That made sense. The hallway must be at the bottom. Sam jumped down the last couple of steps, and beamed his flashlight forward. Indeed, it was a hallway, walls lined from bottom to top with ancient markings that Sam had never seen before. He squinted towards the end of the hallway.
He couldn’t see the end. Tom and Ethan caught up to him.
“What do you see? Where’s the end?” asked Ethan.
Sam shone his flashlight, but no more secrets revealed themselves. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Tom glanced at them. “What should we do?”
Sam glared back. “I mean, what can we do? We go for it.”
As if on cue, there was a deep thud at the top of the staircase. Tom, the last of the line, turned to jump up the stairs, but it was too late. The entrance that they had come from had closed. There was nothing there but a wall of stone.
“Oh, shit.”
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
Ethan shrugged with a wry grin. “I guess you’re right.” said Ethan. “Forward we go.”
“This really isn’t the time for being a smartass.” Sam glared at him, annoyed. “If we run out of air in here, we run out of light-”
“No, he’s right.” said Tom. As Sam looked at him, ready to retort, Tom held up his hand. “Look at the walls. The people on them. They’re all either looking or running towards the end of the hall.”
Sam stopped his tirade in surprise. He turned and inspected the wall and found that Tom was right. The last people who had seen these markings were probably the ones who created them- they had to be true somehow. And all of the tiny Egyptian people were running with a look of hypnosis towards whatever was waiting for them at the end of the hall.
Sam hoped like hell it wasn’t the afterlife.
But they were right. Nothing to do but go forward.
“All right. The figures on the wall point the way. Let’s go.” Sam put one foot in front of the other back into the dark. The hallway was wide enough to now fit the three of them side by side. They walked forward, Tom occasionally turning and seeing if anything had changed behind them.
Nothing had.
About ten minutes later, the hallway showed no signs of stopping. Sam was contemplating running. They could all handle it- well, maybe not Ethan, but he could stay behind and guard the rear- and at this point, it would probably save more energy than dying of asphyxiation under an ancient pyramid.
Without thinking, he picked up his pace and began to walk faster. Fast enough that his breath caught in his throat and the others made sounds of surprise nearby. But they didn’t comment, just matched their pace to his.
Sam locked his eyes on the darkness and soon he was jogging, the slow lope easier on his aching body than the pounding quick walk.
The others followed suit.
The hall was filled with their panting breaths and footfalls. Wordless agreement pushed them on.
He quickened his pace. The two next to him followed.
The corridor narrowed and Sam’s breath caught. Were they close?
And then suddenly it was there. The hallway stopped. Sam stopped. Sam didn’t even feel tired.
Before them at the end of the hall was a massive black door that gleamed faintly in the glow of the flashlight, like dark glass.
The others stopped beside them. Ethan’s ragged breathing cut through the silence, hitching on his wounds. But Sam knew he wouldn't have traded this for the world. He was a soldier.
Sam reached out toward the door and realized that his hands were trembling. Normally, that would have surprised and annoyed him, but today, it did neither.
“Is that actually it?” Ethan’s whisper broke his trance behind him.
“I think it is.” Tom’s voice was hushed with awe.
As he stood and looked at the fruits of their success, Sam felt the desire to laugh. He’d been so focused on getting the keys and finding the door, he had never imagined what he would do when he actually reached it. It didn’t matter now.
Idiot, he chided himself as he reached into his pocket and took out all of the keys he’d put there after opening the tomb. Didn't seem any point in keeping them separate or safe since they were the only ones here. How many things can you do with a door?
He weighed the four heavy keys in his palm and handed one each to Tom and Ethan. The surface of the door was smooth and blank, not carved as he’d expected, not carved like the tomb. The keyholes sat in a diamond directly in the center, like a small flock of birds or an alien symbol. It was eerie and unsettling and Sam’s blood hammered in his veins.
It was a tight fit for all three of them in front of the door but they managed. They each stood in front of the keyholes, and held the keys in front of them, Sam having one key in each hand.
“On three?” Tom’s voice was hushed with anticipation.
“On three.” Sam took a breath, held it for eight beats, and let it out to a count of eight. It was a trick one of his army buddies had taught him, a meditation secret from the east. A way to calm the mind, to link body and heart and bypass the brain.
He glanced into the obsidian. It was so reflective he could see his face in it like a ghost. It almost seemed to invite him in to whatever otherworldly realm waited beyond its barrier.
“Let’s go. On three.”
Their breathing quieted.
“Three…” They stepped closer, shuffling in the dim light.
“Two…” The keys entered the holes, soundlessly.
“One…” The weight heavy in their hands.
They turned the keys.
With a deep rumble, the obsidian door slowly moved to the side. Sam briefly wondered how the door moved without any gears or motors, then threw the thought aside.
They walked in.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Strabo’s Labyrinth
The massive chamber spread before them.
It was larger than Sam had ever imagined. He had heard tales of a mysterious underground complex of caverns and chambers, but this put them all to shame.
