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by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  Jess blinked. Another one? Her aunt hadn’t told her of a new find.

  “It was Ironwood.” Andrew offered the information matter-of-factly. “Apparently, he’s developed some method of locating them that we’re unaware of.”

  Everyone in the Family knew Florian loathed Holden Ironwood and his rapacious plundering of historical sites to support his theories of aliens as mentors of humankind. She’d despised him even more for not publishing his finds. Jess had found that somewhat ironic since the MacCleirigh Foundation was also selective in the information it released about its own discoveries. If something had relevance for the Family’s history, outside scholars never heard of it.

  “Did she enter the temple before . . .” Jess was unable to continue.

  It was Willem who answered. Willem who understood. “Flo saw it, Jess. There was a Chamber of Heaven. An original. The temple’s underwater, so it’s not intact. But she did see it before she died.”

  Jess silently thanked him for that small comfort.

  Until the incredible revelation that actual Family temples had been found, the only MacCleirigh legacy of the earliest days, when the First Gods lived and worked among humans, had been the Book of Traditions: the MacCleirighs’ written memories that were taught as scripture to every generation of each Family line.

  The Traditions described the Temples of the First Gods supposedly constructed by the Twelve Lines of the original Family, whom their gods had scattered throughout the world.

  Until three years ago, the accepted interpretation of the Traditions was to view the twelve temples as mythical, not real, part of an allegorical story explaining how the First Gods had chosen the Family to work at their side to establish humanity’s first farms and schools and cities.

  That scholarly interpretation had changed literally overnight with an Ironwood-funded team’s unearthing of an unusual structure near the Indo-Pakistani border. The ruins lay in what had been the heart of the advanced Harappan civilization, dating to 2500 B.C.E. They matched the temple descriptions in the Traditions, and they held an actual Chamber of Heaven.

  It took more than a year for the Family’s archaeologists to learn of and take control of the site. When they did, the ancient stones confirmed their hopes—the temple ruins predated even nearby Harappan cities by an additional four thousand years.

  If Ironwood had publicized his find, and he did not, the ruins in India would have been classified as a “historical anomaly.” They would have joined hundreds of other atypical finds that appear to fall outside the generally accepted timeline of history, without providing enough information to suggest that another timeline should be considered.

  To the Family, though, the ruins were proof that their traditions were the literal truth. The original temples were myths no more.

  Florian had drawn Jess into the feverish excitement of those early days, the renewed sense of purpose that reenergized every line of the Family. The new mantra became If Ironwood can find them . . .

  Then, less than two years later, another Ironwood expedition reached a second temple in the Andes. The Peruvian discovery had rocked the MacCleirigh Foundation: How could Ironwood’s information be so much better than the Family’s?

  Now, Florian had been at the site of a third temple, again found by the Family’s old rival, within months of the second . . . and, somehow, her being there had led to her death.

  Jess couldn’t restrain herself any longer. “What’s going on? What does Ironwood know that we don’t?”

  Victoria Claridge, heavily tanned with permanent smile lines creasing her face, answered from Canberra. “That’s exactly what everyone at the Shop is working on, dear. We’re beginning a new translation of the Traditions, starting with cuneiform.”

  Jess had been to the Shop. It was a vast, climate-controlled cavern in Australia where the Family had relocated its most precious artifacts during the Cold War scare of the 1950s. Under the administration of Line Claridge, it was now the Family’s key research facility.

  Andrew interrupted. “If I may, this isn’t the time to discuss Ironwood’s technique.”

  Jess felt all eyes on her, the intensity of the moment palpable even through the vast distances bridged by the screens before her.

  Andrew glanced down at a sheet of paper on the table before him and began to read aloud.

  “Jessica Bronwyn Ruth Tamar Elizabeth Miriam Ann, child of MacCleirigh, Line of MacClary . . .”

  Jess heard the words, felt the enormity of what they meant.

