Area 51: The Grail-5 (2 page)

The king started at the mention of his true identity. "You must keep that secret. I have worked very hard for a very long time to keep that secret from men."

"I will if you give me the key. There is not much time. I must get back inside the Tor to keep Mordred's men from getting the key."

Arthur's hand released its grip. "Take it."

Brynn placed Excalibur under his robe, tight against his body. As he prepared to stand, Arthur grabbed his

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arm. "Keep your word, Watcher. You know I will be back."

Brynn nodded. "I know that. It is written that your war will come again, not like this, but covering the entire planet. And when that happens, I know you will return."

A weary smile crossed Arthur's lips. "It is a war beyond the planet, Watcher. Beyond the planet in ways you could not conceive of. Your people still know so little. Even on Atlantis your ancestors knew nothing of reality, of the universe. Merlin was foolish to try to take the Grail. Its time has not come yet."

"We know enough," Brynn said. He stood and quickly walked through the doorway. It swung shut behind him with a solid thud.

Percival approached the king. "Sire, the enemy approaches. We must move you."

Arthur shook his head, his eyes closed tightly. "No. I will stay here. All of you go. Spread the story of what we tried to do. Tell of the good, of the code of honor. Leave me here. I will be gone shortly."

The protests were immediate, Percival foremost among them. "Sire, we will fight Mordred's traitors to the death. Our lives for yours."

"No. It is my last command. You will obey it as you have obeyed all my other commands."

Only then did Percival notice the sword was gone. "Excalibur! Where is it?"

"The monk has it." Arthur's voice was very low now. "He will keep it safe until it is needed again. I will return. I promise you that. Go now! Escape while you can and tell the world of the good deeds we did."

One by one, the surviving knights bid their king farewell and slipped into the storm, disappearing over

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the western side of the hill until only Percival remained. He came to the king, kneeling next to him. "Sire."

Arthur didn't open his eyes., "Percival, you must leave also. You have been my most faithful knight, but I release you from your service."

"I swore an oath," Percival said, "never to abandon you. I will not now, my Lord."

"You must. It will do you no good to stay. You cannot be here when they come for me."

"I will fight Mordred's men."

"I do not speak of those slaves who blindly obey with no free will."

Percival frowned. "Who comes for you, then?"

Arthur reached up and grabbed his knight's arm. "There is something you can do, Percival. Something I want you to do. A quest."

Percival placed his hand over the blood-spattered one of his king. "Yes, Lord?"

"Search for the Grail."

"The Grail is but a legend—" Percival began, but Arthur cut him off.

"The Grail is real. It is—" the king seemed to be searching for the right words. "It is the source of all knowledge. To one who knows its secret, it brings immortality. It is beyond anything you have experienced, what any man has experienced."

A glimmer of hope came alive in the despair that had shadowed Percival's eyes since removing Arthur from the field of battle. "Where is this Grail, my Lord? Where should I search?"

"That you must discover on your own. It is spoken of in many lands and has traveled far—here and there— over the years. But trust me, it does exist. It will be well guarded. And if you find it—" Arthur paused.

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"Yes, my Lord?"

"If you find it, you must not touch it. You must guard it as you have guarded me. Will you do that for me?"

"I do not want to abandon you, my Lord."

"You will not be abandoning me. I go to a better place. Do as I have ordered."

Slowly and reluctantly, Percival stood, bent over, his hand still in the king's. "I will begin the quest you have commanded me to pursue."

Arthur tightened his grip. "My knight, there is something you must remember in your quest."

"Yes, Lord?"

"You can trust no one. Deception has always swirled about the Grail. Be careful." He released Percival. "Go now! I order you to go!"

Percival leaned farther over and lightly kissed his king's forehead, then stood and departed.

Arthur was alone on the top of the Tor. Only then did he open his eyes once more. He could hear yells from the eastern slope—Mordred's mercenaries and mental slaves climbed the steep hillside, but his eyes remained focused at the sky above, waiting.

