The Pharos Objective

by David Sakmyster

  Ahead, in the darkness before a bend in the corridor, he heard his name. It sounded so much like Nina’s voice. Suddenly Caleb was overwhelmed with the sense of foreboding he’d felt before, the same dread that far below his feet the secrets of the Pharos slumbered without a care, secure behind its defenses.

  Again, that lone dove flew around and around the dome overhead, flirting with the trembling beam of light. Caleb’s mouth hung open and it happened again. A shift in perspective, a jaunt into a different medium where everything was a little more real, a touch colder, his senses sharper. He saw a man . . .

  . . . in flowing white robes. “Come, Demetrius. It is time for you to see.” Two great Egyptian statues flank the entrance to a grand chamber lit by a half-dozen torches inside glass lamps set high on the walls. A pair of long chains rest on the floor, one hooked to the wall above the inscribed door, the other clamped to the feminine statue’s moon-shaped headdress. Four slaves are securing the chains and preparing a large, circular harness that could hold several men. “This is why you have come.”

  Demetrius, out of breath, holding his side, moves past the enormous onyx statues. “What is that?” he asks Sostratus, pointing to a pit in the floor.

  “Drainage vent.”

  “And that?” He faces the great wall ahead, observing the pair of winged snakes coiled three times around the staff with an inscribed sun symbol above their heads. Six other arcane symbols surround the staff.

  “The great seal.” Sostratus turns and points to a spot on the ground. “Stand there.”

  In the flickering torchlight, Demetrius only now notices the symbols on the floor. One following the other, seven symbols painted and carved on seven large granite blocks leading to the sealed door. He steps onto the first block and reads the sign. “Lead?”

  “We both will stand here,” Sostratus says as he joins him. “Then we shall move forward, block by block. At the next stone we will be secured by these chains.”

  Demetrius looks to the next sign, two feet closer to the seal. “Tin?”

  Sostratus lowers his head. “You will understand.”

  “Hey!” Lydia shook him. Her face loomed over his, her soft hair tickling his skin. “Tell me you just saw something.”

  Caleb leaned on her shoulder. The room was stuffy, oppressive. The dove had stopped its flying and perched somewhere overhead. “I think I’ve just been shown the way. Or at least, past the first two stages.”

  Caleb’s legs were weak from descending the cascade of stairs, and as he stepped on each one he imagined they sighed with audible reminders of his guilt, mocking echoes of Phoebe’s pain, and their separation. Then he thought of Nina, and here he was, attempting the same feat that had killed her, with another woman he loved.

  I hope I’m better prepared this time.

  For someone experiencing firsthand what she had only previously imagined, Lydia remained quite calm. As they stood before the great seal, she shrugged when Caleb asked how she felt. “Just like the pictures in our room,” she said, shining the flashlight back and forth, then up the vertical crack in the door, aligned with the caduceus. “So this is it.”

  She walked up to the wall and then shined the light back across her tracks, and Caleb saw for the first time the alchemical symbols for the metals, each about two yards square, taking up seven mammoth limestone blocks. Starting at the door, Caleb recognized them: Sulfur, Silver, Mercury, Copper, Iron, Tin and Lead.

  “There they are,” Lydia said, shaking her head in wonder. “Guess none of you thought to look down.”

  “No, we’d have seen them. The flood must’ve washed away the dust covering them.” Caleb aimed the light now at the wall, at the symbols around the staff. “Anyway, I think I understand. Each element corresponds to a planet and a stage in the seven steps of transformation. But this adds a new wrinkle. I believe we’ll need to turn the symbols on the door in the right order to get this started; then we’ll need to come back and stand on the first block, wait for whatever happens, and then move forward accordingly.”

  Lydia stood before the seal, careful not to touch anything. “The symbols . . . protruding from . . . Wait, I see where you can grasp them by their edges and turn each one.”

  “Not yet,” Caleb said, digging into his knapsack for the ropes, harness and carabiners. “Let’s get set for the water trap.”

  When they had secured the first clip to the ring on the wall and the second to Seshat’s statue, they clipped the other ends to their harnesses, so all they had to do after passing the first test was to step forward, slip on the harness, tighten it and wait for the water to come.

  They stood together at the door, shining both lights on the caduceus. Caleb saw that one symbol at the end of the upper inscription, the symbol assigned to the Golden Ones. It seemed to pull at his consciousness, to hang there as a marker of denial, a guardian that expressly denied him passage. And now, more fully versed in alchemy and familiar with the symbols, he was even more certain that this was a mistake.

  “That sign,” he said, pointing, “I know it now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Exalted Mercury.” He stared at it and his breath quickened. “An upward-pointing triangle symbolizing Fire—in this case, the sublimated state of distilled consciousness rooted in the Above. And within that triangle, the symbol for what they call Exalted Mercury, which is essentially the Mercury symbol with a dot in the center, signifies that it has become the One Thing perfected.”

  “The One Thing?”

