The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  There’s safety in numbers, she thought to herself. Even though I just met him, Paul’s the only person I know on this entire bus.

  Scared, she clutched his arm and nestled up as the bus drove mile after mile in the darkness. He couldn’t really respond to her closeness; he was preoccupied just like everyone else. They’d all been violently thrust into a situation none had experienced before – except Paul. Everyone was lost in a million thoughts, a million fears, a million what-ifs. They could be dead in seconds, just like the driver. They had nothing but the here and now.

  As he played scenarios in his mind, Paul became aware of a pleasant sensation. Hailey smelled really good. In better circumstances he might have enjoyed the attention of this beautiful young vixen. Even Paul, who avoided commitments, might have allowed himself a weeklong fling. Now those thoughts were replaced by the horror of what they’d already experienced.

  Immediately after the hijacking, Paul had switched silently into a persona who hadn’t seen the light of day for a long, long time – a person who could respond to the kidnappings and brutal murder. As he sat next to Hailey, her arm locked around his, Paul Silver slipped into the background. His psyche transformed into that of an assassin once called Juan Carlos Sebastian – a man Paul once had been. A man accustomed to danger.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the 1930s an unassuming man named Edgar Cayce was hypnotized in hopes he could regain the speech he’d lost after a severe case of laryngitis. It turned out he was a clairvoyant; his friends began recording his hypnotic sessions, which they termed “readings,” during which he responded to questions. Initially he used his newfound powers to help heal people from illnesses – he was so successful that Cayce has been called the Father of Holistic Medicine.

  As the years passed, his trances began to include far more unusual subjects. He talked at length about the origin of the universe, how the pyramids of Egypt were built and the activities of a race of aliens from the star Arcturus who existed in a different dimension. For this and other reasons Cayce was the subject of considerable controversy during his lifetime and afterwards. A devout Christian, he was frequently upset himself by the bizarre things he uttered during his trances. At one point he considered stopping entirely when he felt his supernatural readings were becoming at odds with the Bible he so faithfully read. And yet, skeptics pointed out, he didn’t stop. He continued spewing out fantastic tales about Atlantis, aliens and “stargates” that were pathways through the universe.

  Convinced by associates that his work was beneficial, he kept going. In fact, his volume of trance sessions vastly increased. At the time of his death more than ten thousand readings had been recorded. Those transcripts exist today.

  Paul had never heard of this mystic who prophesied during hypnotic trances, but as he researched the ancient history of Mesoamerica, he saw Cayce’s name appear over and over in a very unusual context.

  During some of his sessions, Cayce stated that the people of Atlantis, aware of the imminent destruction of their civilization, sent emissaries to create Halls of Records where the knowledge of the ages would be deposited. Three libraries, which Cayce claimed were established twelve thousand years ago, have never been found. According to Cayce’s hypnotic visions, the first was in an underground cavern near the Sphinx at Giza, Egypt. Another was close to the Caribbean island of Bimini that, according to Cayce, was near where Atlantis itself used to be.

  According to the psychic, the third Hall of Records has been hidden since 10,000 BC in Piedras Negras, Guatemala.

  Suddenly the ramblings of this long-deceased mystic became much more interesting. Paul was open-minded about Atlantis. Several ancient volcanic eruptions destroyed cities, any one of which might have been the model for Plato’s Atlantis. Maybe a technologically advanced civilization existed tens of thousands of years ago – maybe not. Now he wanted to explore the lost city of Piedras Negras even more.

  ——

  Some experts doubt there was interaction between the Olmec and Mayan peoples, but Paul was convinced it was both real and widespread. Their timelines overlapped, their cities and temples were relatively near each other – in some cases less than a hundred miles apart – and their trade routes crisscrossed.

  As he studied the origins of the Mayan people, Paul quickly realized there were vast differences of opinion. Several nineteenth-century scholars theorized the Maya descended from Toltecs, who themselves were descendants of a superior race called Atlanteans. That culture imparted technological, astronomical and horticultural secrets.

