The Lost Garden (The Lost Garden Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Knight stopped reading, and looked up. “Ten miles from the sprawling Iranian industrial city of Tabriz, as you descend a narrow mountain path, you see a beautiful alpine valley, with terraced orchards on its slopes, crowded with every kind of fruit-laden tree. This is a land not found on modern maps. In fact, each map places it in a different location. The Biblical word gan—as in Gan Eden—which means ‘walled garden.’ The valley is walled in by towering mountains. The highest of these is Mount Sahand, a snow-capped extinct volcano that Rohl identifies as the Prophet Ezekiel’s Mountain of God, where the Lord resides. Cascading down the mountain is a small river, the Adji Chay, the name of which translates from local dialects to mean ‘walled garden.’ The locals still hold the mountain sacred, and attribute magical powers to the river’s water. That is, if you dare venture upon it.”

Jess sat up straighter.

“As legends have it, spirits protect the mountain and those who venture to it are often not heard from again. The mountain is protected, they say, from the ancient Cherubim mentioned in the Bible.” He moved over to his Bible again. “After Adam and Eve had fallen from God’s grace, he cast them out of the garden of Eden. Interesting enough, God found it necessary to protect his garden, the only place mentioned in the Bible where He freely walked among men. ‘So He drove out man and He placed cherubim at the east end of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which flashes back and forth, to guard the way to the tree of life.’

“Making the case for Eden even stronger, Rohl says that he found the land of Nod, which the Bible describes as East of Eden. Nod was Cain’s place of exile after the murder of his brother, Abel. Today, the area is called Noqdi. But it doesn’t end there because a few kilometers south of Rohl’s Nod, at the head of a mountain pass, lies the sleepy town of Helebad, formerly known as Kheruabad, which means ‘settlement of the Kheru people.’ Rohl believes that this name could be a permutation of the word ‘keruvim’ that is translated as Cherubs. The Cherubs were a tribe of fearsome warriors whose token was an eagle or falcon, often tattooed on shoulders and backs. Interesting enough, it is thought that the Cherubs used women as warriors, and in fact, the women were held in higher esteem. Some of these women, according to the Sumerian cuneiform, were referred to as the Daughters of Eve. The Cherubs are gone, but their legends lived on in the eyes of the locals who feared their wrath, and thus, the wrath of God.”

Jess smiled. The man had done his homework. There were those who were slowly working their way to her holy mountain. The discovery seemed inevitable. It was one of the reasons she was here today.

“I will take some questions now,” he said.

“Dr. Knight! Dr. Knight!”

Many more hands shot up this time. Knight chose one woman. “Dr. Knight, perhaps you would like to tell us your own theories on Eden. After all, you’ve only mentioned the research of others.”

Knight hesitated. Jess was intrigued. It was the first time that he had shown any signs of doubt. He shrugged as his bright smile appeared again. Jess, to her annoyance, was beginning to enjoy that smile.

“Yes, I believe the story does not stop there.” He found his remote and moved forward through a few slides, until he had a detailed map of Northern Iran. Dr. Knight turned his back to the crowd and walked toward the projected image. He stared at it. When he spoke, it appeared that he was speaking to himself, although his voice was still clear over the lecture hall speakers. “Why were the Cherubim put in place to the east of Eden? The Bible says to guard the Tree of Life.” Knight turned and regarded the audience. “Where, then, is the Tree of Life? And what exactly is its significance?”

Another lady spoke, this one sitting in the front row. “I assume, Dr. Knight, that you have a theory.”

He smiled. “Yes. I do have a theory.”

“Would you care to share it with the rest of us?”

Jess found herself on the edge of her seat.

* * *

Knight knew the woman asking the question: Dr. Rosalind Barnett, one of his harshest critics. She had publicly lambasted his last paper in a rebuttal of her own. It would do her a lot of good, he figured, for her to let loose a little, and get off his back. She raised an eyebrow with a mischievous gleam in her narrowed eyes.

