The Pharos Objective mi-1

by David Sakmyster

  Helen frowned, scrunching up her face as she tried to look closer. “How does that help us?”

  “Alchemy,” Caleb said, thinking back on bits and pieces of things he’d read, ideas tying back to Ancient Egyptian magic, methods of controlling the material world and preparing for the afterlife.

  “Alchemy? Turning lead into gold?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So what are the golden ones?” someone asked as Caleb tried to see into the gloom. It might have been the heavier one, Dennis.

  Waxman tapped his flashlight against the wall and listened to the echoes.

  Caleb cleared his throat. “It could just mean, ‘those who are pure, those who are worthy.’ In its earliest form, alchemy was the study of spiritual transition. Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and all their predecessors, when they discussed turning things into gold, they weren’t necessarily talking about a physical, elemental transformation, but about obtaining spiritual perfection.”

  “Hokey, kid,” said Waxman. “Even for you.” He regarded the door again, and then Nina said something inaudible, to which Waxman nodded, and then said, louder, “No, I’m thinking this is just another typical Egyptian curse, the usual scare with no teeth. They loved to put curses all over their tombs, especially the valuable ones. Threaten looters with a curse, and maybe you’ll get to rest in peace.”

  He aimed his light at one symbol, about knee-high on his left, and Caleb had the sudden certainty that this was the one he had been searching for, the one Nina had pointed out. Jupiter. The planet associated with Water.

  Nina tentatively backed away, but Waxman told her to keep the light still, to illuminate the symbol while he tucked away his own flashlight. He reached out, grasping the outer edges of the sign.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb asked. “Nina, George, wait! You’re not seriously going to try this.”

  When Waxman glared over his shoulder his face was a mask of annoyance and anger-such anger that Caleb took an involuntary step back.

  Waxman grunted and started to turn the symbol clockwise.

  “I don’t know about this,” Helen said. “Maybe we should wait.”

  Retreating another step and bumping into Dennis, Caleb said, “Egyptians were known to back up their curses with actual defenses.”

  Waxman laughed. “No one else saw any traps in their visions.”

  “You didn’t see the way in, either,” Caleb countered. “Which only means you weren’t asking the right questions-again.” A blinding light stabbed into his eyes as Nina turned the beam on him.

  Waxman hissed through his teeth. “Enough, Caleb. You can go back up.”

  The light pulled away, leaving painful flashes in Caleb’s vision. He couldn’t make anything out. He heard a scraping of the small wheel within its granite setting. Rubbing his eyes, he took another step back and completely lost his bearings. “Nina?” He started to call to her, but a heavy clang drowned out his voice. Fuzzy shapes appeared out of the glare. He looked up and saw two giants looming over him. One appeared compassionate and sad; the other’s bird-like expression had darkened into something like rage.

  Caleb turned away from the stairs, back to the chamber, and there was his mother, to the right of Waxman, and Nina, standing directly in front of the caduceus.

  Another clang, and Caleb blinked. Then, in an unfocused haze, he saw five figures gathering around the seal. The crack down the middle expanded into a dark, widening line the width of a pillar.

  “We did it!” Waxman shouted.

  Nina stopped and looked back, but her look of triumph melted when she saw Caleb’s face. He seemed to want to say something witty, something to make them all pause and regroup. But he couldn’t find his voice. He squinted and tried to see beyond the parting doors, but so much shifting sand and dust were drizzling down on the intruders. Then a horrible grating reverberated off the walls of the chamber. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, groaned as though the harbor was pressing down upon them-millions of gallons of water compressing their little chamber all at once.

  “Nina!”

  She turned to him, reaching out — just as a torrential wave of blackness erupted from the gap in the door, exploding into the room.

  Caleb had a glimpse of five figures consumed and swept backward like ants in a flood. Helen and Waxman, just off to the side, out of the rushing water’s path, turned and ran toward the safety of the stairs.

