Hidden Gods

by Anthony Masters

  ‘Look.’ Philippa stared up into the intensity of heat. The beam sprang out, gilding their bodies, filling them with desire. She placed her lips on his and, almost instantly, Hugo saw their lives come hurtling at him, diffused images that terrified him in their enormity. A crystal pyramid shattered by a tidal wave, a huge serpent twisting in its death throes, dog-headed men, a black dragon, the tree of knowledge, a winged disc, a bronze Zeus, warrior gods descending bloodied from a fiery heaven, the Grail shimmering in an unearthly light, the pyramid of Giza dominating everything. Then through its portal he caught glimpses of war – was shivering in a trench that stank of human defecation and corruption. Rats ran through the soiled water under his feet and the guns blazed on the near horizon, the shells bursting over his head, lighting up the charnel house of a no man’s land that lay behind the wire. A dead man nestled against him, his skull split from ear to ear, his mouth open in a grinning rictus. Merciful darkness came and then he was conscious of Philippa somewhere near at hand.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Nursing.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘You’re dying, Hugo. But there’ll be rebirth. As always – until we’ve finished the journey.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the pyramid.’

  ‘Is that death final?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  The scene vanished, but he felt he was being suffocated. Then he knew that she was beside him, her lips sealing his, the thing inside her thrusting at him.

  This time it was Hugo’s turn to push her gently away, and they lay side by side, sweating in the beam.

  ‘It’s so powerful.’

  ‘The beam?’ she asked.

  ‘Your child,’ he replied.

  Philippa shuddered. ‘It’s not my child,’ she protested. ‘It can’t be.’

  But they both knew that it was.

  9

  Egypt

  The privately chartered Egyptian jet left from Stansted the next day. Hugo, Philippa and Ibrahim shared luxurious cabin space while in less distinguished accommodation half a dozen young men sat around smoking and playing cards. They all had an air of quiet professionalism. Hugo had seen the breed before in the service of celebrities and politicians. Minders. Bodyguards. They made him feel both safe and exposed at the same time. God knows, he thought, I should have got used to all this, but the other lives – if they were other lives – still only had the substance of a half-remembered dream. And this life was too precious now, with Philippa, to even contemplate death.

  Hugo leant back in his seat, closing his eyes, considering recent events. There was no doubt in his mind that he and Philippa had an overwhelming responsibility and that it could only be fulfilled if they reached the pyramid. Ibrahim was an ambivalent figure but they needed him. At the very least he must be a member of the Winged Disc; the pyramid was proof of that. They had returned from Tiderace together, throwing the corpse of their potential assassin overboard when they were certain that they could not be seen by any other craft. It had been an incredible moment – the disposing of an anonymous human being as a piece of detritus.

  Once ashore, Ibrahim had explained to the bewildered boatyard staff that they would have to go out to the island to reclaim their boats as ‘our small party had to be cancelled because of a lady’s illness.’ The enigmatic announcement was accompanied by the passing over of a large amount of ‘recovery fees’, all of which were accepted without question. The situation had been farcical but no one had seen the funny side. All three of them had then returned to Lizards and they had told Ibrahim everything they could remember about the interior of the building in the desert. In return, he had explained that the highly sophisticated monitoring system belonged to the Iraqis and he suspected there might be others in other remote regions. Their presence must have been detected by a hidden camera, he had continued, and so the building had been quickly dismantled at night.

  Ibrahim kept an armed watch through the sleepless night, and Hugo and Philippa had lain together in the large double bed in the guest-room, for neither wanted to encroach on Lucy’s territory.

  ‘Should we really have confided in Ibrahim – just like that?’ Philippa had asked, ‘And why didn’t the Iraqis come for us?’ She was clearly unconvinced. ‘We were easy targets in the desert.’

  ‘Too easy,’ Hugo had surmised. ‘I guess they wanted to know what we were going to do next. After all, they had nothing to do with our easy escape.’

  Philippa had agreed. ‘I don’t think the Iraqis got wise to us until we were amongst the computers. Maybe they’re using us.’

