Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  The shovel scratched into the coarse sand, the metal spade pinged against a hard object, sending vibrations through his hands and up his arms. Cautious, Reuven knelt in the sand, wiping away loose earth.

  Over the centuries, wind and little rain had molded a stubborn chunk of earth around an object. Reuven used a hand spade and a pick from his tool kit to carefully chip away the earth. His hands shook as his efforts revealed the straight edge of a hand-carved stone.

  Great, now I must get the foreman.

  Gingerly, Reuven stood and unfolded his legs, which were numb from hours of kneeling and bending to complete his physically intense labor. He raised his rag above his head and waved wildly, hoping to catch the foreman’s attention. It wasn’t long to wait; the large man, wide as he was tall, huffed his way toward Reuven’s square, passing through the work zones of others and disturbing their work all the way over to the farthest western location of the dig site.

  “This better be something,” the foreman, a man named Akiva warned through quick breaths as he struggled to take in air. He entered Reuven’s work area, hoisting a thick leg over the perimeter rope. With a glower on his fat face, Akiva lowered his rotund body to the ground, sinking into the sand as if the earth shifted beneath him. He pulled off his cap and wiped his strained red face before examining Reuven’s find.

  Akiva’s inspection of the rock and sand caught the attention of those in the spaces surrounding Reuven. Most of the men stopped digging to watch their foreman manipulate the earth.

  The stone Reuven had uncovered was smoother than a natural stone, except for the grooves that had clearly been chiseled out by ancient implements. Akiva smiled and concluded out loud that the stone was most certainly carved by man.

  “Good, good,” he added. “Keep digging. Start over here.” Pointing to the location, the foreman dragged himself upward, grunting loudly. Rather than heading back to his tent and his breakfast, Akiva hovered over Reuven, who took up the larger shovel and plunged it into the earth as close to the stone as he could manage without nicking it. After clearing a channel twelve inches long and five inches deep, Reuven got on his hands and knees to chip away the remaining dirt with a smaller spade.

  As it grew later in the morning, the sun rose and beat on the back of Reuven’s neck. Sweat poured from his skin and evaporated into nothing before it could even hit the warm sand. Reuven glanced up for his water jug, longing for it, licking his dry lips with the little spit he could muster, but Akiva’s close observation made him continue chipping away the sand near the flat edge of the stone.

  With careful patience, Reuven eventually revealed one inch by thirteen inches of the rectangular stone.

  “That is good. Let me see,” Akiva ordered and heaved his hefty frame to the stone.

  Reuven reached for his jug and swigged the last of his warm water. It slid across his crusty lips but did little to quench his overwhelming thirst. He stood back waiting for the foreman to finish his inspection.

  “Ah, that is good,” said Akiva as his chubby fingers grazed the stone, feeling for irregularities or hidden symbols. “Good. Very good.” He smiled broadly.

  “What is it?” Reuven inquired.

  “Possibly the top of a column, making this most likely the entrance to a palace of King Solomon.”

  King Solomon! thought Reuven excitedly.

  “Though no one knows for sure. Finish removing the dirt along here.” After issuing his orders, Akiva trudged away to find the archaeologist in charge of the excavation.

  They hadn’t been told the true nature of the dig; the only information given when Reuven was hired was there might be the remains of a trader’s market below their feet. As he dropped to his hands and knees, he wondered if the archaeologists had purposely withheld this information from the laborers to control the removal of artifacts from this site.

  Knowing something of importance might lie below his feet, Reuven dug with new invigoration, chipping away at the earth until he exposed one full side of the stone.

  “Beautiful,” the head archaeologist proclaimed in a booming voice as he rushed forward to view the top of the column. He dropped to his knees, his shaky hand trailing the smooth edge that was exposed for the first time in a millennium. The stone gleamed brightly in the summer sun.

  “Please dig over there. I’d like to see the top of the pillar before lunch,” the archaeologist ordered.