Knight smiled warmly at her and shrugged. “I have tentatively suggested that the Tree of Life, as mentioned in the garden, might still be in existence today.”

The crowd responded in a variety of ways. There were gasps and laughter heard. “Why would you think that, Dr. Knight?” prodded Dr. Barnett. Knight wished someone else would take the floor.

He did not answer immediately because he knew they would not understand the real reason. After all, he had seen the Tree of Life in his dreams. He had walked among the Garden of Eden in his dreams with his beautiful raven-haired escort. He had also dreamed of holding the flaming sword that guarded the Tree of Life. His dreams haunted him with their insistence, ultimately leading him to search for the garden himself and to be obsessed with it in every facet of his life.

He most definitely did not admit to them, or anyone, his most guarded secret.

Instead, Dr. Knight said, “I feel the Eden story is not a myth. I feel it is a warning to the human race. One that bears dire consequences if it is not heeded.”

“What is the warning, Doctor?”

“The Tree of Life is much more important than we can possibly know. Safeguards have been put into place to protect it. Man is supposed to stay away.”

“Or else?”

“Or else suffer the destruction of all life on Earth.” That got the audience’s attention. Some started shaking their heads and slinging their backpacks over their shoulders. He knew most of them must have regarded him as a nutcase. He didn’t care, because in his dreams, he saw the destruction of the tree. He saw the Earth stop spinning on its axis and saw the life-force drain from the planet.

Knight surged forward. “I believe Dr. Rohl did find the Garden of Eden in that alpine valley, ten miles from the city of Tabriz in Northern Iran. But I feel he only found a section of the garden. There is indeed more to the story. Something might lie hidden in the area. And that something is the true Garden of Eden, where the Tree of Life resides.”

“And the flashing sword of fire, as well?” She was mocking him.

Knight hesitated. “Yes. And the flashing sword of fire.”

* * *

“It’s always fun to hear you speak, Dr. Knight. I can’t say I agree with everything you have to say, but you sure make an interesting case. A hell of a showing!”

This statement came from the department head of the University of Long Beach’s Department of History, Lloyd Pearlman, a big man who had ambushed Knight the moment he had made his closing remarks. Knight had received a round of applause. People had stood and crowds had gathered. Before he could make a beeline for the back of the lecture hall, Professor Pearlman cornered him along the edge of the stage.

“Well, you know me, Lloyd. I never take the easy way out, especially when there’s a chance of me looking like a fool.” As he spoke, Knight scanned the thinning crowd. The raven-haired woman should have been quite noticeable. He saw the way she had kept adjusting her seat, trying to get comfortable. It was a problem Knight had had his whole life, dealing with his own six-foot, five-inch frame.

“I don’t know about looking like a fool, but I guarantee you that most people left here entertained.”

“That’s me. Just a traveling sideshow.”

Pearlman slapped Knight heartily on the back, knocking the historian forward. Knight did not take his eyes off of the thinning crowd.

“You looking for someone, Evan?” asked Pearlman’s pretty wife, who walked up and embraced her husband.

“Yeah, Penny, you could say that,” said Knight. “If you two would excuse me?”

“Of course. See you across the street at the bar, right?” asked Pearlman.

Knight had almost forgotten. He had agreed to meet in an informal setting with many of the local historians for an evening of good fun. At least, that was the plan. They would spend the evening attacking his views until they got too drunk to give a damn anymore.

“Yes, Lloyd. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Hey, I’ll see you two there.”

A crowd of students had formed behind Pearlman. Some were holding his latest book,
In Search of Eden
, hoping for an autograph. Knight pretended not to see them. Holding his briefcase, into which he had haphazardly jammed his lecture notes as fast as he could, he skirted the growing crowd of students and supporters. He quickly made his way up through the lecture hall, taking the steps two and sometimes, three at a time. He apologized profusely to those he was forced to squeeze around. His eyes never stopped looking for her, but he was afraid he had missed her. The ambush by the Pearlmans had cost him a chance to meet his dream woman.

