Area 51: The Grail-5 (11 page)

"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.

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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 order 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, 88

chemotherapy, experimental drags. 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 as-89

sumed 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.

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"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.

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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

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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 followed, 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

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of parchment. I had seen a similar thing at an old monastery in France—a scriptorium—a room where monks painstakingly copied texjs 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.

"Brynn waved a hand at the wall. 'They are in various tongues and from many times. I have looked at some and there are few I can read.'

"I moved toward the scrolls, drawn as if by a powerful magnet that was linked to my heart and mind. There was only one other time in my life when I had felt such a way—the first time I laid eyes on my wife.

"Brynn and I sat and talked for a while and he told me what he knew. His line of Watchers didn't watch. They recorded reports from Watchers all over the world as they arrived. He told me that the task was now computerized. His job was to maintain the old records and allow other Watchers access to them.

"From him I learned that for millennia the wedjat was exiled from Glastonbury Tor. As he spoke, I eagerly went to the first racks. There was a rolled parchment in the upper, leftmost opening. Carefully I pulled it out. I took it to a desk and unrolled the first piece. It was covered in markings, much like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but different in many ways. I know now they were High Runes.

"Brynn told me to look below the first sheet. I lifted the parchment and underneath was another page, writ-

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ten in Celtic. He told me it was the translation, done in the Dark Ages by his predecessors.

"I ran my fingers lightly across the first lines. I could feel the age of the paper and thought of the men who had labored here in this cave, translating the story of the history from High Rune to Celtic. I asked him to tell me of the wedjat, of the early Watchers.

"The wedjat were the priests of Atlantis. They served the Airlia, worshipped them as Gods. They worshipped the Airlia in a temple where no man was allowed.

A pyramid, blood red in hue, capped the peak of the temple. Inside, upon a table in the center, was the Ark which held the Grail, worshipped as the bringer of eternal life, health, and knowledge."

"This red pyramid," Turcotte interrupted. "I haven't heard of this. The guardian computers I've seen are all gold." He glanced at Yakov. "Have you?"

Yakov shook his large head. "No. Perhaps that is the master guardian?"

"Perhaps," Mualama acknowledged. "The priests of the wedjat were not allowed to touch the red pyramid or even view it, never mind touch the Grail. The Ark remained closed to them. The leader of the Airlia, Aspa-sia, promised the wedjat that if they obeyed and were faithful, the day would come when all that the Grail could provide would be man's. Foremost among them would be eternal life. Immortality, the ultimate gift of the Gods, lay inside the Ark, vested in the Grail. You can imagine how that brought obedience."

"Not too different from many religions," Che Lu commented.

"The Grail held such promise and the wedjat worshipped it, but they were forbidden to tap into its power. They were told there would be a time when they would be given access to the Grail and all its bounty, but the 95