  “. . . as was the first of our Family chosen by the gods, so now are you chosen. Stand please.”

  Jess stood as ordered. She heard Andrew’s next words as if through thick and dampening fog.

  “You will go with Su-Lin to the Source of our faith, and there you will learn what only defenders can know.” Andrew looked across the miles and into Jess’s eyes. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  One by one, the ten screens switched to black, then disappeared from view as the curved wall panels slid down to hide them.

  Jess and Su-Lin were alone once more. Jess’s throat felt dry.

  “What’s the Source?” she asked Su-Lin.

  “You must see it for yourself.”

  “Why? Where is it?”

  “Right here. Where it’s always been. Ever since our ancestors first arrived in Turus.”

  “Turus,” Jess repeated, feeling uncharacteristically stupid and confused. “That’s what the Celts called Zurich.”

  “That’s what we called Zurich.”

  Jess thought that correction over as they walked down the hallway and into the elevator.

  The car descended past every numbered floor, past the lobby, and kept going.

  “Our family came here two thousand years ago, Jessica. It’s the one city we’ve never left.”

  Jess felt a slight shake in the floor as the car slowed, then stopped.

  A sudden gust of cool air lifted the hair on her neck, and she wheeled to face a glaring light. The back wall of the elevator was opening.

  Su-Lin regarded her with a steady gaze. “We’ve all been through that door,” she said. “This is your time.”

  NINE

  One step out of the elevator, Jess was engulfed in sensory overload. The dazzling brilliance of unnatural light . . . hot. The hollow, uneven clang of her boots . . . some type of metal grid. A pungent damp fragrance . . . rich and earthy. She closed her eyes. The smell was familiar, unmistakable. She opened her eyes, and her vision cleared, adjusting to the full-on illumination from a circle of floodlights.

  She was on a metal catwalk, suspended above an open excavation cut into living earth.

  At the railing, she stared down three stories at—

  “A church?” she asked. “How old?”

  “You tell me,” Su-Lin said.

  The primitive, cross-shaped edifice below was stained with age. Scaffolding supported the three stone-block walls she could see, but Jess could still read pages of their story.

  “Fifteen hundred years. Plus or minus . . . two hundred.”

  Though metal beams and heavy planks of wood shored up the sides of the excavation, she could see the stratigraphy of the soil in the wide gaps between supports. The top twenty feet or so was uniform. That suggested it had been added deliberately, probably when modern construction had begun on this site and the builders needed greater stability. Other than that, the lower strata of soil deposition looked natural to her—a few signs of flooding over the years, and three narrow black bands signifying at least three major fires.

  “If I could carbon-date samples from that fire layer about a foot up from the lowest point, I could refine it to within fifty years, plus or minus.”

  Beside her at the railing, her fellow defender gave an approving nod. “No need. The building dates to 524 of the Common Era.”

  “You said we were here for two thousand years.”

  “We have been. This building dates to 524. Before that, we built a Roman templ
e here, dedicated to Apollo. Before that, a sanctified grove for Celtic rites. This site has always been ours.”

  Su-Lin took the lead as she moved past Jess to a steep metal staircase that clung to the bare walls of the excavation. Jess felt flutters in her stomach. Su-Lin had just said the Family had always been here, in this place. Andrew had said Su-Lin was to take her to the Source of their faith, where she would learn . . . Jess stumbled, then recovered quickly. Could the Secret be here? In the church?

  With each step, she tried to steady herself by remembering the reasons the MacCleirigh lines had survived over centuries. Scholarship, of course, was primary. There was nothing more important than ensuring that history was recorded and passed on as an unbroken tradition. Accumulated wealth was another. Being free of want allowed the pursuit of scholarship.

  However, the most important reason to account for the MacCleirighs surviving longer than any other human institution, whether nation or bloodline, was the Family’s ability to remain unnoticed.