  It was a fact that the name Maya itself was Egyptian. In the eighteenth dynasty – 3500 years ago – a particular high priest of Amun served first under pharaoh Amenhotep III then his son Amenhotep IV, who was later called Akhenaten. That high priest’s name appeared on statues and stelae. His name was Maya.

  Paul had reached his conclusions logically. The huge stone heads at La Venta were unmistakably African. If the Olmecs had seen these Africans, could there have been others – such as Egyptians – too? Could the Mayans also have benefitted from Egyptian influence? How else did a tribe of Mesoamerican indigenous people suddenly begin to create gigantic stone structures, temples, tombs and royal dwellings that sat atop hundred-foot buildings? Was Edgar Cayce correct? Did the Atlanteans visit Piedras Negras and establish a hidden library there? Did their advanced civilization influence Mesoamerican cultures?

  Paul’s trip to southern Mexico was to have been the first step in finding answers to these questions.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Egypt

  1323 BC

  Amenhotep IV, the father of Tutankhamun, converted to monotheism five years into his reign as pharaoh. He forced the Egyptian populace to worship only the sun god Aten and changed his own name to Akhenaten, “devoted to Aten.” The pantheon of gods the people had loved was represented as various human and animal figures in art and culture. They had protected everyone for millennia, but suddenly everything changed. No one could worship the old gods anymore. It was forbidden.

  At the time Amenhotep had his change of heart, Maya was high priest of Amun, the most senior religious person in the country. He refused to go along with the pharaoh’s command and was summarily dismissed. He’d been famous – like the king himself Maya’s name appeared on stelae and temples throughout the land. Now slaves chiseled it away, ordered by the pharaoh to obliterate Maya’s memory. It was a greatly embarrassing, humiliating event, and Maya hated Akhenaten for it.

  After twelve years the pharaoh died at last. He was laid to rest in Akhenaten, the new city he’d built as capital of Egypt. His son Tutankhaten became pharaoh, to the delight of the religious community. Although the new king was a monotheist too – his name ended in “Aten” just like his father’s – things could finally change. The old ways could be reinstated because the leaders had a special power over the new king. He was a child – a boy only nine years old.

  The pharaoh had two advisors, both very powerful men. General Horemheb would lead the military and maintain political stability between Egypt and its allies. Ay was vizier, a sort of prime minister who acted in place of the child as ruler of the people. Ay was truly the power behind the throne and he was also the closest friend of the deposed high priest Maya.

  Ay and Maya returned things to the way they had been before Amenhotep’s conversion to monotheism. The boy-king became Tutankhamun, losing his “Aten” connection, and Maya was reinstated as high priest with even more power and prestige than before. He oversaw the reconversion of the people to polytheism, and times were good.

  The priests were back to business as usual but many, including Maya, detested the child-king and his father for what they had done. Tut may have pretended to embrace the old gods, but he’d ascended the throne as a believer in the sun god just like his evil father. Deep in his heart Maya nurtured the hatred and vowed this pharaoh would pay for the sins of his father. Since these heretics had forced Aten upon the people, he would ensure that the chil
d pharaoh would never ascend to heaven. He’d be doomed to spend eternity in the underworld.

  Finally the glorious day came. The king had died nine days before at age eighteen. Today he lay on a slab as the senior priests performed the embalming ritual. They removed the viscera. Four organs would be saved, each in its own canopic jar with a god’s head on top. For protection. The chief priest smiled at the thought. This boy, like his father, had worshipped Aten. And now, for protection, the pharaoh’s organs would be put in jars adorned with heads of the gods he and his father had rejected.

  We’ll see about protection, Maya thought as his fingers worked through putrid, stinking viscera in the body cavity. Large jars of natron sat around the body. As the last step the salty paste was smeared throughout to soak up moisture and speed the embalming process. Natron smelled almost as awful as the decaying organs themselves; the priests wore linen masks soaked in unguents over their noses and mouths to get through it.

