Area 51: The Sphinx-4 (4 page)

Kaji's dark eyes locked into the Englishman's. "I am telling you this on death's doorstep, facing the final darkness. You can choose to believe it or not."

Burton ran a hand through his coarse beard. He thought of the Black Sphinx with the eyes of fire he haft just seen buried deep under the Plateau. The statue between the paws. He did not think men had built that. In many of the places he had been around the world there were legends of powerful creatures from the stars, of "gods" with strange appearances and powers. If there was anything his travels had taught him, it was that man

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knew very little, particularly with regard to the past. "Go on."

"There are two groups of these creatures, the Airlia. The legends that have been handed down among the wedjat say they warred against each other long ago. Before the pyramids were built, before even the Sphinx above was formed. My ancestors in Egypt transformed these creatures and their wars into our gods and legends.

Both sides used, and continue to use, men for their own ends in this war.

"We call one group of men who are used the Guides. These are men who have been affected." Kaji's good hand reached up and touched his head. "Here. In the mind.

They no longer are in charge of themselves, but do the bidding of the aliens even if they desire not to, but there are those who desire to serve even before their mind is changed. Al-Iblis is one of these. His name has passed down through the years as an enemy of man.

"The other group is called The Ones Who Wait. They are like men, but not men.

They are different not only in the mind, but their eyes are not like ours.

Elongated like the large cats of the southern jungles. And the eye itself is red inside of red. I have never seen one, but the legends say it is so. And they are not born of woman."

"How can that be?"

"I only repeat what my father told me."

Burton absorbed the other man's words. It was incredible, the words of myth, but he had seen the Black Sphinx. He had read the old scrolls, talked with aged priests and monks, and they had all hinted at something like this; And he had met Al-Iblis in Mecca. Even though he had not clearly seen the other, Burton had picked up a very strange feeling from him.

"These Records . . ." Burton's excitement overwhelmed the hopelessness of the situation. "That is what

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I came here for. The Hall of Records. You said it was inside the Black Sphinx?"

Kaji nodded. "The Black Sphinx is the Hall. The Records are supposed to be inside. Your search is why you have to die."

"But these Records—why must they be hidden?"

"I do not know. It is the law of my order to protect them and watch."

"Why only watch?"

Kaji looked down at his trapped hand. "I did not think it would end like this.

You were very cunning, Englishman. I have left others to die in the tunnels."

"Why do you only watch?" Burton repeated.

"Two reasons. One is we cannot fight these things; They are more powerful than we are. There have been times in the past when men have tried to fight them, and every time we were crushed. Many people have died at their hands. There have been times when men have tried to took at the Records, and it has always brought a storm of evil and death. Our primary goal as Watchers is to keep the line of man alive." Kaji's last words trailed off and his head slumped against the wool shirt.

"The second reason?" Burton prompted.

Kaji stirred. Burton could see that the man's eyes were becoming unfocused. He had seen that before and knew death was not far away. "Because we don't know which side are the ones we must fight."

"But if the Hall of Records is here, why do you not just look it up?"

“It is not allowed. And as I told you, we do not have the key.”

“Who has the key?”

“I know only what I need to know to do my duty," Kaji said. "I have heard there is a place to the south of here. Beyond the source of the great river Nile, where

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these things had a city. Under a mountain with a white top. That one of the Airlia went in that direction long ago. Legend has it that this Airlia was killed before he could complete his journey and that the key was later buried with him."

"Who killed this creature?"

"There are also some of the Guides—like Al-Iblis— who travel among men, setting up in one place, then another. Recruiting men to do their bidding. They kill those of my order when they catch them. They kill The Ones Who Wait if they find them. We know only that they work from a place called The Mission."

Burton frowned. In his travels to strange places he had heard rumors of a group called The Mission. "Where is this Mission?"

"It moves. Always going to a place where it can find humans willing to do its bidding. Where it can breed the evil that exists in men's hearts. The Mission revels in the blackness of our nature. No one in my order knows where it is right now."

"Did the Airlia build the stone Sphinx above us?"

"Men built the stone Sphinx on the surface to mark the location of the Hall of Records to those who would know the symbol," Kaji said. "But they had help from these star creatures."

"And the pyramids?"

"The same. They were built by men for these creatures from the stars. These others have influenced our development since before the dawn of time." Kaji's voice trailed off to a whisper.

"And all you do is watch?" Burton could not understand such a life's mission.

"We watch and prevent interference by men in the creatures' war."

"Then you are siding with the Airlia."

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Kaji shook his head. "No. We are preventing interference. The two sides of this ancient war seem to be in balance. If that balance is upset and one side is victorious, it is written in our scrolls that doom will come upon the planet.

Then all will die."

A bead of sweat dropped off Kaji's forehead onto the stone floor. Burton could see that the tourniquet had almost completely closed off the circulation to the trapped arm. The skin in the forearm was a paler color, the cells dying from lack of blood. But he also knew that releasing the band would send a surge of blood to the smashed hand and finish bursting the vessels in the wrist, quickly killing the Arab. He could tell that shock was overwhelming the old man and it might be merciful to release, the constriction.

"There must be another way out," Burton said. "Or a way to raise this stone. I can get you to a doctor if you show me."

Kaji shook his head. "You can open this stone only from the other side in the tunnel we came through. And there is no other way out."

Burton considered that. Why have a room that was a dead end? And Kaji had said he had seen only three of the Duats. There were three more somewhere. Kaji did not know all the tunnels, then.

"Ah!" Kaji let out a moan and dipped his head onto Burton's wadded shirt.

Burton could see the rise and fall of the Arab's chest, but he knew the man had not much longer to live. He got up and searched the chamber, holding the lantern close to the wall, searching for any marking.

