The Thrones of Eden 3 (Eden) (3 page)

Don’t ever forget that.

CHAPTER FOUR

Digsite - Southeast Turkey

John Hillary sat in his tent situated about one hundred feet from the edge of the crater. It was night, the air unconventionally cool as a mild breeze blew in from the north, causing the tent flaps to waver softly like banners.

 He sat there in the basking glow of a lamp making notes, his glasses perched at the tip of his nose. On the table sat the relic, the large chip of black silica bearing the markings of archaic script.

With careful examination he matched the symbols gleaned from Alyssa’s articles to the symbols on the black silica. So far, nothing—the archeologist became frustrated as he removed his glasses and rubbed the itch out of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

Setting his glasses on the table, he fell back in his chair. He had studied the artifact for the majority of the day. And for the better part of that time he tried to wrap his mind around the mystery of the writing. But as a cryptanalyst he was lacking the skills needed to interpret enough of its meaning.

Gingerly, as if in homage for something so aged and so magnificently produced, he traced a fingertip over lettering that had been carved out by a skilled engraver.

Grabbing his lamp, Hillary exited his tent and went to the edge of the crater, the light penetrating less than twenty feet down into the dig site.

The night was quiet.  

And the laborers were sleeping fitfully after an exhausting day under a white-hot sun.

Soon a wind picked up, the noise sounding off like whispers through the sand.

In the depths of the pit and beyond the fringe of light, Hillary thought he caught a glimpse of something moving, a shadow.

He raised the lamp as if the advantage of height would increase the circle of illumination.

It didn’t.

“Hello.”

There was no answer other than the soft soughing of the wind.

“Who’s down there?”

Was that movement?

Something blacker than black moved at the periphery of his vision, something that was quick and lightning fast, something that was much faster than a human.

“Who’s down there?”

The whispers grew louder.

Then the shadow was gone.

When the wind died down and the whispers mellowed, Hillary drew back from the crater and headed for his tent, somehow sensing a great danger in the same way that a dog is alerted by raising its hackles.

But there was nothing there, nothing behind him

Nevertheless, he found little comfort as he tied the flaps of his tent behind him.

CHAPTER FIVE

On the following day, John Savage and Alyssa Moore took a flight to a domestic airport located in southeast Turkey, a charter fully funded by John Hillary, and landed three hours later. The moment they disembarked they boarded a helicopter, their connecting transport, and flew the last leg to the dig site which cost them another two hours of flying time.

From three kilometers out and flying at a ceiling of sixty meters, or approximately 185 feet above the surface floor, John and Alyssa could see the large pavilion of tents situated around the crater.

As the chopper banked and circled, John and Alyssa could feel the adrenaline coursing through their veins like an intoxicant. She reached over, grasped his hand, and squeezed. But Savage couldn’t tell if the action was prompted by excitement or fear, or perhaps a measure of the two.

The chopper hovered briefly over a lot that had been cleared of rock and debris for landing. Sand and dust devils gave rise under the wash of the rotors, the air becoming thick and overpowering with desert sand. After John and Alyssa disembarked, the chopper lifted and headed west.

As the dust began to settle and the air less dense, John Hillary stood at the opening of his tent and beckoned them to approach.

They closed the distance quickly with little in their possession, just a backpack each.

“I saw your helicopter approaching,” he called to them. “You made good time.” He stood back and lifted the flap of his tent in invitation. “Please,” he said. “We’ve much to talk about.”

As sizeable as the tent was it was quite bare given its excessive space. There were a few folding chairs, a feeble-looking table with a laptop centered amongst a scattering of paperwork, containers bearing scrolls, and a small bookcase with texts sitting next to a cot.

“Please,” said Hillary. “Take a seat. Anywhere you wish.”

John and Alyssa each grabbed a folding chair and positioned them beside the table.

“Good to see you again, Alyssa. And this would be Mr. Savage?” He offered John his hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, sir.”

Savage took the man’s hand and gave it a solid shake, finding a non-calloused feel to the professor’s hand. He found it soft and moist, even fragile. It was more like the feel of a man who appointed others to do his labors for him. “My pleasure,” he said.

When Hillary took the chair by his desk, he turned to Alyssa and smiled. “You’ve grown since I last saw you.”

“People do that, Hillary. They grow up.”

He immediately recognized the edge, since she did little to hide it. “Alyssa, I can understand your animosity towards me since I did everything in my power to get out of your father’s shadow by making claims and admissions that I’m not proud of. I even went as far as to file false claims to discredit him so that I could rise above and beyond his level. And I was wrong. Your father was a great man and I could never hold a torch to him. It was my insecurities that marked me as a failure. I should have been above that.”

“You’re not a failure, Hillary. You’re renowned in the field.”

“I’m renowned because I chased down every lead your father offered. I followed the scraps he left behind. And I’m here, at this place, at Eden, because of your father and because of you.” 

She sighed. Forgiving an adversary of her father was difficult to do. So this was not going to be easy by any means.

“I’m offering you an olive branch,” he told her. “I want you to understand that your father has been credited as the discoverer of Eden . . . And that your credibility has been restored to you.”

“This is all very nice of you, Hillary,” the tightness was still there, in her voice. “But why offer me a partnership?”

“Ah.” He lifted papers from his desktop and revealed the triangular piece of black silica, then offered it to Alyssa, passing it off as if it was the most precious item he ever laid hands on. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Her eyes widened, but slowly, the shine of the glass, the expert engraving, the archaic symbols, all brought back emotions good and bad, but more openly, an unbridled excitement. “Yes,” she whispered, turning the relic over.