  As chief priest, Maya had to ensure the correct organ was placed in its corresponding canopic jar. Those would be placed in the sarcophagus next to the body, to accompany him to paradise. One priest bowed his head and presented Tut’s lungs, which Maya solemnly put in the jar with the lid of the baboon-god Hapi. Another offered the stomach – it went into the jackal-headed god’s jar. A human-headed god was on the lid of the vase with the king’s liver. Last were the intestines, placed in the jar crowned by a falcon. Maya then sealed each and placed them aside.

  The priests began spreading the natron. No one noticed Maya reach inside the pharaoh’s chest and remove something. He wrapped it in a cloth and slipped it into a cloth bag nearby.

  Finally they were finished. “I now place the scarab in the chest,” he announced solemnly. He palmed the tiny scarab and leaned over to place it inside the cavity. He replaced the rib cage and the ceremony was finished. No one saw what he had done and no one checked the cavity to ensure the scarab was there. They began wrapping the body in linen for his trip to the afterlife.

  The scarab went into the cloth bag too. Maya’s work was finished. This heretical pharaoh was going to hell.

  ——

  Maya kept a little vase with the Supreme God Amun’s head on the lid hidden in his house. How fitting that a part of Tutankhaten, the boy-king who worshipped only a single god, was now in a jar capped by Amun, chief of the deities he and his father had shunned.

  Maya refused to call the dead pharaoh by his newer name, Tutankhamun. He always used the Aten birth name. The king had been dead three months – no one had expected him to die after only ten years as pharaoh, although Maya had prayed fervently for it each day. It was an answer from the gods when the child was gone at last.

  The new pharaoh was Maya’s closest friend. The vizier Ay, the man who had served as advisor to the boy-king and engineered the return of the country to polytheism, was king now. If not for Ay, Maya would not be high priest today. Ay was not in the bloodline of Tutankhamun; he ascended to the throne by marrying Tut’s young widow. It was fortuitous for Maya, who was now set for life in Egypt’s highest non-royalty position.

  Maya had only one problem – his Amun vase held two things that would doom Tut to hell. If the people ever found out, he and his friend Ay would be executed. Something had to be done with the jar.

  Only Ay and Maya knew the secret. Tut had been buried with all the usual pomp and pageantry. His earthly body – most of it – was hidden away in the Valley of the Kings, where it would lie undisturbed for thousands of years.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maya sat on the floor next to Ay’s throne. The king handed him an ancient piece of parchment with faded drawings and arcane script.

  The pharaoh whispered, “This map was given to Narmer, first pharaoh of Upper Egypt, more than two thousand years ago. The people we call the Ancients – the Atlanteans – sailed to a land across a great ocean and created a library there to hold part of their knowledge and records. They called it the Crypt of the Ancients. It is marked here.” Ay pointed to a particular spot on the map.

  An educated man, Maya knew the legend of the Ancients. Its premise was simple – Egyptians learned their skills in art, medicine, architecture and construction from the Atlanteans. Knowing they faced cataclysmic destruction soon, these peaceful, advanced strangers eagerly taught others what they knew. The first time the Ancients came to this land was ten thousand years ago, long before the Egyptian civilization itself. They built a subterranean library and deposited thousands of scrolls, instruments and tools. Egypt was sufficiently far from Atlantis to survive the eventual destruction of its civilization.

  By the time the cataclysm occurred, many Atlanteans had relocated to what was now Europe and Asia, integrating into the primitive indigenous populations and becoming intellectual leaders, teachers and guides. Their knowledge allowed the development of sophisticated civilizations in today’s China, Mexico, Central America, India, Egypt, and Turkey.

  The people learned how to transport hundred-ton stones many miles, raise them into the air and construct massive pyramids using mysterious technologies of which the general population was totally unaware. While Egyptians were learning how to build pyramids so were the Olmecs, Mayans, Toltecs, Incas and Aztecs, half a world away. One civilization taught all of them – the people of Atlantis. Or so went the legend of the Ancients.