  The flood took Nina head-on, lifting her in the air in a watery death-grip, and then drove her into the granite floor. Another surging wave rushed in and flung her toward Caleb. He grunted as she slammed into him and they both hurtled back into the colossal leg of Thoth. Caleb struggled to hold her wrist as he gripped the statue’s staff.

  Nina coughed and tried to force out a watery scream. She was nearly ripped free by the freezing water crashing over them again and again, swirling and pulling as it rose. Caleb choked on wretched-tasting seawater mixed with the dust of ages, but he could feel the statue’s contours below his feet. He pushed off its midsection and hauled himself up, only to be hit by another angry wave. With a burst of strength, he pulled Nina higher as he fought to work his way up the statue to stay ahead of the rising flood.

  Finally he locked his arm between the staff and the statue’s upraised hand and could go no higher, his head hard against the cold ceiling, when the room plunged into darkness, the final flashlight beams swirling under the dark tide. He thought of his mother and the others and could only imagine the worst, their bodies tossed about, dashed against the stones, consigned to this, their final resting place hundreds of feet beneath the surface.

  His lips were almost pressed against the ceiling-the last inch of air left. He took another gasp and then his head was completely below water. In seconds his lungs began to scream, his heart thundered and he almost gave in to panic.

  Then suddenly, it was as if someone had pulled the stopper out of a giant bathtub. The water started receding with a huge sucking sound, a swirling in the darkness. Caleb could breathe again. The water descended quickly, very quickly, and soon he could make out the dimmed, submerged flashlights before they disappeared altogether, flowing out through the tunnel. Sucked out, Caleb thought, with sudden dread, along with his mother, Waxman and the others.

  “Caleb!” Nina gurgled, coughing up pints of water. Her wrist started to slip through his weakening grasp, now high above the chamber floor and without the buoyancy of the water to support her weight. Her voice was weak when she said, “Don’t-don’t let me go!”

  “Hang on!” The blackness around them seeped into his skull, blanketing his consciousness. He heard a buzzing, and he was back there-in the jungles of Belize, in that tomb, holding onto his sister.

  His grip on Nina slipped another inch and she screamed. Her feet dangled in mid-air, kicking absently. She clutched wildly at his body, and in her frenzy grabbed his arm, tearing it from its grip on the statue. But in sheer reflex, he shook her off to free his hand and regain his broken hold. The following scream was an echo of Phoebe’s familiar cry from years ago. Then there came a wet thud and a sickening snap that resounded over and over, drowning out the grating of the closing door.

  “Nina!”

  He fought the cold and fatigue and struggled to stay conscious. He made his way down the statue, sliding, scrambling, then dropping the final few feet. He landed knee-deep in the swirling water and reached down to feel around for anything but the stone floor. The currents pulled at his legs, and if it had been any higher, he might have been swept toward the pit. But he was able to stand firm.

  “Nina!” His hands fumbled about. He dropped to his knees, splashing, reaching in the darkness. The water was down to only five or six inches, but rushing quickly and powerfully toward the drain. “Nina!” He crawled, rolled, swung his arms wide in a frenetic effort to find her.

  Lights appeared-two of them-streaming down from high up the stairs, falling on Caleb, and then flicking around the room, scoping out every niche
, every square foot of the water-cleansed chamber.

  “Find Nina!” he screamed, as the streaming floods exiting through the gap in the floor and the great door sealed shut again, the caduceus once again whole. “Where is she?”

  “Caleb.” His mother’s footsteps, splashing in the last few inches of draining water.

  “Nina!”

  “Caleb…” Helen knelt next to him, placed her hands gently on his shoulders. Her touch calmed him, even as he realized there was nothing left to do.

  He whimpered, and rested his forehead against the cold, wet floor.

  He never remembered much about the next few minutes. He didn’t know if he had blacked out or just stumbled about in a daze. There were only vague recollections of a kind-eyed, bird-faced goddess blinking at him in the darkness and shifting ever so slightly, the noise of her motions keeping him conscious.