You’re being silly
, he told himself.
How could your dream woman be real?

Knight knew that was a logical question that should have an obvious answer
.
He had long ago lost his grasp of what could and couldn’t be real. The woman he had seen tonight could have fit the description, but this wasn’t the first time he had jumped the gun. Throughout most of his life, any particularly tall, black-haired woman had set his mind and heart racing, until he could see the woman was not the beauty of his dreams, a woman he knew to be a warrior, by the way she dressed and handled her sword.

Knight was no stranger to the sword. Ever since his early dreams of a flaming one, he had been intrigued by the weapon. He had taken up fencing in college. He had been a national champion for four straight years.

Now, she was nowhere in sight. She had obviously slipped out the back the moment the lecture was over and now, he might never see her again. Knight fought an overwhelming desire to run outside and search the departing crowd, but he knew it was useless. The woman was gone. A great sense of loss overcame him, but he fought through it bravely. After all, she had probably been just another close call. Not truly the dream woman. The dream woman, he reminded himself again, did not exist and he was once again behaving like a fool.

For a short time tonight, though, he had been filled with hope. It had been a long time since he had felt hope. For now, he had to entertain a bunch of stuffy academics. He had to get through the night and forget the woman. He was planning on having more than his fair share of drinks.

Chapter Two

As Evan Knight pushed open the front door to his Malibu home overlooking the ocean, he realized how exhausted he was.

He was mentally fatigued as he tossed his keys and wallet in a Phoenician copper dish that he had personally brought up from the bottom of the Mediterranean. He was certain that the artisan who had created the dish had never meant it to be used in such a manner. Nevertheless, Knight liked it and found a certain satisfaction that it was still of some practical use and not housed away in the bowels of a museum.

He stopped in mid-step, thinking he’d heard a noise from somewhere. He listened, but the sound did not repeat. The old house often made settling noises. This had sounded...different. He let it go.

His spacious three-bedroom home was modestly decorated. He had custom-made mahogany bookshelves running the entire length of one wall, and most of another. His furniture was designed for easy access to his library of over ten thousand books; it was filled with mostly obscure historical works, with the occasional Crichton and Michener thrown in for lazy days.

He thought his home was too cozy, with muted lamps and dark paneling. He loved coming home, but he also loved to be abroad. He could only stay cooped up for so long.

Just a handful of women had been entertained here. They rarely came back, and he suspected it was because his heart just wasn’t into it. Few women intrigued him enough to pursue them.

The home had cost a fortune, but he had inherited a lot of money from his grandfather and he made a good salary as a professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, a school tolerant of his radical views toward history and religion.

It was 12:30 a.m., and the woman hadn’t shown up again. He had half-expected her to make a grand appearance at the bar across the street from University of Long Beach. No such luck. He knew he should go to bed, because he was tired. That damn woman at the lecture had been determined to make a fool of him. He should have probably kept his mouth shut, but he’d noticed more and more of late that he was able to speak from his heart and he knew the reason why.

The dreams were recurring more often, and had become more vivid. Something was happening to him, but he didn’t know what. In his kitchen, he poured himself a soda water. His stomach was upset, because of either too much drinking or too much thinking. He sipped from the glass, staring out his bay window. The ocean was black. The tide was in and the foaming whitecaps glowed in the moonlight. In the distance, he saw the gleaming lights of an oil rig. The sound of the crashing waves reached him clearly and distinctly through his partially open window. He stood there, listening to the soothing waves, feeling the faint ocean breeze mingled with the scent of brine. He imagined himself being carried off on a wave, letting the ocean swallow him whole as he drifted down. He would be at peace with himself; the dreams would be gone forever.

He opened his eyes. His window was now wide open.

He looked around the kitchen. There was nothing out of place, no indication that someone had entered his house, other than the noise earlier and the open window.

He thought back to the noise and was sure it had come from his artist’s studio below. The studio also doubled as his workout room. It was heavily equipped with all types of martial arts weaponry.