The stone was smooth.

He walked across the chamber from Kaji's body, to the far wall. Kaji had used the ring to open some of the secret doors -- of that Burton had no doubt. He didn't think that this was a dead end.

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"Englishman." The word was little more than a whisper.

Burton hurried to Kaji's side. "Yes?"

The Arab's eyes were closed, and Burton had to lean close to hear. "Remember, you gave your word."

"I always keep—" Burton began, but he saw that the Arab's chest was still. He slid the shirt over the man's face.

After a brief prayer for the dead that Burton had memorized from the Koran, he set the lantern on the floor and turned it to the dimmest setting possible. He pulled the ring off Kaji's listless hand. The design was intricate, with a pyramid in the background. He turned it in the flickering light of the lantern—an eye within a circle, just like the medallion. The lantern had less than a quarter inch of kerosene in it; after that Burton would be in utter darkness.

Burton began searching once more for any sort of marking on the walls, moving quickly, but thoroughly., around the chamber. By the time he made it back to Kaji's body, without success, the lantern was flickering. He forced himself, to sit still to think. Kaji had used the ring to open .the doors. But the last door had been

different. There had been no sign of it until Kaji had pressed the ring against it at a certain spot. That meant--The lantern went out and a complete blackness, such as Burton had never experienced, consumed the room.

He pressed his palms against the wounds in his cheeks, the pain diverting him from the panic that threatened to overwhelm.

He remembered Kaji's last words. Why would the Arab have been so concerned that he keep his promise if he was certain there wasn't a way out? The answer was obvious to Burton -- because there was a way. And Kaji

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had spoken of two gateways to the Roads of Rostau: one on land and one in the water. On hands and knees, he made his way to the far wall. Burton carefully slid the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand, turning the eye design palm in.

Then he began moving his hand along the wall, starting at the bottom right and working his way across.

There was no way for him to know how long it took, but he was certain when he finally reached the top left that he had covered every square inch of the far wall. He turned to his right and began on that wall.

An eternity later, Burton was next to Kaji's body. The dead man's flesh was cold, the body stiff from rigor mortis. That told Burton he had been trapped in this room over ten hours. He had experience with dead bodies from his time in India and knew the stages of death. There was no place for the ring on the walls.

Burton leaned back against the stone. There was more than the weight of the Great Pyramid above him. In fact, he was sure he was no longer under the Pyramid proper, but that made little difference. He could faintly hear the roar of the underground river somewhere not too far away.

He thought of beautiful Isabel, home in England, awaiting his return. The places he wanted to see that he had not yet. Overriding those two thoughts, though, were the words that Kaji had spoken. Of the Airlia, who were not men. Of their servants walking the Earth. An ancient war still being played out.

.

"I will not die in this place!" Burton yelled at the top of his lungs, feeling the pus and blood flow out of the wounds on his face. He felt power from that yell and the pain. He was still alive. There was still hope. As the sound of his voice echoed into silence, he was aware once more of the underground river. He pressed

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his ear against the wall, trying to tell in what direction the water was. After trying all four walls, he was still uncertain. Then it occurred to him. He lay on the floor— yes, the water was somewhere farther in the depths.

Burton began quartering the floor, right palm down, ring covering every square inch.

When he heard the rumble of stone moving, he froze. He felt a draft of cool air hit his face. Reaching with his hands, scuttling around the edge on hands and knees, he realized that a square, eight feet on each side, had opened exactly in the center of the chamber. He leaned over it, but there was still no light. Only the feel of humid, cool air striking him. The sound of the river water was louder now.

He put his arm down, but the shaft ran perfectly straight with no end within reach. It might drop ten feet or a hundred. It might end in a stone floor, or water, or stakes on which interlopers were to be impaled.

He slid over the edge and lowered himself as far as he could, stretching his long frame out, and his toes felt nothing. With a great effort he pulled himself back into the chamber and lay on his back, breathing hard, his strength still not back after the years of recovery from the cholera compounded by the wounds received at Berbera.

He knelt next to the opening and leaned over. "Hello!" he yelled, hoping to get an echo, but it was as if the darkness below swallowed up his voice. Or there was no bottom to the shaft. He had heard of such things. Of pits where a man would fall forever and . . . Burton forced his mind to slop racing. He bad to accept the inevitable reality.

It was the only way out.

Burton once more clambered into the hole, lowering himself, fingers gripping the stone edge. He dangled in

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the darkness, feeling the cold draft from below sliding up under his robe.

"Allah Akbar!" he whispered. Praise Allah.

His fingers began to weaken.

He fell.

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THE PRESENT

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

"When I was a child in Maine, my entire world consisted of my small town, and it would expand to include Bangor when my dad drove us there once a month on a shopping trip." Mike Turcotte was standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing at the large statue of the sixteenth president seated in the stone chair, but his mind was in a different place and time.

Next to him, the science adviser to the current President, Lisa Duncan, also stood still, peering up. She remained silent, letting her partner struggle aloud with his thoughts.

"My world didn't get much bigger when went to the University of Maine," Turcotte continued. "It was only when I went overseas in the Army that I began to see that the world was a much larger place than I'd ever imagined. Of course, I'd read about those other places, seen them in movies and videos, but there's nothing like being there, actually experiencing something, to make it real."

It was early, before six in the morning, and the first rays of the sun were just making an appearance in the eastern horizon, touching the flat surface of the Reflecting Pool behind them, bouncing up, and highlighting the statue. Because of the hour, the two of them had the monument to themselves.

Turcotte was a solidly built man. Of average height, he had broad shoulders and his dark skin and slight accent reflected his northern Maine, half-Canuck half-Indian