  ‘So you do suspect Ibrahim?’

  ‘We shouldn’t trust anyone,’ she had replied uncertainly. ‘Don’t forget what he said – the Disc was penetrated by the Iraqis. We’ve no idea where he stands in all this.’

  But Hugo had been adamant. ‘He could summon up the pyramid, couldn’t he? He must know that Tiderace is a receiver. Brent was the original recipient, of course. We can see, too, but not as clearly. The same applies to Ibrahim.’

  ‘That’s not a guarantee of his loyalty to the Atlanteans, is it?’

  ‘Surely they wouldn’t give him this – this second sight if he was working against them?’

  Philippa had shrugged. ‘Why should we assume the Atlanteans have any moral concepts? They want to go – and they don’t care who releases them. Hence the gas for the lucky winner. Oh yes, Hugo, you really can’t be an idealist over this. If we wanted something like that – and they had the power to give it to us – I’m sure we could name our price. They’re trapped, and unless we can discover that frequency they’ll remain so.’

  ‘Don’t they realize the Iraqis have no way of finding it? That only we can help them?’

  ‘Clearly that’s not a concept they can grasp.’

  ‘If they can communicate telepathically, doesn’t that give them a reasonable chance of understanding what’s in other people’s minds?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why should it?’

  ‘This is incredible,’ he had complained. ‘I feel driven, but where?’

  ‘They’re a higher intelligence,’ she had replied. ‘But a higher intelligence with limitations. After all, they can’t engineer their own escape like they engineered ours. We’re their guides, aren’t we – just as much as they’ve been ours?’

  ‘And the Iraqis?’

  ‘They haven’t succeeded so far. We’re the unknown quantities. That’s why the Atlanteans want to give us a chance. Ibrahim may be their loyal servant, accepting them as gods; he may, on the other hand, only see them as providers.’

  ‘They won’t pass on the nerve-gas formula if the Iraqis can’t get them airborne.’ But Hugo had known he was clinging to a straw.

  ‘There’s very little time left. We have all the right qualifications for the job – the most distinguished lineage of time travel – but if we don’t show up, then there are only the Iraqis left.’

  ‘They’re hardly likely to accept that,’ Hugo had persisted.

  ‘I think you’ll find they’ll accept anything. Maybe even give them an inducement payment. I can sense urgency and desperation. I can sense that in myself, Hugo.’

  ‘We’re part of them,’ he had replied, and had immediately felt appalled at the idea. ‘Are we leaving with them?’

  ‘The Iraqis won’t find the frequency, I’m sure of that’ Philippa was following her own line of thought.

  ‘No. But they’ll claim they will. And if we’re dead –’ Hugo had paused – ‘I should think the Iraqis might well convince the Atlanteans to pass across the formula to their scientists – without delivering the goods.’

  ‘Could they be that trusting?’

  They’re that desperate.’

  ‘So are we going with Ibrahim? With all these reservations?’

  ‘We have to.’

  ‘He could kill us himself.’

  ‘He could, but why then did he go through that elaborate charade today
?’

  Philippa had stared at him without replying and Hugo had added grimly, ‘Put it like this, if he’s with us, then he killed our assassin. If he’s not, the assassin was out to kill him and almost succeeded. Itjust isn’t possible to resolve Ibrahim’s ambiguities. Not yet. But there can be no freedom for us if we try to escape our responsibilities. And like it or not the Adanteans are our responsibilities.’

  ‘Suppose we die?’

  ‘Then we’ll be free in another life.’

  ‘Isn’t that too glib?’ Philippa had asked angrily. ‘What about the Atlanteans? They’re ageless, timeless. They can wait’

  ‘For another change in frequency?’ Hugo had been dismissive. ‘They won’t see that’

  ‘But why?’ she had asked anxiously, defensively.

  ‘If they don’t get freedom, they’ll wither away. Just as we were about to do. They need renewal – like we did. We got it through each other.’

  She had nodded, knowing he was right, and Hugo became even more convinced through her acceptance. Whatever side Tarik Ibrahim was on, they had to move ahead.

