Area 51: The Legend (22 page)

Starving because of the drought, worked to within inches of their lives, and having borne the burden of slavery for long years, many Jews fought back and a pitched battle was joined. Bugle calls echoed out as the surprised Egyptian troops called for assistance. The handful of soldiers in the area were quickly overwhelmed and the Jews appropriated their weapons and surged through the hole in the wall.

Just as a second bomb, which Donnchadh had set earlier, went off, destroying a barracks full of soldiers.

What kind of help can you give me?” the Pharaoh demanded.

Ramses
III
stood, glaring down at his half brother. “What kind of help do you think we need, Governor of Midian?”

A sound like distant thunder echoed through the palace, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The faint sound of bugles floated in through the open windows. Then another thunderclap. More bugles blared and there was the sound of large numbers of armed men moving quickly.

An officer appeared in one of the side portals to the audience room and hurried across to whisper into Ramses III’s ear. Ramses
III
dismissed the man, then turned to Moses. “What an extreme coincidence—you come here offering aid, and there is trouble with the Judeans at the same moment.”

“There has been trouble brewing with the Judeans for a long time,” Moses said. “There is the drought. They have been worked harder than they should have been. Even slaves must be fed and taken care of. There is trouble in the east and south. There are stirrings in Persia and I believe within ten years the Hittites will invade in this direction.”

“Do you bring me only bad news?” Ramses II asked.

“I bring you good news,” Moses said. He indicated Gwalcmai. “This is Aaron, a warrior from beyond our borders. He knows of the Hittites. He knows of the lands there.”

Gwalcmai half bowed at the waist toward Ramses II. “Lord, you can solve two problems with one action.”

Gwalcmai paused while several more officers scurried in and talked to Ramses
III
in low voices. As soon as they left, his father raised the crook, indicating he was to brief him.

“There have been two explosions like lightning striking but there is no storm. One along the wall holding the Judeans, the other at the barracks of the temple guards. Many soldiers—at least one hundred—have been killed. There have been subsequent riots in the Judean camp. It will be suppressed shortly.”

“For the time being,” Moses threw in.

“What is the one action that would solve my dual problems?” Ramses II demanded.

“Let us take the Judeans away from here,” Gwalcmai said. “To the north and east, along the shores of the Mediterranean. Let them establish a state there, close to where they originally came from. A state that will be loyal to you because of their gratitude for being freed. One that will be a buffer state for you against the Hittites.”

“One that you rule?” Ramses
III
demanded.

“My exile will be farther away, brother,” Moses replied. “That should suit you.” He looked at his father. “You will be rid of the Judean problem. It was fine to have so many slaves when things were going well and the Nile was high and crops were bountiful. Now they are just a drain. The bricks they make are of poor quality and lie in piles, unused. And you will have a state between you and the Hittites that they will have to conquer before they can attack Egypt.”

Pharaoh Ramses II considered the proposition for all of ten seconds. “No.”

“Father—” Moses began, but Ramses II cut him off with a chop of his crook.

“The Jews can be solved more easily than giving them to you. As far as the Hittites—let them come. We will drench the sands with their blood, as we have done to our enemies for as long as our family has ruled.”

“My lord,” Gwalcmai began, “it is not as simple as that.”

“And why not?” Ramses II demanded.

“There is the issue of the Judeans’ God,” Gwalcmai said.

Donnchadh was now hidden at the edge of the lush farmland about a kilometer south of the Giza Plateau. Sweat soaked her robes and she was breathing hard from her run to this location. From a leather pouch tied to her belt she removed a small black sphere, about forty centimeters in diameter. It was an Airlia artifact recovered on her world. It was one of many weapons the Airlia had used in the long war. Donnchadh’s fellow scientists had analyzed it and discovered that it was a microwave transmitter that could be tuned to a number of frequencies. It had been used as a weapon by the Airlia when set to a frequency that caused hemorrhages in human brains. However, it could also be used in other ways, one of which Donnchadh was getting ready to employ. She’d tested it before and now she used what she had learned.