  His mother helped him up while Waxman continued searching for Nina. Then someone was helping him, carrying him up the stairs, stumbling every few steps. Except in his delirium he wasn’t under the sea in Alexandria, he was in Belize, climbing the broken stairs, carrying his sister’s broken, unconscious body, and praying that Phoebe-if she was still alive-wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t wake to the agony. Wouldn’t come back to a world where she might never walk again.

  They dragged Caleb out to freedom and, taking deep gulps of the cool Mediterranean air flowing through Qaitbey’s vacant stone hallways, he slipped away from his mother’s arms and rolled over to gaze at the dome high above, at that one lone dove, still circling, singing out its cry of loneliness.

  17

  The next few days were lost in alternating surges of pain and guilt, sleepless fits and frantic attempts to see his mother. Every time Caleb slipped back into consciousness, prodded by a succession of stern doctors and narrow-faced nurses, he saw Waxman speaking with Egyptian authorities, reporters, and other men in dark suits.

  Finally, he had some time alone with his mother. Red-eyed and sullen, she spoke without making eye contact, and only once, briefly, she set her hand on Caleb’s. Her other arm was in a cast and she had green and blue bruises all over her face. Caleb learned soon enough that his mother, Waxman and Victor were the only ones to make it out alive, the only ones luckily carried toward the stairs, where they managed to climb out ahead of the rising water. The others’ bodies, mangled and deformed, with shattered skulls and broken bones, were found later that night after a six-hour rescue mission by the Egyptian Coast Guard.

  But Nina… Nina’s body hadn’t been found yet. Caleb couldn’t think about her, not now. All he could think about were the others, and he kept dreaming that it was up to him to tell their families how they had died, and for what.

  He was alive. His mother was alive. On one level he was relieved that she had survived. On another, he couldn’t get past his fury at another treasure hunt gone horribly wrong. Just like Belize, except this time it wasn’t his fault. Or was it? His visions-and Nina’s-had brought them to this fate. Never mind that it was Waxman’s impatience and bludgeoning optimism that had gotten most of the Morpheus team killed.

  “Well, that’s one thing anyway,” Waxman said, slipping into Caleb’s room behind Helen. He was little worse for wear. A couple bandages on his forehead and his wrist in a cast. “The Egyptian government just thinks we all went for a dive after visiting the fort. And since the tide is so treacherous around that area, well, we were unlucky. They’re convinced enough of the danger that they’ve decided to drop breakwater stones in that section.”

  Helen spun around. “What? They can’t do that. What if-?”

  “Easy,” he said, hands out in a settling gesture. “This will just discourage other treasure seekers. We can still get to the tunnel. They didn’t find that, fortunately. I didn’t tell them about the entrance we’d found, and while the rescue operation was under way I went back and closed the door, resetting the lever. It’s there for when we need it again.”

  Caleb blinked. “‘For when we need it again’? Are you serious? After what happened?”

  Waxman was about to say something when Helen pushed him out of the room. “Later,” she said, shutting the door before turning to her son. “Caleb. This is a tragedy, the worst outcome possible, but we can’t just run from it.”

  “Yes we can!” His lungs groaned with the effort.

  “Then their deaths will have been for nothing.” She bit her lip and looked down. She sat in the chair beside the bed and slumped forward. And then, finally, Caleb realized she was still dealing with the guilt too, still trying to succeed at something, to make it up to her husband, to prove his life hadn’t been a waste.

  “It won’t be soon, Caleb. But someday, someday we’ll try again. We’ll work at it, work at deciphering those images on the wall. There have to be clues to the way in, and-”

  “Take my camera,” Caleb said with disgust. “For all the good it will do you. It’s supposedly waterproof, so maybe the film survived.” He sighed. “Take it. Hopefully it’ll prove that you can’t get in. Face it, Sostratus was too good.”

  Helen was about to say something, but whatever it was, a nurse interrupted her as she came in to draw blood. When she pricked Caleb’s arm he immediately felt woozy, and he fell into an ascending tide of death.

  When Caleb awoke it was night, the curtains drawn. An IV was still stuck in his arm, the entry point throbbing in counterpoint to the pulse in his head. And a man was looking down on him.