  Later on, they had made love and when the love-making was finished, Philippa and Hugo had slept; in their dreams they had risen with the Atlanteans towards the opening portal of the pyramid and up into the dawn. Half waking, Hugo had the curious sensation that they and the Atlanteans were indivisible, and just on the point of oblivion he remembered the Latin saying ‘Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta movebo” ‘If I cannot move the gods, I will stir up hell.’ Who was going to do that, he wondered. The Iraqis? The Federation? The Brotherhood?

  ‘Or us?’ asked a voice in his mind.

  *

  Hugo had only slept for an hour or so, and when he had awoken again he had been filled with mocking logic, his conversation with Philippa dissolving into ludicrous fantasy. How had he ever managed to convince himself that those winged serpents were gods, and past reincarnations had put him on their level? Self-renewal was fair enough, abandonment of alcohol a necessity, but did he have to believe in fairies? He had lain there, letting the grey English morning attack him, but when he had remembered in detail all that had happened, Hugo had soon been enmeshed in the spiritual world again, leaving reason behind, knowing it to be the bar to freedom.

  Now, in the jet, Hugo gave up his halting attempts to sleep and turned to Ibrahim.

  ‘Do you have an itinerary?’ he asked drily. ‘Or is it all still a mystery tour?’

  ‘A magical mystery tour,’ corrected Ibrahim with a slightly ponderous attempt at humour. ‘I shall take you to the Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo – and then we shall go to the pyramid of Giza. There will be maximum security.’

  ‘What happens when we get to the pyramid?’

  ‘We shall take you both to the Chamber of Records. The rest is hopefully up to you.’

  ‘Of course – you do realize we have no idea what to do,’ Philippa interposed.

  ‘I’m sure you will be guided into doing what is best. Naturally you will meet my companions first.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ asked Philippa.

  ‘An hour. No longer.’

  ‘And how far is the pyramid?’

  ‘A considerable distance into the desert. We shall arrive there late tonight’

  During the remainder of the flight, Hugo and Philippa both tried, in their separate ways, to get to know Ibrahim better, and to understand his involvement with the pyramid and the Brotherhood. As a result of their determined but slightly over-casual questioning, he told them his life story, but Hugo was not entirely convinced.

  ‘My parents were wealthy Iranian lawyers,’ Ibrahim began, ‘both with an Oxford education but still committed Muslims. They had a foot in both worlds: the veneer of Western sophistication and the devout heart. Soon after I came home from Oxford the Shah was deposed, the Ayatollah came to power and Islamic law was dramatically enforced. I wasn’t sure if I could embrace it as willingly as my parents had, and it didn’t take me long to realize I couldn’t – so I became a closet liberal, assumed to be as strictly religious as my parents. I thought I’d bide my time, wait for the regime to change, to become less fundamentalist. Then I realized that this wasn’t going to happen, and while I was still wavering, trying to decide what to do, my father became terminally ill. He summoned me to his bedside in the traditional manner, but I was alarmed to find that he was desperate to tell me something. At first I put his bizarre, wholly unbelievable story down to the ramblings of a dying man – just as you, Mr Fitzroy, put your son’s journal down to madness. Anyway, he took my hands in his and said he was going to tell me the greatest secret in the world. I waited, horrified by what I thought was his mental deterioration.’ Ibrahim paused, looking at a small stain on the carpet. He examined the mark for a long time before resuming, and Hugo tried to work out whether this was a calculated act or he was genuinely gathering his thoughts. Then, more hesitantly, he continued.

  ‘He told me that in the pyramid of Giza there lived gods who were also called Atlanteans. They had great powers and had arrived centuries before by the grace of Allah. They were committed to spiritually empower Islam, to underpin the most glorious revolution of all, to create unity of heart and profound spirituality throughout the Arab world. They would not always be present, however; they had intimated that they had work to do elsewhere and that their time on earth was limited. In due course, strangers would come from outside the faith, time travellers, light walkers, who were destined to enter the Chamber of Records and to discover the time when the earth would change its frequency and the space portal would open. Only then would the Atlanteans be free to leave.’