He set aside his glass carefully and removed his shoes. He walked across the bare wood floor in his dress socks, careful of the telltale squeaking boards he had not yet repaired.

He didn’t grab a weapon, preferring to keep his hands free, which could be weapons enough if he had to use them.

The studio loft was accessed by a wide stairway that led off from his living room. At the head of the stairs, he looked down. There was nothing to see. The stairs disappeared into darkness and there was clearly no light coming from below. His eyes were already well adjusted to the night, so he carefully stepped down, keeping away from the middle of the stairs and the many potential squeaks.

* * *

Jessima IL Eve was comfortable in the dark. After her many years on this earth, her eyes had grown accustomed to even the darkest rooms, or caves.

She stood in the center of what appeared to be a combined martial arts studio and artist’s loft, covered with both deadly weapons and paintings of every shape and size. Try as she might, even she couldn’t make out the details of the paintings, although they appeared to depict vegetation or forests. She often wondered if her ability to see in the dark was a side effect of the healing oil. After all, it had given her so much already.

After spending so much time on Earth, she often wondered if she had truly lived. She thought that there should be more to her life than the parameters that had been set for it, eons ago.

As always, she tucked those feelings away. They were far too dangerous to ponder.

Besides, she had yet to find something to live for, other than her chosen task.

She had left the colloquium quickly. The time had not been right to meet Knight and she suspected he would look for her. It had become quite evident to her that he had been aware of her presence, although she had no idea how. Perhaps he was attracted to all women. She had always known she intrigued men, but then again, perhaps they thought she was a freak.

Knight did not look like a man who thought that way. He looked like a man who was trying to remember and trying to recognize. As if he had known her, or known she was coming.

Perhaps, she thought, as she tore herself away from a painting that seemed to show a burning sun over a forest, he has the second sight as well. Humans had it as well. There had been many such prophets who possessed it. He didn’t look like a prophet, but that didn’t matter.

She thought,
You are a curious man, Evan Knight.

She had his address, of course. She had researched the man thoroughly and had followed him home the day before. The previous night, she had scouted out his house and had determined that he would leave an upper window open. Scaling great heights with her bare hands came naturally to her, as it did to all the Daughters.

Fixing dead batteries didn’t. Apparently, her rental car was not all it was cracked up to be. She had walked until she found a store that carried the vehicle’s battery. She installed it herself, having long ago familiarized herself with automobiles, although she didn’t own one herself. The Daughters usually shared a collection of communal jeeps.

She had gotten a late start and was unsure of when Knight would arrive home. She had been relieved to see that his beach house was still empty. She wanted to peruse it first, to get to know the man even better.

As soon as she had scampered up the ocean-facing wall, she had heard his garage door rising. Sure enough, the window had been unlocked and it wasn’t until she had ducked down the flight of stairs and into the studio, stepping on a creaking floorboard that could have awakened the dead, that she realized she had left the window open.

She knew that Daughters were never meant to be cat burglars. They were warriors.

She waited in his artist’s studio, certain that she would be discovered, yet feeling a thrill of excitement. After all, this was why she was here. She had hoped to learn more of the man. The idea of searching his home for clues to his psyche had sent shivers of excitement through her. Maybe she did have the heart of a cat burglar.

The noise from upstairs had ceased. She had heard him come in, plop his keys in a metallic bowl and head straight to the kitchen. The refrigerator door had opened and then silence. She checked her watch, and the glow of it seemingly lit up the entire studio, although that may have been her imagination. Mother Daughter always told her that she had too vivid an imagination.

She closed her eyes and centered herself, finding the balance within and around herself. She could see the walls of the studio room in her mind, covered in both paintings and weaponry. She pushed out further from the room and up the flight of stairs. Expanding her consciousness was a trick taught to the Daughters at a young age, before any of them drank of the healing oil. Before their aging was placed on eternal hold.

Now, in her mind, she could see feet descending the stairs. Just the socks. She looked up, and saw the man. Evan Knight. He was weaponless, but alert. Calm and breathing normally, but ready for a fight.