  “The Philosopher’s Stone. The center of everything. Our minds and personalities come together as one unifying, powerful thought.”

  “And the triangles on either side? And the star below?”

  “Water on the left, Fire on the right. With the star below, signifying the union of Fire and Water, the permanent coming together of the Above and Below.”

  Lydia nodded. Caleb couldn’t tell for sure, but in the shadows he imagined her giving an oddly satisfied smile.

  “Sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like we’ve passed the test, like we’re in any way ready. We don’t know what else to expect. If the water trap requires us to be prepared in some way, maybe all the others do too. I didn’t see far enough in my vision.”

  Lydia stared at her shoes.

  Caleb fidgeted. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what Sostratus did next.”

  “Hopefully, your inspiration will come again and help us when we need it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Caleb was again overcome with a terrible apprehension. And then, just as suddenly, he had the feeling someone was watching them. Someone not in this room, not even in sight. Someone . . . “Phoebe,” he whispered, and a deep chill seemed to rush in from unseen vents.

  Is this what she saw—the time it would all turn for me?

  A grinding sound echoed off the four walls. It seemed he had lost a minute of time, a minute in which the world had moved on without him. Lydia was kneeling at the base of the door, sniffling. She grunted with effort as she turned one of the signs—Saturn, the symbol for Fire.

  “Wait!”

  But she had stood up and reached for another symbol, the one Nina had turned first. Jupiter/ Water. Again the grating, scraping sound.

  “It’s too late,” she said in a choked cry as she twisted the next sign: Mars/Air. “We’re about to see if you’re worthy.” She shot Caleb a look, and in the trembling flashlight beam he saw tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

  He reached for her and tried to yank her arm away. “Come on. We can still—”

  “I didn’t finish the sequence!” she shouted as she pushed him off, thrusting him away with surprising strength.

  Off balance, Caleb tripped and fell back. Dropped the light. And in the spinning beam he imagined the walls shifting, closing in. Thoth and Seshat moved, turning as before and contemplating the two intruders. And there was Lydia, reaching for another symbol. She f
inished with the Venus/Earth sign, and then reached for Mercury.

  Caleb scrambled forward and dove for her. “Stop! We’ll come back when we know more!”

  She twisted out of his way and kept him at bay with her kicking legs. “It’s too late!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She grasped the Moon and, when her eyes settled on his, they looked cold and hard. “We’ve been waiting for you Caleb, but you let us down.”

  He took a step back. He couldn’t breathe.

  She spun the Moon, then reached for the crown above the snakes—the Sun. “We can’t wait for you to snap out of your psychic exile. I’d hoped to free you, but I’ve failed.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  She gave Caleb a look of pity. Turning her back on him, she rotated the Sun. “As always Caleb, you haven’t asked the right questions.”

  She lowered her head. “Remember me. Remember that I loved you.”

  “Lydia . . .?” He took a step toward her.

  “Back up, and get ready.” Her head inclined sideways. “You told me once how your mother’s powers were triggered. Your sister’s too.”

  “Lydia!”

  “Welcome, Caleb, to your personal trauma.”

  “What are you—?”

  A rumbling passed through the blocks and sand fell in thin veils. The wall rattled. Three fist-sized holes opened on each side of the door, and six plumes of gas hissed out. Pungent methane, strong and powerful, streamed from the openings. Caleb reached for Lydia, but she ripped her arm free, switched off her light, and darted to the side.

  “Lydia!” In the sudden gloom, Caleb reached for his flashlight and speared the beam madly back and forth, catching a glimpse of her legs, rolling into the shadows, but then he heard a tortured cry of sharp rocks scraping together.

  A spark in the darkness.

  He cursed and leapt back two steps and curled into a ball, hugging his knees on top of the symbol for Lead.

  Calcination.

  A rush of heat, a burst of searing hot light. “Lydia!”

  And the room became an inferno.

  It was as if he knelt in a protective container. The entire chamber swirled in a fuming cyclone of volcanic fire, gases igniting and flames roaring all around. But Caleb was safe, barely uncomfortable from the heat. And then he felt it: all around the block he was crouched on, a rush of fresh air propelled upward, a maelstrom of wind creating a barrier. The stone block had lowered and compressed, and the gaps surrounding it expelled a rush of fierce, steam-laden air.

  And as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The whoosh of flames subsided and Caleb stood, unscathed. He had only a moment to take stock of the smoking room and realize that even if Lydia had somehow survived the blast, neither of them would make it past the next trap.

  The cords were gone, incinerated.

  Coughing from the noxious fumes and the choking heat, he spun the light around, desperately looking for some sign that Lydia might have survived, terrified he’d see a smoking corpse.

  Then he heard the door grating again, and now it started to open as if pushed from the other side by a pair of monstrous Titans. He took one last look around the room, saw the melted flashlight against the edge of the pit, smoke and embers rising from its depths.

  Then he turned and fled, racing to the ascending stairs and bounding between Thoth and his mistress, just as the great door burst open and the ravenous flood roared in.

