Area 51: The Grail-5 (10 page)

There was another picture tacked to the side of the photo. A large stone structure, shaped like a tent.

"What's that?" Turcotte asked.

"Burton's tomb," Mualama said. "It's designed in the form of a Bedouin tent.

His wife did that because he had a terrible fear of being enclosed in darkness. There's even a stained-glass window in the structure to let light inside where the body lay. Burton once said that he had horrible nightmares of being trapped inside a mummy's case."

Turcotte nodded, remembering what it felt like to be trapped inside a sub's hatch during lockout. The thought of being trapped inside a coffin, still alive, was more than he thought he could bear.

Mualama cut into his thoughts. "Your computer is all set to project the translation." Mualama had already disappeared behind the computer monitors.

Che Lu hurried into the room and sat next to Turcotte, Yakov on the other side.

Turcotte hit the enter key. The screen on the far wall flickered and then the first words appeared.

BURTON MANUSCRIPT: CHAPTER I MEDINA TO GEA, THE BEGINNING OF My SEARCH

1853-1855

I first met Al-Iblis in Medina. The circumstances of the occasion are not
important as this is not my story. This

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story is about the alien creatures, their minions, and how they have meddled
with man's history. And the promise and threat they hold for our future. '

At that meeting, Al-Iblis never said exactly what it was he was looking
for; it was only later that I surmised it was the Grail. He hinted that it was
the Hall of Records he was seeking. There are rumors of a place that holds the
truth of the time before our time.

He sent me like a bloodhound to track down its exact location and the way
to get to it. He expected me to return to him with the secrets. Even now,
after all my studies and searching, perhaps the Grail is the same thing as the
Hall of Records, but if it is, it is also much more than that. Much more! I
believe that the Hall of Records holds the Grail.

Al-Iblis pointed me to the Giza Plateau to look for a man named Kaji. A
caretaker of some sort was the impression Al-Iblis gave. I will not dwell long
here on Al-Iblis, as he will reenter the story very soon and you will
understand him as I have come to.

I traveled to Giza while Speke went on to England. Many view this as the
lowest point of my life— as Speke trumpeted finding Lake Tanganyika and
claiming it was the source of the Nile, I was nowhere to be found in England,
stolen of the supposed glory that should have been half mine.

Instead, I was in the midst of the most amazing experience I had to that
point. I met Kaji. The details of how I convinced him to lead me to the Hall
of Records are also not important. Suffice it to say he led me into the Great
Pyramid, the one named after the Pharaoh Khufu. We descended into the very
bowels of that massive edifice until we were below it, in the Earth itself.

Kaji used a ring, a special ring, to open secret doorways, all of which led us
farther into

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the Plateau ofGiza, which he called the Highland of Aker after an ancient god.

At one point Kaji paused at a split in the way. One path led to a most
destructive weapon, one that could destroy the entire plateau. But we went the
other way. Deeper and deeper into the Earth. He told me the tunnels were
carved during the time of the Neteru, the Gods of Ancient Egypt. At first I
thought this ridiculous as the Neteru were considered a legend, a thing of an
ancient religion. I now believe him.

He told me we were moving through the roads of Rostau and once more called
the plateau the Highland of Aker. We finally arrived at a chamber deep beneath
the Earth. Inside was the most marvelous thing I have ever seen. Another huge
Sphinx, this one made of black metal, b'ja, the divine metal, Kaji called it.

The Black Sphinx was large, if not larger than the stone one on the surface.

This one was guarded by a statue o/shemsu horus, a guardian ofHorus with red
hair, red eyes like a cat, mounted on a platform beneath the mighty paws.

We needed a key to get in, Kaji told me. And that was it. We didn 't have
the key. And he had only promised to show me the Hall of Records, not what was
inside. We left, going back along the Roads of Rostau.

But Kaji had deceived me. He had planned for me to die there, under the
Earth, his secret still safe. But I foiled his plan, and he was the one who
was mortally wounded while both of us were trapped in a chamber deep under the
rock.

Before he died, he told me an incredible tale. He told me he was a wedjat,
one of the eye, a Watcher. And whom did they watch?

Ones Who Are Not Men. Airlia. Those who had

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come to Earth from the stars many, many years ago. He told how they fought
among themselves and destroyed much in the process. How their minions have
kept the fight all these years since. He told me little more before he died,
but I have been able to find out more over the years.

I escaped. Kaji had told me there was a second gateway to the Roads of
Rostau. I found the secret passage in the floor of the chamber we were trapped
in. I opened it with his ring. A shaft beckoned. Cold air came from it and I
heard the sound of water flowing, how close I knew not.

I had no other choice. I would not die in the dark with my tale. I would
return to England, to my Isabel.

I climbed over the edge. I dropped, falling for a second, maybe two. It
seemed like forever to me in that dark hole. Then I hit the side of the shaft
and slid. It was curving from the vertical very slightly. I moved as quickly
as I could along the stone, but it was cut so smoothly, inhumanly smooth as
the other Roads of Rostau we had walked through.

I slid for a long time, how long I could not tell you now.

When I hit the water it shocked me. I was submerged, but came to the
surface gasping for breath, only to be immediately swept by the current away
from the shaft into a tunnel. Reaching up, I could feel stone less than two
feet above my head. I prayed the ceiling didn't drop as the water took me.

But it wasn 't the ceiling that came down, but the floor that came up, or
rather the water level dropped as the tunnel must have widened. My feet hit
stone as I tumbled and bounced, trying to steady myself. I was knocked down
again and again, until finally I was

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able to get my feet, push back against the current, now around my waist, and
hold still.

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 Ros-tau, 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.

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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
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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
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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?"

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"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?"