The Mongol Objective (18 page)

“Been there, done that,” Orlando said. “But maybe not opium.”

—“and had a dream. I’m wondering now if it might not have been more of a vision, a
remote vision
. He woke and wrote down part of his dream, but then a guest showed up, and when he sat back to finish it he could only capture fleeting bits of it.”

Qara’s expression fell. She shook her head. “I don’t understand how this is possible, how you know.”

“We don’t understand how it works either,” Caleb admitted. “Sometimes we’re just shown what we ask to see, other times we see what we need. It’s as if some unseen hand controls the projection booth in our minds, and we’re just in the audience, watching.”

“I’m still lost,” Phoebe said. “I was a science geek. English lit I kind of slept through.”

“Ditto,” said Orlando, “but that’s why God invented Google.” He flipped open his notebook tablet and accessed the web.

“I don’t remember all of the poem,” Caleb said. “Just a few lines:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea . . .”

Orlando clapped his hands together. “Aha, you skipped Coleridge’s first line:
In Xanadu did Kublai Khan / a stately pleasure-dome decree.”

“Xanadu,” Phoebe whispered, and Qara made a soft moan.

“Kublai Khan was Temujin’s grandson,” Caleb told her, “and built his marvelous summer palace and imperial center, the likes of which dazzled visitors including Marco Polo, here in Mongol-controlled China. At Shang-du or Tei-bing—also known as Xanadu.”

“And he built this place,” Phoebe asked, “over the spot of his grandfather’s tomb?”

Caleb saw Qara’s reaction, the brief closing of her eyes, and knew he was right.

“As above, so below.”

6.

Alexander felt like a farm animal, herded into the lead jeep—more of a tank-like thing with seriously thick metal plating, tinted windows and leather seats—and forced to sit right between Xavier Montross and Nina Osseni, on the hump.

The military guy, Hiltmeyer, drove, while someone named Harris, a soldier with a crew cut and a square jaw, sat in the front passenger seat. He had a machine gun in his lap. Alexander squirmed in his seat, looking over his shoulder, past the containers, portable generators, body armor, weapons and digging equipment, to look out the back window at the other four vehicles revving up behind them.

“On our way,” Hiltmeyer said, turning from the base camp and away from the Sacred Mountain, leaving the Khenti Mountain range in their wake. “Program the route, sergeant.”

“Already done,” said the soldier up front, after finishing up with the GPS assistant, and lighting up the map on the small built-in screen.

“Xanadu.” Montross shook his head, his eyes blinking quickly. “All this time, everyone who looked for the Khan’s grave . . . right under their noses.”

“They tricked you good,” Alexander said quietly.

“Tricked everybody good.” He glanced past Alexander, to Nina. “Now that we have time, let’s be sure about this—and see exactly where it is we need to excavate. I don’t want to waste any time when we get there. Go ahead, Nina. Touch him.”

“What—?” Alexander bolted upright, but Nina had already reached down, grasped his right wrist and took it in an iron-fisted grip.

“One of her special talents,” Montross said, his words drowning in the gunning of the motor, lost in the moans coming from Alexander’s own throat. Unbidden sounds released from the primal source of his most recent visions, rising up again.

Replayed, this time for the sole enjoyment of the woman clenching his wrist. Nina, her eyes gone white, head back, in almost ecstatic pose.

Taking.

Seeing.

#

She released him, flexed and rubbed her fingers as if singed, and took a deep breath. “Got it.” She rubbed her hands together, then gently touched Alexander’s head. “I saw the spot over the river, the entrance. There were early Darkhad members staring down at it from a gilded bridge in Xanadu.”

“It’ll look a lot different now,” Montross said. “I considered visiting Shangdu years ago on a trip to Beijing to see the Wall.” He grinned. “To
see
the Wall actually defended and rebuilt, first-hand. But I thought better of wasting the time to go all that way, since there’s nothing at old Xanadu anymore, and no other sites of interest in the vicinity. Just some perimeter stones and an archway. Almost no tourism.”