  Shrugging, Reuven dug along the second side, creating another channel. The wood handle of his shovel rubbed against his palms, causing blisters to form and burn as he removed more earth. He ignored the pains, looking up only when the archaeologist snapped his fingers and ordered a second laborer to join him by starting on a third side of the square rock.

  It’s my find! thought Reuven angrily as he plunged the shovel into the sand, cutting close to the top of the pillar.

  “Careful!” shouted Akiva. His face crinkled under his wide-brimmed hat; the bright sun strained his eyes.

  Reuven cleared the channel until it was large enough and then dropped to the sand to create a path to the column. When he finished, he arched backwards and took a swig from a jug his new partner offered him. The cold, clean water felt good in his dry mouth.

  He wiped his forehead, resting against his heels for a moment and watching his counterpart chip away sand.

  “Yes, yes. This is most definitely the top of a pillar! Remove the other side,” ordered the archaeologist, walking up to them. “Over there.”

  Sighing, Reuven stood. The ground creaked. It felt spongy underneath his boots. He thrust the shovel into the earth and began digging out the fourth side of the column.

  The other laborers had long since returned to their work, and Akiva had moved on to a lesser discovery unearthed on the other side of the large grid. The archaeologist fidgeted before returning to his tent to escape the heat and wait for Reuven to reveal the entire top of the column.

  Reuven continued to dig, no longer aware of his shaky hands and dry mouth. His only thoughts were on unearthing the stone that jut out from the bowels of the earth. He concentrated only on the work, on revealing the top that curved downward.

  How beautiful! Reuven thought as he brushed away loose dirt and sand.

  In the distance, a siren sounded, alerting the crew to the midday meal.

  “Lunch,” said Reuven’s digging partner. Covered in sand and dirt, the man wiped his brow and dropped his shovel as he headed in the direction of the mess tent at the other side of the excavation site.

  Reuven stood in his newest hole, twelve inches long and five inches wide. He dropped his shovel and pulled his foot from the channel. The ground popped, shifted below him, and vibrated. He fell forward, his hands landing on the top of the pillar.

  An explosion? There are none on the schedule today.

  He pushed himself up; the ground swayed and creaked. Sand loosened, cascading under his foot. Reuven slipped and reached the top of the column. The unstable structure shook violently.

  “Help!” screamed Reuven, but there was silence around him. The men had left their posts, scattering across the dig site and sitting down to lunch. “Help!”

  But no one heard his cries as Reuven kicked his legs out, trying to wrap them around the column. His fingers grew tired holding the top of the structure. Sand cascaded into the bowels of the earth.

  The column swayed, but Reuven held on as his body swung. Rocks loosened above him and rained down on his head, arms and shoulders. He cried out from the pain and exertion. Tired and hot and lacking energy, he fought gravity as it threatened to drag him inside. Above him, the blue sky blinded him.

  Reuven’s arms shook, his fingers slipped, and after another minute, he dropped into the hole.

  He flayed his arms wildly, desperately reaching for something to grab hold of but finding nothing but loose sand and dirt. The earth swallowed him.

  Reuven crashed to the ground. His head bounced against the cool, hard stone beneath him. Dust swirled up, encircling his
limp body. The earth groaned beneath him.

  Reuven closed his eyes.

  *

  Distant voices called from the darkness. Reuven!

  They’re calling me.

  Frantic voices, distant and muffled, called him, yanking him out of the fog and urging him to answer. His fellow laborers shouted from the opening above, gradually becoming louder and more frantic.

  Reuven’s eyes fluttered open. He was unaware of where he was and why he was cold. His head screamed with pain. As the dreamlike voices faded, the images around him grew fuzzy and muffled as if he viewed them underwater.

  “Reuven!” The dream pushed farther into his memory until only the edges remained.

  The silhouette of a human head hovered against a sliver of blue sky and gingerly glanced into the hole. The bright light of the sky pierced the darkness. Once again, Reuven closed his eyes against the glare.

  Someone lowered lanterns into the hole, lanterns that hung from thick twine and swung above him. The light flashed against the stone walls and twirled in a frenzy.