She tuned it to a specific frequency, then pressed the ON button. Nothing apparent happened, but the flickering red light on the side told her it was transmitting.

Ramses II’s laughter echoed off the murals painted on the walls. “The God of the Judeans? Why should that concern us?”

Ramses
III
said nothing, having settled back onto his throne and reassuming his noble posture. His eyes glittered with malice as he stared at his half brother.

Gwalcmai opened his leather pack and took out a round object wrapped in gray cloth. He knelt and slowly unwrapped the grisly package, revealing Osiris’s severed head. The cat-red eyes stared at the Pharaoh and his son as if they were still alive.

“What is this?” Ramses
III
yelled. He gestured and several of the guards closed on Gwalcmai and Moses.

“This is not our doing,” Gwalcmai quickly said. “This is one of the Gods of the First Age of Egypt, before the time of even Horus. We found his body below Giza, in the Roads of Rostau.”

Ramses
III
drew his sword and took a step toward them, but he halted at a gesture from his father. “You walked the Roads?” the Pharaoh asked, his voice level.

Gwalcmai nodded. “We did, my lord. We found this one dead along with five others. There are no Gods left alive there.”

“Who killed them?” Ramses II demanded.

Gwalcmai shrugged. “That I do not know. But I fear the God of the Jews might have had something to do with it. They worship only one God, a powerful one apparently. And this God wants them freed and sent back to their homeland. This is another reason why it would be in your interests to do as your son, Moses, has requested.” He paused. “Lord, I have it from one of the Jewish priests that if you do not release them, their God will unleash a plague upon your land.”

Ramses II blinked, the first sign of concern that had crossed his face since they’d entered. Little cracks appeared in the rouge around his eyes. He seemed about to say something, when the sound of screams reverberating from thousands of throats made its way into the room.

This time there was no pretense. Ramses
III
ran to the nearest window, Moses and Gwalcmai right behind him. The Pharaoh remained on his throne, bound by tradition, but his head turned, following them with his eyes as the screams of his people struck his ears.

“What is it?” the Pharaoh demanded.

Ramses
III
replied, the word sending a chill through every Egyptian in the room, “Locusts.”

Donnchadh pulled the cloak over her head. It was as if she were in the middle of a fierce hailstorm as locusts smacked into the cloth, drawn by the Airlia black ball’s microwaves. They numbered in the millions, drawn in from all around, woken from their slumber by the Airlia transmitter. They descended into the fields, consuming all. Farmers futilely tried to stop the scourge, dashing out with brooms. It was like a stick placed in the way of an incoming tide.

From the Pharaoh’s palace, it looked as if a dark cloud had descended to the ground south of Giza, covering the fields. It had been many years since a plague of locusts had struck the center of Egypt. It had occurred once during the Pharaoh’s childhood. He still remembered the devastation as the creatures ate the fields bare. This, on top of the drought, could destroy his kingdom.

Ramses II stood. “Take them, Moses. Take the Judeans and never come back here.”

Donnchadh turned off the microwave transmitter. The battering against her cloak slowly subsided. She waited another five minutes, then pulled it aside. It was if ascythe had gone through the fields, taking everything down to bare stalks.

She felt a momentary twinge of guilt for the day’s events. She knew the higher goal they were trying to achieve would make today’s event shrink into nothingness over time, but that didn’t change the fact that she was responsible for the death of fellow humans. Donnchadh focused her thoughts on the Grail as she walked north, through the barren fields. Night was falling and tomorrow would be a new day. Tonight, there was more to do.

Moses was in the camp with the Judeans, meeting with their leaders, trying to get them to accept this unexpected turn of events and get organized, not an easy task. Despite the great opportunity of freedom they were being offered, the Judeans were a quarrelsome lot and there were those who feared this was some trick of the Pharaoh’s to get them out into the desert and let them starve to death.