  Jess, like all children of the Family, had been taught that past generations of MacCleirighs, before they had even taken that name, had worshipped with druids in the forests of England and made sacrifices to Zeus and Hera in Rome. They had wandered Europe as Jews, settled in Africa as Muslims, established universities as Catholics, funded schools as Hindus and Buddhists. In region after region, time after time, whichever set of religious or cultural beliefs offered the most security to the Family, those were the beliefs with which MacCleirighs cloaked themselves.

  Thus the MacCleirighs who built the ancient structure below in the sixth century C.E. had disguised it as a Christian church because the Zurich of that time was a Christian principality.

  Jess did not believe hypocrisy was involved in this strategy. The First Gods chose the Family to keep their knowledge safe until they returned. For the knowledge to be safe, the Family had to be safe. If history had taught the MacCleirighs anything, it was that proselytizing was dangerous. And so, they kept their actual beliefs to themselves, knowing they’d have ample time to convince the rest of the world of the truth of the First Gods when those gods returned. Until then, the Family was content to be background noise to the pageant of history. Unseen. Unknown. Safe.

  Jess stepped from the staircase to a wood-plank walkway. It led to the entrance marked by intricate carved pillars and decorative panels that framed age-worn main doors.

  “You understand?” Su-Lin asked her.

  Jess did. The Family had constructed this to hide in plain sight. “At first glance, early Christian iconography.”

  “But what do you see?”

  Jess didn’t think her scholarship was in doubt. It was more as if she were being tested, as if Su-Lin had begun some kind of ritual that Florian had never spoken of. A ritual that led to revelation.

  Composing herself, determined to succeed, Jess carefully studied the entrance to the shrine. “First, as a geologist, the stones appear to be limestone. Common for the area, easily obtained. When the shrine—the church—was first built, it would have been pure white. A beacon in a sea of mud and wooden huts. Impressive.”

  “What about the carvings?”

  Jess looked to the left of the main doors, where a robed female figure had been carved from a stone pillar. “Starting with her, that figure has attributes of Mary, mother of Jesus. She holds a radiant cross to her heart, a circle of light above the transept. Around her head, obviously the glow of a halo.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Behind the female’s right shoulder, looking on, a male figure.” Jess assessed the carving for a moment. It was badly weathered, more so than the female figure, which she found odd. The man’s hands and fingers appeared unnaturally long, even for the primitive style of the carvings. They had lost definition, but his thumb and forefinger were touching to form a circle, with the remaining fingers each curved to a different degree. “Not a lot of detail left, but he’s giving a blessing, so it could be Joseph. Maybe even John the Baptist. Definitely a male secondary to Mary.”

  She pointed to the figure’s other shoulder. The weathering wasn’t as bad in that section. “That sun with twelve rays of light coming from the center, no question but that’s the Holy Spirit.”

  “Now tell me what you really see.”

  Jess nodded. She looked past the veil in which her ancestors had wrapped this building: to the world, a Christian church, but to the Family, a shrine to different, older gods.

  “That’s not Mary,” she began, “and that’s our cross, not theirs.”

  The Family knew that the bladed cross the female figure carried owed nothing to Christianity. In the outside world, though, some historians recognized it as a Tuareg cross. The best-known example was la croix d’Agadès—the Cross of Agadez—symbol of the ancient trading city in central Niger. There were many variants of that early symbol, and they reflected many other nomadic communities throughout Saharan Africa.

  In modern times, the bladed cross was often seen as a symbol of Islam, though there was some thought that it might have originated as a Christian symbol prior to 700 C.E. Still other historians suspected the cross’s circle-and-diamond motif reached back a thousand years earlier, to the cult of Tanis, goddess of Carthage and wife of Baal.

  Only the Family knew the true history of the bladed cross. Its origins went even further back than the Phoenicians, to the time of the First Gods, whose symbol it truly was. Why that should be so, not even the Family’s scholars knew, but to this day, each member of the Twelve Lines continued to wear the distinctive symbol of their faith, whenever and wherever it would not draw undue attention.