She would give him a fight.

After all, it wouldn’t hurt to test the mettle of the man who was destined to save the world.

She turned and gripped the handle of a straight single-edged sword, adrenalin rushing through her veins, and the taste of battle filling her. She pulled up her black hood, masking her hair and face.

Prepare yourself, Doctor.

* * *

He heard a noise. The whisper of metal.

Well, that was to be expected. You didn’t get trapped in a room full of weapons without using one in your defense.

He slid his hand along the teak wall for balance. His stocking feet stepped lightly along the far edge of the stairs.

Be ready for anything
, he thought.

He wasn’t worried about a possible gun, because otherwise, the burglar wouldn’t have needed the sword.

As he had been taught in his countless martial arts classes, he knew he should prepare for the unexpected. He could almost feel a presence in his studio. A presence that seemed to be waiting for him.

Expect the unexpected.

The wide stairway opened up to his studio. There was no door. The stairway simply deposited him into the lower room. His foot reached for the second to last step. He paused.

He heard breathing and something else. Not footsteps. Something was coming at him.

He reached around the corner and flipped on the light switch. A pale yellow light filled the large room, highlighting his extensive collection of Eastern and Western weapons, not to mention his amateur artwork depicting his dream visions of Eden. Flying through the air, finishing with a back flip, was a lean black-robed figure. One of his own swords was in the figure’s hands.

Knight dropped backward, flat against the stairs. The edge of the sword sunk deep into the beam of the arched doorway. His assailant flew by overhead and up the stairs, leaving the sword where it was. Knight assumed his attacker was going to make a break for it. He pushed himself up and forward, but was surprised as hell to see the figure diving back down the stairs toward him.

This time, he had no choice but to defend himself. The full weight of the attacker’s body landed on him, but Knight was rarely one to be caught off-balance. As he landed, he used their momentum to throw the black-robed figure well away from his body.

The figure shrieked in frustration. It was a much higher-pitched shriek than he would have anticipated. In one swift motion, the figure rolled once and was on its feet, hands raised in the guarded position. The hood stayed in place. Thanks to the fact that the lights were dimmed, he had no clue as to his attacker’s gender. He sensed they were about the same height, although Knight was broader. Still a lanky and formidable opponent.

“Who are you?” he asked.

There was no response, nor did he really expect one. They circled each other in the center of his studio, about ten feet apart, moving slowly. Both were weaponless. He stepped past his current, unfinished painting, which depicted an arched stone bridge that crossed over water and into paradise. It was based on a recent dream of his, one which was particularly vivid.

The intruder made no sound, not even the whisper of feet on his hardwood floor. The prowler was wearing an unusual form-fitting shoe, which appeared and disappeared with each sideways step beneath the hem of the robe. Like a true fighter, his opponent never left the guarded position. The hands were loose and partially raised, ready to defend or attack. The attacker’s feet never crossed, thus staying perfectly balanced.

Knight knew he was up against a professional fighter.

Well, he was no slouch. If it was a fight this assailant wanted, then it was a fight he would deliver. This was, after all his home. He would defend it with all the formidable skills he had acquired over his life.

“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.”

He removed his old suit jacket and tossed it in a far corner. He advanced confidently, with short steps. Now, they were both within striking range. His fists were raised, head lowered, while looking out from under his eyebrows. He liked quick jabs. A quick jab done right could instantly break a nose.

He tested the waters, lashing out with his left hand. The movement was cobra quick. In one smooth motion, he got off a punch, turning his fist slightly to the inside, while protecting his face as he jabbed. As in all fighting techniques, most offensive moves opened oneself up to a retaliatory strike. Turning his wrist enabled Knight to use his own striking arm to guard his face. It was a movement that now came completely naturally to him, after years of practice, and he was often quick enough to land on even the best sparring partners.

He hit air, missing completely. His opponent stepped back smoothly, with no counterattack. The hood stayed in place, face in shadows. He felt as if he were fighting the grim reaper.