A metallic, golden orb three feet in diameter darted out of the clouds and came to an abrupt halt, hovering ten feet above Arthur. It stayed there for a few seconds, then without a sound, sped to the east. There were flashes of light in that direction, screams of surprise and terror, then silence from the rebel warriors. Arthur was now the only one alive on the Tor.

The orb came back and hovered directly overhead. Arthur looked past it, waiting, holding on to life. Finally, a silver disk, thirty feet wide, flat on the bottom, the upper side sloping to a rounded top, floated silently out of the clouds.

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The disk touched down on the Tor's summit next to the abbey. A hatch on the top opened and two tall figures climbed out. They made their way down the sloping side. The shape inside their one-piece white suits indicated they were female, yet their eyes were not human, but the same red Brynn had revealed in Arthur's.

They walked to where the king lay, one standing on either side. They pulled back their hoods, revealing fiery red hair cut tight against their skulls.

Their skin was pale, ice-white, unblemished.

"Where is the key?" one asked in a low-pitched voice.

"A Watcher took it," Arthur said. "I gave it to him. We must hide it to restore the truce."

"Are you sure, Artad's Shadow?" one of the women asked. "We can search for it. The Watchers cannot be trusted. Merlin was one of their order."

"I am sure," Arthur cut her off. "It is the way I want it to be. Merlin, no matter what evil he stirred up, was trying to do a good thing. Have you heard of the Grail's fate?"

"Mordred's mercenaries had it, but they didn't know what it was. A Watcher in the area took it. We can take the Grail from him."

"No."

The two creatures exchanged glances.

"The truce must be restored," Arthur continued. "It is not time yet." Arthur slumped back, satisfied that at least that part of what Brynn had told him was true. He knew he could not tell them of the quest he had given Percival. It was the only thing he could think of to get his favorite knight off the Tor.

If Percival had been here when the others arrived, he would have suffered the same fate as Mordred's men. Arthur knew his knight

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would never track down the Grail, but it gave the man a purpose and he had found that such a quest worked well with men like that.

"And Aspasia's Shadow?" Arthur asked.

"Mordred too dies in this life, but Guides are there to pass Aspasia's spirit on."

A spasm of pain passed through Arthur's body. "Let's be done with it then. I am very tired. Remember, I am only a shadow also."

The two women looked at each other once more, red eyes meeting, then the first nodded and spoke. "The spirit of Artad must move on."

"The spirit of Artad must pass on," the second said.

Arthur nodded. "My spirit must pass on."

The second woman knelt beside him, a short black blade in her hand. It easily sliced through the dented armor on Arthur's chest with one smooth stroke, revealing a padded shirt underneath. With a deft flick of the knife, the cloth parted, revealing his chest. Lying on the flesh was a gold medallion shaped like two arms extended upward in worship with no body. She cut through the thin chain holding the medallion and held it up for the other woman—and Arthur—to see.

"We take your spirit, the spirit of Artad," she said to Arthur.

The king nodded weakly. "The spirit of Artad passes." His head bowed down on his chest, his lips moved, but no sound emerged.

"Are you ready to finish the shell that sustained this life?" she asked.

Arthur closed his eyes. "I am ready."

"Is there anything since the last time you merged with the ka that you need to tell us?"

Arthur shook his head, knowing that remaining silent when his spirit passed on would leave no memory of

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Percival's quest, which would guard the knight for the rest of his life. It was his last thought.

The black blade slammed down into his exposed chest, piercing his heart. The body spasmed once, then was still. The woman stood and placed the blade back in its sheath.

The first woman extended a gloved hand, fist clenched, over the body. The fingers moved, as if crushing something held in it. She spread her fingers and small black droplets the size of grains of sand fell onto the king, hitting flesh, armor, and cloth. Where it fell on the latter two, they moved swiftly across the surface until they reached flesh. Where they touched skin, they consumed, boring through and devouring flesh, bone, muscle, everything organic. Within ten seconds nothing was left of the king but his armor and clothes.

With the ceremony complete, the two women swiftly retraced their steps to the craft they had arrived on. It lifted and swiftly accelerated away, disappearing into the storm clouds.