  Florian’s cross . . . she’d wanted me to have it . . . Jess wrenched her mind away from that dark thought. Her aunt’s body had not been found. Her cross was lost forever.

  “The male figure,” she continued, “his hand—that’s not a divine blessing. It’s our sign, of the Hidden Scroll, the traditions we follow.” Even now, with certain phrases, that sign was used to identify one MacCleirigh cousin to another.

  “And that sun,” Jess added, “is not the sun. It has twelve rays of light, the table of the defenders.”

  She paused, realizing that the familiar symbolism now had meaning for her personally. She would be written into the Traditions as an individual, for future Family lessons. She wondered if there’d ever be a keepsake and a story from her life to add to the wall of defenders.

  Her gaze shifted to a second pillar to the right of the doorway, to a figure of a robed male. The stones on that entire side, like the small section on the female’s side, were also more heavily weathered, and the figure’s nose was long missing, its remaining facial features worn to an eerie, almost skeletal appearance. A swaddled baby floated behind the male figure’s right shoulder. Behind his left shoulder stood a shining cross on a distant hill. As with the female on the facing pillar, Jess saw grooves to indicate a glow surrounding the male figure’s head as well.

  The only significant Family symbology missing from the male figure was the sign of the Twelve Restored. However, the figure’s hand was broken off. There was no way to know for certain, but it might once have held an inscribed disk, like the present-day Family’s identifying medallions. The two messengers who’d rescued her in the Barrens had each shown her theirs.

  Jess was ready to state her conclusions. “Both figures in the pillars, male and female, they’re defenders.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “There’s something inside worth defending.”

  Su-Lin fixed her gaze on Jess. “An deiseoil air?”

  Jess inhaled deeply. It was the ancient question she’d heard for the first time on her sixteenth birthday, when Florian began preparing her for her turn. The question asked of each defender since the first was chosen by the First Gods. Are you ready?

  She spoke the ancient answer.

  “ ’seadh.”

  I am.

  “Then the doors are yours to open, paid in blood.”

/>   Blood, Jess thought. The price of succession by bloodline. She walked forward, put both hands on the heavy iron latch that held the church doors closed, pushed up, and—

  Pain.

  The underside of the latch was studded with twelve sharpened, X-shaped blades.

  Jess jerked her hands free. She stared, shocked, at her blood-smeared palms and fingers. Florian had said nothing of this.

  Sweat pricked her face, and she looked at her cousin.

  Su-Lin was unmoved. “You said you were ready.”

  It took a long moment, but Jess finally understood. Not Florian’s blood—my own. She turned back to the door, put her hands on the latch, pushed up with all her will.

  The blades cut again, but this time she was the chosen.

  The doors gave way.

  Inside. Cool and timeless silence. Jess trembled, senses heightened by adrenaline and pain. A soft amber glow drew her eyes upward to see—

  Electric lightbulbs, tripod-mounted, high along the walls to her right and left.

  Jess heard Su-Lin’s voice now. It was as if she were speaking to her from some great distance, and not from right beside her.

  “Those were installed fifty years ago. The soot from torches was damaging the stonework.”

  Su-Lin took her to a battered wooden chest against the stone-block wall.

  Draped over the chest were three separate garments. A simple white linen shift. A long white linen cape, sleeveless, with purple edging and braided purple threads. An ornate vest, also sleeveless, near-rigid with glittering metallic embroidery of oak leaves, red and green and gold.

  Religious clothing.

  The long sleeveless outergarment was like the cope worn by certain priests in Christian ceremonies, and the decorated vest, though embroidered with leaves, not crosses, was an amphibalus, similar to the chasuble worn by Catholic priests when celebrating Mass or Holy Communion. Like most priestly garb, their design was an echo of druidic times.

  Jess’s wounded fingers were clumsy to obey her as she struggled out of boots, then jeans, then travel shirt and underwear. She shivered, naked in this ancient, hallowed place.