Strabo had written that when one entered the sacred enclosure one found a temple surrounded by columns, forty on each side. He had written that the labyrinth had a roof made of a single stone that showcased carved panels and that was richly adorned with excellent paintings. He made note that it contained memorials of the homeland of each of the kings, as well as of the temples and sacrifices carried out in it, all skillfully worked in paintings of the greatest beauty.
Well, Sam thought. Someone had to put words to it. That words couldn’t do it justice was hardly Strabo’s fault. The man had tried.
“Christ!” Tom muttered nearby, then crossed himself and glanced around guiltily. Sam understood. The holy name spoken such sounded profane in this place. He stepped forward into the massive chamber, awed. The three men drifted off on their own, taking in the splendor.
Sam couldn’t catch his breath, it seemed. Was it possible they were finally here? Had that turn of luck – accident, total accident – in Afghanistan all those years ago, finally led to this? Loss of life, lack of sleep, secrets covered, secrets revealed… it all fell away as he stared up and up and up.
Elaborate hieroglyphics covered the walls, scenes of ritual and royalty, court life and daily life. Boats sailed stone rivers, painted cows chewed painted grass contentedly with wise slanting eyes. Sam saw treasure chests and resurrections, men coming from the stars, creatures emerging from underground. River gods and women with birds’ heads and birds with the heads and hands of men… there were islands and depictions of elaborate civilizations, carved palaces and scientists and delicate flowers. He saw statues that looked like Easter Island but even more ancient, ships voyaging on painted seas. He thought back to what the ancients had written- that the labyrinth contained the key to mankind’s history. That inside its hallowed halls, secrets of ancient civilizations and great empires and the rulers who shaped history on the planet before history as we know it began.
It certainly seemed true.
Sam stood under the weight of the glorious alabaster ceiling amid the mysteries and the wonder. His heart twisted tight in his chest and something in him rose and tightened and spread its wings. Something that had been trapped inside since he was a boy, he felt. Since that day in Nevada. Since long before.
He wept.
They weren’t sad tears. They were tears of wonder at the glory of it all, at the mysteries of man, at the unmappable human spirit. This was why he did what he did. This was why, so he could leave a legacy, uncover a little piece of the legacy that they’d already left for themselves.
Jesus, he thought, trying to collect himself, hoping the others hadn’t seen. Sitting here sobbing like an old woman about ages past, pining for the days she’d never see. Get yourself together, Reilly. His eyes stung as he stared around him and he shook his head. According to Strabo there were three thousand rooms like this.
There were scrolls.
Sam didn’t know how they’d been preserved in the damp and in the dark, some combination of low temperature and the right amount of humidity, maybe. He wasn’t a historian or a restorer. And as pristine as they seemed now, he couldn’t bring himself to touch them. He-
Ethan didn’t have the same restraint.
He reached out and touched just the corner of one of the scrolls with a wondering caress.
The papyrus crumpled to dust before their eyes.
Ethan staggered back, horrified. Sam just stared.
Their eyes met in dismay. “I didn’t-” Ethan stammered. “I didn’t know it would-”
Sam shook his head. “Not much you can do about it now.” He turned his gaze to the room, where hundreds, perhaps thousands of scrolls sat in cupboards with tiny cubby holes cut just for them. The secrets of the world, he thought sadly. Known and unknown- and all just out of reach. There was a chance, maybe, a slim one, that with the right research tools and archeological equipment experts could excavate these precious secrets, but somehow Sam doubted it. He felt in his gut that these stories were meant to stay hidden and remain so.
The men exchanged wry looks and drifted off again.
Sam didn’t know how long he wandered, lost in the majesty of it all. Dimly he was aware of Tom making rubbings of the walls, of him touching the floor, making sketches in his small book to record these feats of engineering. For Genevieve, Sam thought, as much as for posterity’s sake. He wondered what Mia and Ethan had talked about the night before.
He saw Ethan trailing his fingers over the walls, his expression as staggered as Sam himself felt. He was glad it had been true. He was glad Ethan, of all people, had been able to see this.
Sam approached him and Ethan jerked, startled. But it wasn’t like it had been in the hotel room- a defensive reflex. This was merely surprise, the awareness that he was a human being with a body and he was not alone in this room. Sam nodded at the wall.
“Pretty incredible, no?”
Ethan shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s real.” He gave a wry smile. “You were right.”
Sam grinned. “Well. I can tell you it makes me wish I’d learned ancient Egyptian, that’s for sure.” He touched the dusty wall reverently.
“That’s the sign for bread,” Ethan said unexpectedly and Sam turned to him and stared.
He gestured at the walls covered in line after line of script. “You can read this?”
Ethan shook his head with a sheepish smile. His voice was wistful. “Just a few things. My… dad. Brought me a book from the library once, on one of his sober binges. He knew I liked old stuff, puzzles and things. He thought it would make a good secret code.”
Sam smiled. Ethan rarely talked about his dad, leading Sam to believe that their time together hadn’t been altogether pleasant. But he was glad the boy had happy memories too and that bitterness hadn’t buried them completely.
