growing faint, the air in my lungs used, when I felt a change in pressure in my ears. Light, blessed light hit my eyes.
I was out of the tunnel. I could see the surface above, light beckoning. I kicked for it, my head faint. I broke into air, sucking in lungfuls. My nostrils could catch the odor of the city, its foulness never smelling so wonderful.
I was in the Nile, just south of Cairo, north of Giza.
If you are reading this, then you must also be interested in the Hall of Records. It is well hidden. Going down from the Great Pyramid I must admit I was too overwhelmed to be able to give accurate information how to proceed. For that I apologize. An explorer should always keep his bearings.
But when Kaji led me out from the chamber that contained the Hall, I paid strict attention. I do not know how much help it will be, because it is only from the Hall chamber to the room I was trapped in—and there was not a way to open the stone door to the tunnel, but I will you give you what I know.
We went one hundred and twenty paces down the tunnel from the blackness that absorbed all light. On the left was a door, which Kaji opened with his ring. We turned right, two hundred and seventeen paces to one of the doors that only appeared when he placed his ring on the wall on the right side. Walk through that door and then seventy paces to the hidden door on the right, which guarded the chamber where Kaji tried to trap me. I have used my pace count on many mapping expeditions and have found that one hundred and sixteen of my steps equals one hundred meters.
“If this tunnel he escaped through comes out north of Giza,” Turcotte said, “then this underground river must begin somewhere south of there. That’s how we’ll infiltrate, with the current.”
“But how will you find the cavern that houses this Black Sphinx?” Yakov asked.
“I’ll find it,” Turcotte promised. “I’ll reverse the directions Burton gave.” He picked up the phone and talked to Major Quinn in the Cube, ordering him to get every bit of intelligence and imagery possible on the Giza Plateau and the nearby Nile, particularly hydro-graphic surveys of the river. He also told Quinn to begin working on the request for the support Turcotte thought he might need.
“But how will we open these doors Burton mentions?” Yakov asked.
“We have to get a Watcher’s ring,” Turcotte said. “We had one before; Harrison, the Watcher who died in South America, but Duncan took that with her to Giza. We need another one.”
“Then we need to find another Watcher,” Yakov said.
“They show up when you least expect them,” Turcotte said. “They’ve been—” He paused and turned to Mualama. “Why did you start following Burton’s path and studying him?”
“I found him a fascinating individual and—”
“How did you find the scepter so quickly?” Turcotte cut him off, angry with himself for not having suspected this before.
“I told you. There were drawings in the manuscript that—”
“But you told us at first you couldn’t read the manuscript,” Turcotte said. “And now you’ve been translating it. You lied to us.”
“And you kept the scepter secret for a while,” Yakov noted, picking up on Turcotte’s suspicion.
“Why did you let Duncan go to the Ark and not you?” Turcotte demanded.
“The robes would only fit her,” Mualama said.
“You’ve only done what you wanted, when you wanted,” Turcotte noted. He stepped closer to Mualama. “Who are you working for?”
“I work for no one,” Mualama said.
“I don’t believe you,” Turcotte said.
Che Lu came forward between the two men. “We need to work together, not against each other.”
Turcotte stabbed a finger at Mualama. “He’s the one that’s had his own agenda. It stops right now.” He turned to Quinn. “I don’t want him to have access to anything. The manuscript—anything. Put him under guard.”
A panicked look crossed Mualama’s face at the prospect of being cut off from the manuscript. “Wait!”
Turcotte turned back to him. “Yes?”
“I can tell you where you can find some Watchers.”
“And how can you tell us that?” Turcotte asked.
Mualama reached into his shirt and pulled out a medallion hanging on a chain. The Watcher’s symbol was etched onto the surface.
Turcotte’s hands balled into fists. “You’re a Watcher?”
“I was a Watcher,” Mualama corrected.
“What happened?” Yakov asked.
“Do you still have your ring?” Turcotte’s question was right on the heels of Yakov’s.
“I did not have a ring. Only those of the first order have rings. Those of the second order have these.” He held up the medallion once more.
“You said you are no longer a Watcher,” Che Lu said.
“I was searching for information, and the first or
der did not approve of that. They wanted me to watch my corner of the planet and keep my mouth shut and my mind closed.”