  “He’s here! He’s down here!”

  They’re coming.

  As Reuven floated back into consciousness, pain assaulted him. He was now cognizant of his self and of the discomfort that radiated from his head to his neck and down his spine. He smelled fresh iron and felt the sticky wetness of his matted hair where his skull must have fractured in the fall. His stomach lurched and his body shivered. He longed to feel warmth again.

  “I’m down here. I’ve fallen,” he called out in a low, small voice, parched and dry. The afternoon wind whipped across the desert, and a wave of sand blocked his view of the sky that was now darkening the cavern. A breeze blew over his already cold skin as it found its way into the cavern, and his clothes rustled as bits of earth rained on him.

  “I’m down here.” He choked and swallowed sand as panic rose.

  They’re not coming.

  Gingerly, Reuven rolled over and pushed himself up with shaking arms. The room swum around him, and dizziness invaded his brain. He lay back down and took shallow, wheezing breaths that burned his lungs.

  Shadows danced on the wall across from the opening as the laborers rushed about to rescue him, unaware that the earth that separated them could barely hold its shape. Sand and stone creaked, threatening to swallow them all.

  It’s going to bury me alive! Reuven closed his eyes as if that could keep him from shaking or keep away the nausea that overcame him. He soon drifted into another restless sleep.

  *

  He blinked rapidly as his location came back to him. His head burned.

  The sky was no longer bright blue but rather a shade of orange; the sun had dipped low in the horizon, bringing with it early nightfall.

  Voices were distant, yet frantic.

  Why haven’t they come for me? Where is the ladder to save me?

  With no one to save him from his underground tomb, Reuven lifted himself to all fours, ignoring the nausea and the dizziness. Slowly and painfully, he crawled through the near darkness. The only light was a single lantern that still burned above him. As he searched with his outstretched hands for something to burn, his labored breathing caused twinges of dizziness. His back, arms, and legs felt heavy as he bumped into a soft object in the near blackness.

  Reuven sat up. Shadows rolled and spun while he fumbled in his pocket for his matchbook and struck the match with a shaky hand. The light bounced rapidly, cutting through the darkness and revealing a small room. The room contained boxes, tables, and several other items that he could only make out as black shadows against the walls. Beside him sat a woven container, round and squat with a lid still intact. He grabbed the handle and peered inside the empty basket.

  I could use this to light.

  But the match burned to the end, singeing his finger tip. He dropped the stick and placed his finger in his mouth to ease the burn.

  The earth squeaked as rock rubbed rock. Reuven looked to the hole above him, which appeared as a shadow in the low light.

  It’s going to bury me alive.

  He lit a second match and held it above his head, widening the ring of light. The pillar stood tall above him, just inches above the hole. Ten feet across from that, a second pillar had once stood. It apparently had long ago crashed into the side of the cavern; a small chunk lay in a dust heap.

  Lighting another match, Reuven limped to the pillar. Suddenly, his thick work boot made contact with something hard. The dim light revealed a box. Unfazed, he bent over and peered inside. It was nearly empty. He reached inside and pulled out the only artifact: a ring.

  It’s heavy, he thought as he palmed the ring. Before examining it, he dropped the match, which had burned down to a stub, and lit yet another.

  The ring consisted of a dense band, clearly worn by someone with thick fingers, and a flat top adorned with a raised six-pointed star at the center. Four stones had been set in the metal and formed a square around the star.

  What is this?

  Reuven remembered Akiva’s certainty that this was a temple belonging to King Solomon.

  Did he wear this?

  Turning the ring in his hands, Reuven discovered an inscription inside, though it was too faded to read in the dark.

  He slipped the ring on his finger. It was very loose and very large. He tried in his concussed fog to figure how large a man would have to be to fit this ring.

  To keep the ring safe, he cuffed the bottom of his pants, placed the ring inside and rolled the hem tightly.

  I should keep it. For my troubles.