Alexander perked up, trying to get over what had just been ripped from him. “The whole city’s gone?”

Montross nodded. “After Kublai Khan’s death in 1294, later generations couldn’t sustain the Mongol empire. Xanadu fell out of use, despite its splendor, and the Chinese emperors chose the more strategically located Beijing as their capital.”

“So,” Colonel Hiltmeyer said, glancing in the rearview mirror, “we’re going to a field of old rocks?”

“Exactly. The perfect hiding spot. They sent us scurrying up distant mountainsides, even sacrificed themselves to make it look like we were close, and all the while, they knew it was far away, in the middle of nowhere.” He leaned forward and started talking to Hiltmeyer, discussing strategy and deployment of the men once they got there.

Nina took that as her chance to go back—back to the well for more.

“Alexander,” she whispered, leaning in close even as the boy shrank away. She again took his wrist, hissing, “Play along. This will be over in a moment.”

“What are you doing?” he whispered back.

“You’ve been keeping secrets,” she said. “I saw a glimpse. Something else, something you’ve been seeing. A lot.”

“No.”

“Oh yes, boy. The Sphinx. And the door. Show it to me.”

“No, please, it scares me. I don’t like to—”

“
Now!
”

#

A rush of something like electricity tingled through Nina’s fingertips and up her arm, jolting the synapses in her brain, firing the spaces between them, lighting up a holographic screen in her vision.

Maybe, she thought, it was the proximity of the Emerald Tablet, in a sturdy plastic case at Xavier’s feet. Or maybe it was just being so close to the boy and to Montross, their power seeping into her, augmenting what talents she had.

Dimly, she heard Montross and Hiltmeyer talking, someone asking about the whereabouts of Caleb Crowe, and the fact that they had lost him after Turkey, assuming he was on his way either to Mongolia, or else he was already ahead of them, nearing Xanadu.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Montross said, “which is why I took his son. Had a feeling it would charge Caleb up, get him to the church on time, as the old song goes.”

Nina tuned him out and tuned in to the presentation she had tapped into: the boy’s vision, his suppressed dream. Just as Caleb’s childhood had been plagued by recurring dreams of his father in an Iraqi torture cell, and images of an eagle and a star—implicit answers to his life’s most desperate questions provided by his hyper-aware subconscious—so too did Alexander’s psyche conjure visions that he might someday need to see . . .

. . . the Giza plateau, on a torch-lit walkway leading to the forepaws of the Great Sphinx. Only, its head is different, that of a lion instead of the ill-proportioned pharaoh countenance that sits on its body today. Behind the Sphinx looms a triangular leviathan, an enormous pyramid blotting out the stars, its shape only visible by the absence of light.

Approaching the stairwell between the paws, descending the marble stairs. Down a flight of large steps, into a room of solid gold walls bereft of writing, and two emerald pillars flanking a great door—a huge imposing slab of onyx, black as the blackest starless night.

Before that doorway stands a man dressed in regal attire, a pharaoh’s headdress, a gilded snake crown on his head, the flail and staff held in his hands.

“
Welcome, Djeda. Thank you for obeying my summons.”

“
I had little choice, Lord Khufu.” The voice was sad and resigned.

“
You are a magician.”

“
Some call me that.”

“
And you have certain access to knowledge, lost wisdom concerning what may lie behind this door.” He motions over his shoulder. “This door that cannot be forced, bent, dislodged or even scratched. My workers uncovered it while excavating this area, but have found no record of its purpose, much less how to proceed beyond it. But I believe you may know.”

“
I do, My Lord.”

“
You can open it?”

“
I did not say that.”

“
Do not try my patience.”

“
I said I know how it can be opened, but I do not have the power to do so.”

“
Who does?”

“
There is a tale, recorded on building texts at the Temple of the Great Horus in Edfu, that refers to sacred books and objects of power that our Lord Thoth deemed too dangerous for mankind. And so he gathered them all and hid them away in a great underground temple, protected by power staffs and pillars, and he then sealed the entrance, leaving only its guardians to know of its whereabouts.”