“Why did you turn on the Watchers?” Che Lu asked.
“I was tired of being a second-class citizen,” Mualama said. “My ancestors were recruited to be Watchers by the original Watchers, the wedjat. There is a hierarchy in the organization, a split between those who claim a lineage to the original wedjat and those who were recruited, the first and second orders. And I wanted to know the truth.”
“About?” Yakov asked.
“Who the Watchers were. Why we were watching.”
Turcotte leaned forward. “And did you learn the truth?”
Mualama nodded. “Quite a bit of it.”
“Tell us,” Che Lu said. “Who are the Watchers? How did they begin?”
“Will your information help us get a ring?” Turcotte demanded, his mind focused on the upcoming mission.
Mualama rubbed a hand through the stubble of his gray hair. “It began when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through it all—mastectomy, chemotherapy, experimental drugs. And none of it worked. When she died, I lost—” He spread his hands, searching for the right words. “I lost all my beliefs. My wife had been a Christian. To the moment she died, she believed she would be going to a better place. But I, who knew of the Airlia, did not know what to believe. I wanted the truth then.
“I had learned from another Watcher, one of the line of Kaji, about Burton visiting Giza. And I had found reports about Burton in Tanzania where I lived. So I began to study him. Then I began to follow his path all over the world, to the many places he had been, trying to discover what he had learned.” Mualama shook his head. “It is funny that he found the repository of the Watchers, scant miles from his own home, in his dear England.”
“Where?” Yakov wanted to know.
“Glastonbury Tor, near the Salisbury Plain, in southwest England,” Mualama said. “Burton traveled there in 1864 with John Speke, his companion from their search for the Nile. The Watchers had tried to kill Burton before, so I imagine he brought Speke for protection. Or, more likely, to make sure someone else knew the truth in case something happened to him.
“During Burton’s time as consul in West Africa, an attempt was made on his life after he mounted an expedition in search of the Mountains of the Moon, known to the natives as Ruwenzori, deep in the heart of my continent. It was not the first time such a thing occurred, and it would not be the last. When I learned that Burton and Speke had traveled to Glastonbury, I went there also. Especially given that Speke died the next day, supposedly of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but I saw the long hand of the Watchers in that death. I assumed Burton and Speke had come close to something significant to evoke such a response.
“I approached the Tor at dusk, seeing the jagged, broken finger of the stone tower at the top. I climbed the long path when I knew there would be no others there, to see what was to be seen. I knew what to look for, and using a flashlight, I eventually found the smallest of indentations in one of the old stones on the side of the ruined tower. I pressed my medallion against it, but nothing happened.
“I continued my search and was about to despair of finding anything more when I heard the sound of stone moving on stone. A figure robed in brown came out of the pitch-black shadow of the tower. He looked like a monk, with a long white beard and pale skin that had seen little of the sun. I held up my hand, showing my medallion to him, and he in turn showed me his ring.”
“Where did the rings come from?” Turcotte wanted to know.
“Patience,” Mualama told him. “That will be clear shortly. The Watcher signaled for me to turn my light out. ‘What do you seek?’ he asked me.
“I had thought about what to say if I met another Watcher, and I had decided that the truth was best. I told him I had traveled far from my home and that I sought knowledge. It was the right answer, for he smiled at me. ‘I am the keeper of our knowledge,’ he told me.
“I asked him who he was and he told me his name was Brynn. I knew the roots of the name from my studies of Burton’s published writings—it was a derivative of the ancient Welsh name—it meant ‘from the hill.’ He asked me mine. I told him as well as where I was from. I was not yet considered a renegade—it was that night that would make me an enemy of the Watchers.
“Have any of you ever been to Glastonbury?” Mualama asked.
He was greeted with a unanimous negative. “It’s a very impressive place. We were over five hundred feet above the land on a mound of Earth that poked unnaturally toward the sky. How such an abrupt hill came into existence in the midst of a vast plain was a mystery that the locals referred to in terms of legend. I had learned to listen to such legends very closely.
“There were legends that in the old days Druids lived on the Tor and sang the eternal song. Constantly rotating people twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, they kept the song alive, which supposedly kept the Tor alive. I asked Brynn about the Tor.