  He was dressed in a gray suit. He had soft eyes and a head of thick gray hair, like snow, with straggly caterpillar-like eyebrows. His lips were moving, but Caleb didn’t hear any words-nothing but a sound like the rush of water.

  The man raised a scolding finger, and for an instant the water gurgled away and the room quieted down. He leaned forward and whispered, “The Pharos protects itself.” Then he stood and made a curious bow.

  Caleb blinked, and it was daytime. His arm was free, the IV gone. He sat up in bed, blinking again. His mouth felt like it was full of sand. Turning sideways, he slid out of the bed until a wave of nausea forced him back, and then he tried again. He stood up this time, made it to the window and looked down. Two stories below there was a small field with a soot-stained marble statue of some Egyptian patriot pointing toward the sea. Overhead, a lone dove circled, then landed on the statue’s head and stared up at Caleb’s window. Then Caleb noticed the man.

  He stood in the field, looking down at a flat stone set in the grass. He was familiar, but not the one who had visited the previous night. This man wore a dirty green jacket and had long hair, stringy and unwashed, down to his shoulders. He knelt and set a single white flower upon the stone at his feet.

  Caleb’s mouth opened. What had once been fear gave way to curiosity. But then the figure stood and turned around, looking up, right at Caleb. He raised a hand and pointed, first at Caleb, then down to the stone. Then he touched his chest.

  Caleb rocked back, so startled that he didn’t even get a good look at his face, but he bumped into the bed, turned and saw his mother silhouetted in the doorway.

  “What are you doing out of bed?”

  Caleb pointed to the window, eyes wide, and speechless.

  Helen limped past and set her good arm on the windowpane. She looked down. Caleb hesitantly peered over her shoulder, already sure of what he’d see.

  The field was empty.

  She turned, shrugging. “Phoebe’s on the phone, asking for you.”

  Caleb had to sit again. “I can’t talk to her.”

  “You’re her big brother. You saved her life back in Belize, no matter what else you think. Go, talk to her.”

  “I’ll talk,” Caleb relented. “But then that’s it. This quest is over for me-once and for all. I’m done. Unless you enlist the help of a dozen military divisions and a thousand tons of TNT, I’m finished. I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t-”

  “I can. I have a job. Classes to teach. Books to publish.” Caleb stood a
nd walked to the door. “It’s over, Mom. It’s over.”

  “Dad wouldn’t have given up,” she whispered, and her words froze him to the spot.

  Caleb hung his head. Out in the hall, the fresh air felt soothing on his skin. “Dad’s dead. Or don’t you remember?”

  “Caleb-”

  “He’s dead,” Caleb repeated. And now he finally believed it. He did, and he felt an utter vacancy in the place the hope of his father’s return used to occupy. It was always like Dad had been there waiting in the corner of Caleb’s mind. Waiting for me to find and rescue him.

  But that chance had passed.

  “Dead,” Caleb said again. “Like your obsession. Like the myth of this treasure. Like everyone who goes after it.”

  He closed the door-on his mother, on the quest. On his lost youth. On hope. He put them all behind him and walked away, toward his future.

  At dusk, as the other boats, schooners, trawlers and pleasure cruisers headed to the docks, and their passengers geared up for a night out at discos, bars and restaurants, George Waxman took the sleek four-seater speedboat in the opposite direction, to the center of the harbor and his waiting yacht.

  Minutes later, he descended into the lower quarters, still fuming. “Get upstairs,” he barked to Victor, who he found standing before the recompression chamber window, peering inside. “Go up top and keep watch.”

  Victor turned, a bruised cut on his forehead, still red and turning purplish around the stitches. “For who? Helen will be with her boy, right?”

  “It’s not her I’m concerned about. How’s our patient?”

  “Unresponsive. But alive.”

  “Good.”

  “She rose sixty feet in less than a minute, lungs half full of seawater, and… I don’t know, boss, shouldn’t we get her to a hospital?” Victor paused at the stairs, his voice cracking, betraying perhaps some newly kindled desire of his own.