  Was he to be believed or was he putting up a smoke-screen? Hugo didn’t have the slightest idea, and he could see that Philippa was just as perplexed.

  Ibrahim resumed. ‘Although I’m deeply concerned about the fanaticism of my people, I know the faith is strong enough to allow the departure of the Atlanteans. Besides, their existence was for many centuries kept secret by the Brotherhood. My father told me that I would be permitted one sighting only in my lifetime.’

  ‘And have you had that sighting?’ asked Philippa, suddenly showing real interest.

  ‘Yes. I was taken to the pyramid by Jamal – one of the elders of the Brotherhood. He and his forebears have taken the role of Magi – revealers and communicators. It is Jamal’s responsibility to call the Atlanteans from the casket.’

  ‘The casket?’

  ‘The place where they meditate and pray. I waited outside until Jamal called me. When I entered he was standing there with one of them hovering above him in a globe.’

  ‘This Atlantean – ’ said Hugo, ‘did he look more like a winged serpent than a god?’

  ‘How can we say what a god should look like?’ said Ibrahim pompously.

  ‘Did you communicate?’

  ‘It was the most glorious moment of my life. I felt a sense of power and commitment, and sure and certain knowledge that Islam would be protected, whether the Atlanteans were present in the pyramid or not.’ He spoke so passionately that Hugo was deeply moved. If this was a fabrication then Ibrahim was a brilliant actor.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘If they are so powerful,’ said Hugo, ‘why do they have to bargain for their release?’ He was determined to play the devil’s advocate and test out Ibrahim’s belief.

  ‘Because they are afraid.’

  ‘When they are so strong?’

  ‘If they can’t be released I suspect they may lose power and wither away.’

  ‘Have you evidence of that?’

  ‘Yes. My father showed me a photograph of a dead Atlantean. One who had dried out. It looked like a fallen angel.’ Ibrahim’s eyes filled with tears and once again Hugo felt genuinely moved.

  ‘How did an Iraqi get into the pyramid?’ asked Philippa, assuming a more aggressive role.

  ‘There are representatives of each Arab country in th
e Brotherhood. It was his right’

  ‘And he corrupted the Atlanteans?’ she asked.

  ‘He offered them a chance – although it was, of course, quite false.’

  ‘And the Atlanteans weakened,’ muttered Hugo. ‘So despite their power, they have human feelings – these gods of yours. They know fear – and death.’

  ‘They were once human.’

  Does he guess, as we do, that they were once like us, wondered Hugo, and yet despite their powers they lacked our gift of self-renewal?

  ‘Is the Brotherhood still infiltrated?’ persisted Philippa.

  ‘We don’t know.’ Ibrahim looked at his watch. ‘We shall land in half an hour. You will become a brother, Hugo.’

  ‘And what about me?’ asked Philippa. ‘Is there a Sisterhood?’

  Ibrahim smiled. ‘I’m afraid not Men, as you know, have high status in my country.’

  ‘So I’m to be on the sidelines. Hiding behind my veil.’

  ‘You are a principal player.’

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Hugo, with a rather desperate attempt at humour. ‘You’ll just have to get used to being a second-class citizen.’

  Philippa stuck out her tongue at him and the sudden lightening of mood seemed to discomfort Ibrahim far more than their relentless questioning. ‘I suggest you get some rest,’ he said, with a flash of unsettling irritation. ‘You will find the next few hours taxing.’

  There’s something else,’ she said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was wondering. I know the Atlanteans can’t leave the earth but can they leave the pyramid?’

  ‘I believe they do so occasionally. They have manufactured various – receptacles. The casket, the globes, the disc’

  ‘Disc?’

  ‘It’s like an aircraft. A winged disc. The gods use the disc to observe the outside world and its follies. Just one more UFO.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Now I must close my eyes for a while – we shall be landing soon.’

  The plane was met by three black Mercedes which drove across the Tarmac towards them as the aircraft engines were cut. They glided slowly and powerfully along the runway, their coachwork shining in the afternoon sun.