“Do you know what it says?” he asked.

“No. I can decipher a few symbols. But it’s not enough to string together a cognizant thought. There’s not enough here.” She looked at him and raised the item. “This is the reason why you want a joint expedition?”

“I need a cryptanalyst. But it has to be someone with your keen ability to interpret.” He took the relic back and held it up. “Someone with your skills can expedite matters greatly. And there’s something else.”

“And what’s that?”

He placed the relic onto his desktop. “As I expressed earlier to you, we found this relic at the mouth of an opening, a tunnel, which took a better part of a day to excavate. We found more pieces of black silica, obviously remnants of manufactured pieces that were skillfully crafted, but held no script to them. By this time the sun had set. So we cordoned off the entrance to begin anew as soon as the day begun.”

“But?”

“This morning we discovered that the barrier had been breached.”

Alyssa pointed to an unseen area beyond the walls of his tent. “You have tent city out there,” she said. “So what did you expect? That there wasn’t going to be a single soul out there who wanted to go on a treasure hunt?”

“I can assure you that this is not the case.”

“How do you know that?”

He leaned back against his chair. “Because the breach did not come from our side of the dig,” he told her. “The breach came from something that forced its way out of the tunnel.”

#

Savage leaned forward
. “What did you just say?”

“The breach,” he said, “was committed from the inside out.”

It was the last thing they both wanted to hear.

“Last night,” Hillary continued, “I think I may have seen a shadow of something, a mere glimpse from the corner of my eye, a flash, and then it was gone. I merely chalked it up to night shadows and dust forms cast by the wind.” 

“But it obviously wasn’t.”

“I don’t know for sure. But when we examined the opening this morning, it was quite plain that something from the inside forced its way out. The barrier was quite secure, I assure you.” 

“Are you certain?” she asked.

“All I know is that the sand outside the opening was too soft to maintain any discernible set of prints. But the impressions were the size of dinner plates.”

Alyssa appeared numbed. 

“Whatever it was,” he continued, “it left trace prints of sand in the corridor about twenty feet in before they disappeared all together. More to the point, however, the pattern upon the floor was that of a quadruped, the strides long and measurably even. If we press forward with this, then there is the very
real
possibility that we may not be alone down there. And given the articles of your prior encounters . . .” He allowed his words to trail. But after a moment his eyes seemed to fixate on something gloriously wonderful. “But if there is a city beneath our feet,” he whispered dreamily, “can you only imagine?”

“Hillary.”

He snapped back to reality.

“I need you to show me this tunnel.”

“Of course.” Hillary got to his feet and politely gestured to the doorway of the tent. “After you.”

#

The sun was
hot. Not the type of ‘hot’ on an immensely warm day. It was the type of ‘hot’ that could damage skin after a few minutes of exposure, which is why John and Alyssa opted to wear long sleeves and boonie hats. 

They followed Hillary to the dig site and stood at the crater’s edge, looking down into the implosion site at what used to be the temple of Eden. The walls were tiered and manicured to resemble giant steps, as workers cut at the dirt with picks and shovels.

Emotions began to bubble inside Alyssa as she leaned into John, who accepted her into his embrace. She nearly lost her life here close to a year ago when she discovered Eden. But it was also this place that gave her life.

Hillary pointed to an area west of the tiered elevations, to the fourth level where there was an amoeba-shaped opening in the wall. Three men, Turkish officials, all bearing assault weapons and taking refuge beneath a tarp, stood sentinel. “Do you see it, Alyssa? The hole in the west end of the crater.”

“I do.”

“Then if you’re feeling agile, may I suggest that we begin the climb downward.”

Hillary may have been a man in his sixties, but Savage was quite impressed with his ability to climb. He moved with the grace and quickness as he descended the ladders from one level to the next. When they reached the fourth tier, he assisted Alyssa to solid footing with Savage following.

The air was thick with choking dust from the constant labor of digging, prompting Hillary to cover his mouth with a handkerchief. As they neared the opening, the Turkish guards offered a tip of their caps and gave them a wide berth.

The opening revealed black silica walls and floor, naturally polished, that ran into darkness that was complete and absolute about twenty feet in. 

“We ran a laser down this corridor,” Hillary said, his voice muffled. “According to the measurement, the nearest obstruction is two kilometers in. Perhaps a wall?”

John and Alyssa looked at him incredulously. Two kilometers was more than a mile.

“Are you serious?” asked Savage.

Hillary nodded. “Our instruments don’t lie. We took several measurements from several different sources. And the answer was always the same. This tunnel runs long and deep. And it has to run somewhere. Otherwise, why build it?” He pointed to the ancient founts. “Are these similar to the ones you discovered inside the temple?”

She nodded. They were exactly the same.

“Then perhaps this arterial leads to another place of worship,” he guessed.

When she turned to him he cocked his head in the direction of the guards. “We also work under the auspices of the Turkish government,” he told her. “The Culture Minister of Turkey and the League of Excavation Contractors has set their claims in collusion with the institute I work for, which accounts for the circus of tents above us. I’ve already notified them that I’ll need a scientific team, cryptanalysts”—He pointed to John and Alyssa to make his point—“and a team of combat experts, just in case.” He then pointed to the immediate area in front of the hole, indicating the bowl-shaped imprints. “If there’s something inside, then we’ll be aptly prepared, I assure you.”