“
Until I discovered it,” Khufu says. “Perhaps I am destined to collect those objects, those sacred writings, and become like the gods themselves. Who are these guardians? Are you one?”

“
I am not worthy. But I gained some knowledge, scraps of the truth, so that I know what this is. I know this is the place, the door to the sacred temple which lies below this plain, through passages remote and twisting, further guarded by magic and cruel invention. I know this only, but no more.”

The Pharaoh makes an impatient, wolfish snarl. “Who can open this door?”

“
A prophecy tells of three keys.”

“
Keys?” The Pharaoh turns. “I see no place for keys.”

“
Three keys,” Djeda continues. “For three brothers.”

“
What brothers?”

“
I do not know. It is said they were, or will be, born on the fifteenth day of Tybi, to the wife of the high priest of Ra.”

“
And you do not know if they have already been born? If they walk among us?”

“
No.”

“
Then I will send for this priest. And every priest of Ra.”

“
You may have a long wait.”

Pharaoh Khufu turns and faces the door. He bows his head. Places a hand on the smooth door. “I found this for a reason. I will not be denied.”

“
It is not for me to say, Lord, if your destiny lies behind that door.”

“
I heard you, magician.”

#

Nina blasted out of the vision, rocked with a jarring bump on the rocky terrain as the jeep banked around a bend in the Kherlen River, speeding toward the Chinese border.

She released Alexander, who was sweating, eyes heavy, barely open.

“What happened to him?” Montross asked, turning around. Alexander slumped to the side, breathing slowly, exhausted.

Nina shook her head, lowered her eyes. “Nothing. Car sick, maybe.”

“Tough it out, kid. Going to be a long ride.”

Nina took a deep breath, then leaned back, trying to appear relaxed. “Xavier? I never asked you about your childhood. Did you have sisters? Brothers?”

Frowning at her, he shook his head. “Remember? Parents killed when I was six? And no other rugrats before or after me, far as I know.”

“You never
looked
?”

His expression darkened despite the waning sun blasting through his window. “Okay, my father? He wasn’t my real father.”

“You were adopted?”

“No, I only said my dad wasn’t my dad. He married my mother after she had me.” He sighed, and his eyes dulled with anger. “I only tried to find my real father once. Saw my mother with someone. An oily haired college-type.” He waved his hand. “Some quick tryst, and she never saw him again. I got that much.”

“What else?”

“What else? That’s it. That’s all I wanted to know. He was a prick, and I had more important things to chase after than someone who only wanted to chase after coeds.”

“Oh. Okay, then. So, when was your birthday?”

“What the hell is this, twenty questions?”

She gave a weak smile. “Maybe I want to send you a card, and a tie.”

“It’s October fifteenth, okay? My favorite color is red, I love pistachio ice cream, long walks through ancient ruins, treasure hunting and seeking magical objects of immense power. And I’m not afraid who gets hurt—or killed—in the process. Anything else, dear Nina? Are we a good fit?”

She laughed. “No one’s a match for me, you know that.”

“Black widow?”

“The blackest.” She closed her eyes, thinking.
The Emerald Tablet, so close.
It could enhance her visions, but she was never good at initiating them, only in bringing such powers out of other people, and then sharing in the sights. She could try it with Xavier, try to view his father again, but she wasn’t sure if this was something she wanted to share with him just yet.

Three brothers.

Three keys.

Alexander had been seeing this vision for years, but never anything more. No further details, but whatever this was, it was vitally important, crucial that he understand it. But he was still too young, and couldn’t rationalize it out.

But maybe she could, given more time with the boy.

On the drive, as Montross closed his eyes, meditating or dreaming, she wasn’t sure which, Alexander fell completely asleep. He rested his head on Nina’s shoulder, perhaps drawing comfort there in a longing for his lost mother. She shifted in her seat to prevent it from lolling forward.

Who were the three brothers?
she thought. Surely they hadn’t been born in Khufu’s time, around 2600 BCE, or any time in the following forty-five hundred years, or else the door would have been opened, and the keys would not still have been hidden away, protected.