  A head popped into the hole. “Reuven, we’re here to pull you out. Stay awake!” the voice shouted. The earth above creaked, sending sand and stone onto his head. He covered his head and felt the debris in his hair.

  Two ladders, nailed end to end, were lowered through the hole and set against the standing pillar. As two of Reuven’s co-laborers raced down the rungs, the ladder wobbled against the column, shaking both. Frantic, the men jumped five feet to the floor.

  Lantern lights scanned the room; Reuven shielded his eyes from the glare and fell to the floor.

  “He fainted!”

  When Reuven’s eyes fluttered open again, he found himself in the middle of a chaotic rescue. A makeshift stretcher, consisting of two long sticks wrapped in heavy linen, had been lowered inside, and two more rescuers descended the ladder, guiding the stretcher inside. They unfurled it next to Reuven. Three men lifted him on top of the stretcher, strapping him to it. Above them, footsteps pounded the precarious earthen roof, and sand scratched and creaked.

  “Get him up.” Three men lifted heavy ropes attached to each corner and began their ascension upwards.

  It was too much weight. The ladder strained and pushed against the unstable column. Each step upward weakened the ground, which was gradually pulling away from the column.

  Above them, fifteen men surrounded the hole, waiting to pull the stretcher through. The earth groaned and grumbled. Dirt and sand, loosened as a result of the extra weight, flooded into the hole. Chunks of rock and sand fell to the ground.

  “It’s going to crash!”

  A split second later, the pillar fell inwards, dumping the ladder, two rescuers and Reuven into a pile of stone. Rock and sand rained on them from above. Men fell through the hole and dropped to earth as an avalanche buried twenty men in the chamber.

  1970

  Dr. Arden Blakely labeled the most recent body found in the cave-in. Sighing, she signed the toe tag “John Doe #6.” Thus far, none of the victims of the recently discovered lost excavation had carried identification on their person. The unidentified bodies would be transferred back to Tel Aviv University for DNA analysis. If any descendants of the men lost in the 1920 avalanche came forward, they could compare the DNA evidence and give the victims back their names and a decent burial. Until then, this was the best the archaeologist could do.

  Arden wheeled the recent victim to the side of the tent and zipped the b
ody bag. She sighed at the weight of the all of the deaths before returning to the administrative work sitting in piles on the work table. She scribbled notes on the map of the excavation site noting the location where John Doe #6 was found. Behind her, her assistant from the university, Nicky, swept the sand from the floor. It was an impractical task; the sand was everywhere, though the sound of sand scratching against the canvas was a comforting background noise.

  Tired from a long day of examining bodies and attending to the site, Arden bent backwards and stretched her back before continuing to work on the many artifacts found at the site. There were clay shards, a woven basket, a bag full of matches, and more.

  Though it was tiring work, Arden was grateful to be doing it. She was proud of her recently awarded doctorate degree that was based on the theory regarding the lost temple of King Solomon. That research had led to a very generous anonymous donation, allowing her to head this excavation. She had eagerly proved this was most definitely the location of the lost dig of 1920, where twenty men had lost their lives in a cave-in.

  Days had passed before Arden’s team found the fifth body in a void in the ancient cavern. It was there they had also found John Doe #6. The bodies had not been alone. Arden busied herself as she waited for yet another body to be removed from the hard, packed sand.

  She examined the pack of matches found in the void. After years of being unexposed to the elements, the paper matchbook was brittle. She carefully turned it in her hands.

  Voices grew closer, footsteps crunched against dried sand, and one man grunted.

  Nicky smiled and peered outside the tent. “They released the second body from the void,” he said, placing his broom against the canvas wall. He picked up the map of the site, ready to take notes on where this victim had been found.

  The tent flap opened, and two men carried the body inside. “Hi Dr. Blakely. We have the second body for you,” said Ari, one of the many archaeological students working at the excavation site.

  “Show Nicky where he was found on the map,” Arden reminded them.

  “He was found in that void. Right here,” said Ari.

  Arden glanced at the spot on the chart and down at the victim, whose mummified body now lay on her table.