“Hey Tom!” Sam called over to where Tom was still sketching in that little black book. He became aware that the other man hadn’t moved from one specific spot for quite a while, now.
Tom was diligent. “What about you? Any unrevealed linguistic skills?”
“I don't even have any revealed linguistic skills. But I can tell you one of these things is not like the others.” He ran his hands over the wall in front of him, a frown in his voice and between his big brows.
Sam and Ethan glanced at each other, then shrugged. Curious, Sam made his way through the tables and the artifacts, trying not to touch anything, to where his friend stood staring at the wall on the other side of the room.
“What do you mean?” He asked as he approached. He was still too far away to see properly.
“This.” Tom frowned again. “Now, I’m not a linguist and I’m definitely not an artist, but these… they don’t look like the rest of the hieroglyphics we’ve seen. Did they have different languages? I mean, different sets of symbols for different things?”
Sam shook his head as he got closer, trying to remember if that was the case or not. He’d never read anything about it. “I don’t think so. Ethan?” he called, only to find the other man close by his shoulder. “What about you? Do you know?”
“I don’t think so either.” Then Ethan’s grin quirked, wry. “But I’m not an expert, either.”
“Well.” Tom shrugged. “Then I don’t know what this is. Maybe it’s graffiti, but I don’t know how anyone would have ever gotten past those doors…”
Now Sam was close enough to see but he didn’t think he could possibly be seeing right. He stopped in front of the wall and peered closer, and then his mouth dropped open.
“This isn’t Egyptian,” he whispered, trailing his hands across the dusty wall. The writings were complicated, like a cross between hieroglyphics and ancient Sumerian and Sanskrit, something born from the crossroads of all civilization, handpicked to secure the secrets of the ages. The letters even felt powerful under his fingertips. “This is the language of the Master Builders.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Ethan looked at him sharply. “They’re the ones who built this place, right?”
Sam couldn’t take his eyes off the text. “Right.”
Tom looked back at him. “You’re certain?”
Sam laughed. “Yep. After fifteen years, I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of the language. Not quite as good as Billie, but pretty good.”
Tom said, “You want to bring Billie in on this?”
Dr. Billie Swan was the world’s leading expert on the Master Builders, an extraordinary archeologist, and a complex friend who seemed to hinder as much as impress Sam Reilly during his various expeditions over the years. She had also nearly married Tom years earlier. They had parted ways amicably, but there was still tension.
Sam paused for a minute. “Yeah. I’m going to have to. Look at the amount of work here, it could take years to decipher it all, and I’m not sure we have the time to waste.”
A moment later, Sam began reading a very specific piece of text.
We came before.
We will return.
We have never left.
Tom asked, “What the heck does that even mean?”
Sam shrugged. “Beats me.”
His eyes scanned the rest of the ancient inscription.
“The race to locate the obsidian chamber will be triggered. There will be a fight to decipher the cipher in the stars. The whole world will want to possess its awesome power. Destroy the macroscope for the good of mankind, I pray no one ever deciphers its ancient mysteries.”
Tom asked, “Great, so now we need to find the obsidian chamber?”
“It looks like it.” Sam grinned. “And destroy a macroscope?”
Ethan asked, “What is a macroscope?”
Sam shook his head. “I have no idea. The only time I’ve even heard of the name was the classic 1970s science fiction book by Piers Anthony, but I can hardly imagine that the author of this ancient work intended to make any reference to the works of a sci-fi g
reat.”
Tom asked, “Any idea who wrote this?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. Wait… there’s a name down here.”
He fixed his flashlight on a small engraving toward the bottom of the stone wall.
It was a type of signature.
Sam read it.
Michel Nostradamus.
“Good God!” Sam said, “Nostradamus toured Strabo’s Labyrinth long before us!”
Ethan expelled a breath of air. “How can you be certain?”
“He left his name.”
Ethan wasn’t convinced. “Maybe there’s another Nostradamus? Anything else?”
“Yeah, look at this, Nostradamus chiseled the date into the solid stone. The date has been carved there for centuries.”
Ethan fixed the beam of his flashlight on the date.
That’s when he swore. “Holy shit! That’s today’s date!”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Sam greeted Dr. Billie Swan at the now open obsidian door.
Despite having not slept for more than twenty-four hours, she looked every bit as beautiful and arrogantly stubborn as Sam remembered her. With a unique mixture of European and Asian descent, she had the sort of delicate, yet striking features of a porcelain model.
Of course, that’s where any apparent weakness ended. Billie was up there with some of the toughest, most intelligent, and determined women Sam had ever known.
For the most part, he couldn’t stand to be around her, but when it came to understanding the ancient Master Builders, he needed her insight more than he needed anything else in the world.
She was wearing olive cargo pants, and a white tank top. Her face displayed all the signs of a person who hadn’t slept much. There were slight bags under her almond shaped, hazel eyes and her untidy dark hair had been tied back in a careless ponytail, a pair of Ray Bans propped on top. A flashlight in her right hand.
He shook her hand. “Thanks for coming.”
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