The heavens finally let loose with rain, announcing its arrival with a cacophonous barrage of thunder, lightning playing across the top of the Tor. A large bolt struck the high tower of the Abbey, shattering stone and mortar, spraying debris over the remains of the king.

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THE GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT

Deep under the Giza Plateau, Lisa Duncan placed her hands on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. A surge ran through her body, a feeling of power. A red glow suffused both of the cherubim-sphinxes on either end of the Ark and extended over the lid, encompassing her.

She could no longer hear those outside the veil that surrounded the Ark. Her world was the Ark: the gold under her fingers. She grabbed the edge of the lid. She felt suspended in time, beyond the reach of everything she had ever known. She lifted the cover. A golden glow blazed out, overpowering the red as the lid went up. It locked in place, revealing the chamber inside.

Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only one remains in the modern world. Located on the Giza Plateau, southwest of Cairo, stand the three large pyramids of the Pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure; they are symbolically guarded by the Great Sphinx, whose stone visage peers to the east, into the rising sun and over the Nile River, the lifeline of Egypt through time immemorial.

All four structures have been weathered and battered by time: the hand-smoothed limestone facing of the three great pyramids had long ago been looted for building materials, diminishing some of their majesty, 15

but until the building of the Eiffel Tower, they had held reign for millennia as the tallest man-made objects on the planet.

As one comes upon them from the Nile Road, the middle pyramid of Khafre appears to be the largest, but only because it was built on higher ground on the Giza Plateau. The Pharaoh Khufu, more popularly known as Cheops, was historically credited with building the greatest pyramid, farthest to the northeast. Over four hundred and eighty feet tall and covering eighty acres, it is still the largest stone building in the world. The smallest of the three is that of Menkaure, measuring over two hundred feet in altitude.

The sides of all three are perfectly aligned with the four cardinal directions from northeast to southwest, largest to smallest. The Great Sphinx lies at the foot of the middle pyramid—far enough to the east to also be out in front of the Great Pyramid, behind the Sphinx's left shoulder.

As long as men have stood on the plateau, dwarfed by the immense structures, they have been one of the greatest mysteries of the ages. Egyptologists had come up with dates and origins for the three pyramids and the Sphinx, but the data, upon close examination, was woe-16

fully incomplete. Not a single mummy was found in any of the pyramids, casting doubt on the age-old theory they were large mausoleums. Up until recently, every chamber discovered was empty. Even more puzzling was the distinct lack of any documentation concerning the architectural development of the pyramids or Sphinx. Not even among the numerous stone and papyrus documents from the various Egyptian dynasties.

The recent revelation that aliens—the Airlia—had visited Earth in the distant past, and never left, had thrown the accepted version of human history into disarray, including the reason why the pyramids and Sphinx were built.

Peter Nabinger, one of the original members of the team that had penetrated the secret of Area 51, had come up with his own explanation of the pyramids'

purpose before his death in China: when sheathed in the original smooth limestone their radar signature had been immense, able to be picked up far out into space. Thus, he reasoned, they were a beacon, designed to bring a spaceship close. That was stage one, the attention-getter. Then Nabinger had found stage two, the accompanying message written on the face of the Earth in the form of the Great Wall of China itself, spelling out the Airlia High Rune word for HELP.

Unfortunately, Nabinger had not lived long enough to unravel the riddle of the Sphinx. With the aid of another archaeologist, Professor Joseph Mualama from the University of Tanzania, Lisa Duncan had discovered that the Sphinx was a surface marker for what lay buried deep beneath, where she had just opened the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

Almost a half-mile directly below the Great Sphinx was a cavern, just short of a half-mile in diameter with curved walls. Light came from a bright orb on the ceiling, a mini-sun that had burned for millennia ever since 17

the object that rested in the center of the floor was first hidden.

Here lay a replica of the Great Sphinx. Its skin, however, was not made of stone, but a flawless black metal that absorbed the light. The head was larger, the nose not shot off like its cousin on the surface. The eyes of the Black Sphinx were blood red with elongated red irises that glowed from some inner power.