  Tomorrow the high priest would begin a journey. He would take the jar to the place on the map, across the legendary great sea. He would find the library – the Crypt of the Ancients.

  Ay hugged his friend and wished him well. They would never see each other again. Maya had only a vague idea where he was going and no idea how long it would take. When he arrived in the place where he was destined to hide his secret jar, the gods would tell him.

  Maya left Egypt with nearly fifty men. There were horse soldiers, charioteers, common laborers, a chef and a farrier to ensure the welfare of the horses. Artisans and craftsmen, teachers, a master architect and a man who was crew chief for the construction of a pyramid came too. They traveled for weeks, crossing the great western desert to the land of the Libu, now called Libya. Phoenicians were there – seafaring men who were expanding their trade routes all over northwest Africa. Maya was prepared to pay dearly for their nautical expertise. He traveled incognito for safety and the secrecy of his important mission. He was the highest religious figure in mighty Egypt, but he carried the credentials of a wealthy merchant.

  They came to a Berber port on the western Mediterranean that was bustling with Phoenicians from the east. There were boats everywhere, and Maya wasted no time putting out word he was interested in hiring a boat. He was directed to the harbor, where ship owners did business in a multitude of taverns and cafés along the docks. People who wanted to hire a boat went from table to table, assessing the captains, the size and capability of their vessels, and the cost of the journey.

  At noon Maya took a break from the morning’s fruitless interviewing, walked to a nearby café and ordered a meal. He sat outside near the water and watched a finely dressed, prosperous-looking man approach his table. An hour later the search was over. Maya had found what he wanted – a Phoenician captain and crew. The captain said he’d made the trip to the land across the western ocean once before. That was a plus for Maya. He paid the captain half his fee. A few days later he hired a crew of local African men, who began loading provisions for the long journey.

  The man Maya hired was a wealthy ship-owner and captain named Paltibaal, which in Phoenician meant “my refuge is the god Baal.” The Egyptians considered Baal a pagan deity, but he was god of sun and storms, and his sister was goddess of the sea. Maya decided an extra dose of prayers to Phoenician gods couldn’t hurt. It might even help protect them from stormy seas.

  The ship sailed in fine weather through the narrow straits that the Greeks would later call the Pillars of Hercules and into the great sea. Once land was far behind them, the captain followed the roughly drawn Atlantean map towards territory many
days’ travel to the west.

  On his other trip Paltibaal had landed in what was today called Massachusetts. He traveled as far as he could up a river and camped at a spot later named Dighton Rock near the modern town of Berkeley. His men drew pictures and wrote words in Phoenician. Two thousand years later experts would argue whether the petroglyphs carved on Dighton Rock were ancient Hebrew or Latin, if indigenous people had drawn them, or if they were simply a hoax. Reverend Cotton Mather mentioned the rock in a book in 1690, referring to its inscriptions as curiosities. No one ever learned what the mysterious petroglyphs really were. No one would ever know the Phoenician Paltibaal and his crew had carved the drawings and words thirteen centuries before Christ.

  The ship was tossed in rough seas as they traveled southwest toward the equator. Following the map, they passed near one of the tiny islands that was now part of the Bahamas chain. They sailed in light winds through the Gulf of Mexico.

  Six weeks after the voyage began, they spied the land drawn on the ancient map. Maya gave thanks to the gods for safe travel as they sailed into a secluded lagoon that was now called Michoacan in the Mexican state of Tabasco. When the captain saw Indians, he presumed they were the same race as those he’d encountered previously. He couldn’t have been more wrong – these were Olmecs. Originally farmers, today they were an advanced civilization structured into a class hierarchy and were already making ornaments and jewelry from jade and obsidian. They had extensive trade routes; although they had never seen Phoenicians or Egyptians, they welcomed the strangers whom they thought were here to engage in commerce. The Olmec leaders were particularly fascinated with Paltibaal’s African crew. They had never seen men with such prominent features. They ordered artists to sketch them. Later they’d carve their likenesses in stone to memorialize these unusual men.