Gwalcmai waited for Donnchadh in the darkness at the base of the Great Pyramid. As they had hoped, the Pharaoh had pulled his troops back to protect his palace and the city of Cairo to the north. With Gwalcmai were a half dozen Judeans armed with swords and wearing gray cloaks—those who had been in the forefront of the recent fighting with the Egyptians and who would prefer death to slavery. Moses had recruited them from the leaders with the promise that they would find important things under the plateau. They climbed up the side of the Great Pyramid and entered the Roads of Rostau through the tunnel entrance.

They descended through the massive blocks of stone that had been laid until they were into the solid stone below, which made up the plateau. They avoided the golden spider, hiding under their gray cloaks and remaining still as it cameby. The reliance on automated defenses had been one of the Airlia’s weak points on their home world, as every such system always had a loophole allowing it to be defeated. Of course, the vast difference in body counts between Airlia and human during the Revolution was largely due to figuring out those loopholes at the cost of blood.

They went down tunnel after tunnel, following the directions handed down through the Watcher records that Donnchadh had copied in England. Finally, they reached a stone door, which Donnchadh opened. They stepped inside into brief but total darkness, which was immediately dispersed as a five-meter-diameter orb hanging overhead came to life, throwing light throughout a large cavern.

They were standing on a ledge above the floor of the cavern. Both recognized the Black Sphinx crouching on the floor—the Hall of Records. The cavern was about six hundred meters across, the wall smoothly cut red stone, which must have been added after their last visit. The six Judeans were stunned by what they saw.

Stairs were cut out of the rock wall, leading from the ledge to the floor. Without a word, Donnchadh and Gwalcmai took them. Trembling, the Judeans followed. They headed between the large black paws to the statue of Horus that stood on a pedestal. There was a stone set against the pedestal. Donnchadh bent over and read the High Rune marking.

“It says that there is a black box along the Roads, in another chamber, that can destroy this entire structure. If one tries to get in and doesn’t have the key, the black box will self-destruct.”

“An Airlia nuclear weapon or power source?” Gwalcmai guessed.

“Most likely,” Donnchadh said. Several such devices had been used on their home world with devastating effect. It made sense that the Airlia would booby-trap their most precious artifact.

The six men listened to them without comprehending. Donnchadh did not want to take the time to explain. She reached into her pack and pulled out the scepter they had brought from so far away. She placed it on the image on the pedestal, where the faint outline of it was etched. The glowing orb overhead blinked briefly, then quickly lit again. The surface of the stone shimmered and the scepter began to sink into it. Donnchadh released her grip.

The stone slid down, revealing a six-foot-high opening leading into the body of the Black Sphinx. The passageway had several steps going down. The tunnel was almost three meters high. A thin line of blue lights ran along the center of the ceiling. They flickered, then came on. The corridor seemed to open up about fifteen meters ahead.

“It looks like the world has not been destroyed,” Gwalcmai noted.

Donnchadh ignored him and entered the Hall of Records. Gwalcmai began to follow, then noticed that the six Judeans were hesitating. He gestured angrily and they reluctantly shuffled after him.

Donnchadh walked through the corridor, feeling the weight of the alien metal all around her. The Hall on her own planet had been lost when the Airlia headquarters was destroyed. They’d only had the Airlia records of it.

She entered a room in the belly of the Sphinx. The ceiling was seven meters high, the walls the same distance to either side and the far wall ten meters away. In the center of the room were four poles that held up four horizontal rods. At the top of each pole was an exact replica of the head on the staff, red eyes glittering. Thick white cloths hung from each of the rods, hiding whatever was enclosed. To the left, against the wall, were several racks of garments. Gwalcmai joined her, the six Judeans hanging back.

“Is it my imagination or are those things looking at us?” Donnchadh asked, as she pointed at the four heads.

“Let’s move right,” Gwalcmai suggested. They did so, and ever so slightly the heads turned, tracking them.

“I would assume the Ark is behind those curtains,” Donnchadh said.

“We will get it,” one of the Judeans said.

“I don’t think—” Gwalcmai began, but the one who had spoken and another stepped forward. The four heads locked in on them and before they made their third steps, red bolts shot out of the eyes of the two closest heads, hitting both men.