“He told me ‘In the old days the Tor was surrounded by water. The land around us is actually below sea level and this was an island. It was called Avalon.’ ‘That is a place of myth,’ I argued. ‘Not real.’ ‘Do you feel the Earth beneath you? Is that not real?’ Brynn didn’t wait for an answer from me. ‘This was Avalon. Many feet, belonging to people much more famous than you, have stood in this place and felt the ground under them. Arthur was here on his deathbed. Arthur was brought here after his last fight, the Battle of Camlann. Merlin came here many times.’
“Brynn told me more as we stood there,” Mualama said. “He told me that before Arthur and Merlin there were others who had been on Avalon. He listed names I had heard of only in legend: Bron, the Fisher-King, who he said ruled from atop the Tor long before Arthur. And before Bron, Joseph of Arimathea came there from the Holy Land. He even told me there were some who believe the Christ-child came with Joseph during one of his early trips to trade tin.”
“Ah!” Yakov could not control his reaction.
Mualama looked at the Russian. “I am only telling you what I heard and saw.”
“Go on,” Yakov said. “It is just that every time I think I have heard so much I cannot be shocked, I hear something more.”
“I know how you feel,” Mualama said. “Brynn led the way and we slid between broken stone into the ruined abbey, to the remains of the high tower. We stood in the center, the night sky visible directly overhead. Brynn held a hand up, muttering some words that I could not hear. Then he knelt, placing his ring on the stone floor. A large block, six feet long by three wide, dropped down two feet, then slid sideways, disappearing, revealing stairs etched out of the Tor itself, descending into the depths.
“I felt a sense of dread looking into the hole, as if a woolen blanket had been draped over my soul. For the first time in many years, I wondered if I really wanted to know more of the truth, if ignorance might indeed be bliss. What little I did know already weighed heavy on my heart.
“Brynn did not wait on me. He headed down and quickly faded into darkness. My boots echoed on the stone steps. The air was dank and chilly. I could tell from the walls that as we descended we were moving back through time. No one knew exactly when the current Tower had been built, but most agreed it was sometime in the fourth century.
“The stones that lined the stairs were perfectly cut. These stones gave way to the solid rock at the heart of the Tor. The walls were smooth, the tunnel sliced out of hard rock as easily as I could cut butter at the dinner table. Looking down, I could see that the steps were worn very slightly in the center, from generations of Brynn’s walking up and down them, I imagined. Still we went down, the path ahead dimly lit from Brynn’s and my lights, darkness beyond.
“Brynn had come to a halt on a landing. The stairs did another ninety-degree turn and continued down, but he was facing the stone wall. He placed his ring on it, and another doorway appeared. He waved me to go inside. I stepped through. Brynn f
ollowed, the door sliding shut behind them. It was dry inside, but still chilly.
“I gasped as I looked about. I was in a large cavern, about two hundred meters long by a hundred wide. It was brilliantly lit as the small amount of light from our lanterns reflected from the brilliant crystals that lined the walls, ceiling, and floor. Brynn set down his light.
“I asked him where we were. He told me ‘This place has gone by many names over many generations. Some call it Merlin’s tomb. Others say it is the antechamber to the Otherworld.’
“I asked him what he called it, and he simply replied home.
“I followed. In the very center of the cavern was a large crystal, over two meters tall. We didn’t go that way, though. Brynn turned to the right and walked along the wall. He then opened a door, cleverly hidden between two pillars of crystal to reveal a level tunnel cut through the stone.
“We went along it for almost a kilometer before Brynn stopped. He placed his ring against the wall and a door suddenly appeared. The stone slid up. This time Brynn led the way in.
“We were in a small chamber, about ten meters long by five wide. The center of the room was full of wooden desks crammed tightly together. The entire wall on the right was fronted with what appeared to be wine racks, except instead of bottles, the small openings held rolls of parchment. I had seen a similar thing at an old monastery in France—a scriptorium—a room where monks painstakingly copied texts by hand before the days of the printing press, to ensure that copies survived.
“He told me the scrolls were the records and reports of our order, the tale of the wedjat. We were underneath the town, where the new Abbey was built. In the old days this was secreted under water.
“I stared dumbfounded, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined such a treasure trove.
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