  Three steps at a time he climbed, never looking back. The water chased after him like a rabid jackal, snapping at his legs. He splashed up the next flight of stairs, dragging his feet through the rising water, and then lunged and collapsed on the cool, dry steps above.

  He screamed and slammed his fists against the unyielding granite.

  He aimed the flashlight back down. The waters were receding. He followed them back down, step by step. He walked between Thoth and Seshat, trading a wounded glare for their scolding expressions. His feet splashed on the limestone blocks as he played the light around the room.

  He waited, poised to flee back up the stairs at the slightest hint of a new trap. He watched and counted the seconds, counted the beats of his devastated heart, urging it to calm.

  Nothing else happened. The door remained open, a yawning cavern of blackness, defying even his powerful flashlight beam. All his other supplies had either been reduced to ashes or swept away in the flood. He was left alone with nothing but his mind, as clear as it had become.

  He waited. And then he thought, I’m not on the next block, not putting weight on the Iron stone.

  Suddenly, the door closed with a quick, efficient snapping back into place. On the seal, the wheels all spun back to their original positions as if nothing had happened.

  Caleb switched off his light. Alone, he hung his head and embraced the silent darkness.

  9

  Acceptance did not set in for another week.

  A week in which Caleb had divided his time above and below the harbor. He’d read the papers every day, fearing the worst. After the first day he had rented a boat and cruised around the peninsula, looking for anything that had washed up. As always, Fort Qaitbey had brooded staunchly, baking in the sun as a few tourists lingered about beyond the outer walls. He’d resisted venturing again below, but the chamber beckoned, whispering for him to come back, to dwell there forever. To ease the loneliness of those ancient halls.

  The guards had replaced the padlock, and without Lydia’s lock-picking skills, he’d had to break it to get back in. Knowing he was embarking on a hopeless effort, he couldn’t help but feel like Sisyphus rolling his boulder to the top of a great hill only to have the gods kick it back down. Even so, he’d smuggled in a small generator and a half-dozen hurricane lamps and combed every inch of the chamber, in vain.

  Under another moonless night’s sky, with Jupiter, Saturn and Mars aligned fittingly in a row along the horizon, Caleb crept back inside. Since he had found a mechanism for opening the fortress’s secret door from the inside, he closed it behind him, so he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed. Carrying enough food and water for a week, he descended into the vault. He slept in a roll with a jacket as his pillow. He brought a handful of texts on alchemy rich with imagery and illustrations to aid his interpretation of the next stage. He worked and slept and ate by candlelight. He existed for one purpose only: to study the wall.

  To become worthy.

  To become Golden.

  Again and again he thought about Lydia’s last words. He wondered how she could have deceived him, and he contemplated the breadth and depth of her conspiracy. Who was that man she had been talking to, the one who had chastised him after Nina’s accident? Had Lydia manipulated him into marrying her from the start? Had she worked to become his publicist, then prod him towards the research, pushing him further and further? Had she hoped to spark his psychic talents in order to get the treasure herself?

  “You’re asking the wrong questions,” she’d said. And he knew it, but he couldn’t get his mind around the right way of thinking.

  All day long, as tourists ambled overhead, he stared and stared, pondering every sign, every etching on the floor and wall. And time after time he endured the flames and the flood, securing himself with steel chains, enduring the heat and standing against the onslaught of frigid water. He reeled as it ripped passed him, tore his clothes and scraped his flesh. He staggered, but held fast, digging his feet in, lowering his head and yielding to the torrent. He held his breath as the waters devoured him, and just when it seemed his lungs would burst the water level dropped in a rush. In the darkness he felt as if he’d ascended and emerged into the clear night air, reborn.

  Calcination and Dissolution. Caleb endured them both, and survived.

  And then he stepped forward while the water finished draining. His boots splashed to the next stone, and he stood over the symbol for Iron. He breathed deeply, clearing his head and accepting whatever destiny the Fates had woven for him—r />
  —until the ground shifted. The gaping doorway ahead hissed and a wind blew forth, sending shivers across his raw flesh.

  Fire. Water. Now wind. Air. He stood, poised, expecting some great gust to hurl him into a wall of rusted spikes. He was prepared for the brutal piercing, an ignoble death, an end to his hopeless existence, but he merely teetered and stood his ground. He dried, and the shivering subsided.

  As the water evaporated, Caleb felt a residue deposited from the water and the fire caked on his skin, on his hair, eyelids and cheeks, covering the tatters of his shirt and ripped jeans. It had the consistency of baking soda. Something to do with the Separation Phase, Caleb thought. In alchemy, it signified that his old life had been burned away by the masculine energy of fire, then washed clean by the feminine strength of water, leaving him with the combination of the two.

  Renewed, but somehow certain that he had not yet passed the full test, he considered taking a step forward onto Copper. The next stage was Coagulation, in which the alchemist was supposed to earn the Lesser Philosophers’ Stone, to be imbued with a greater sense of purpose and clarity, to see the way through to the realms of the Above. To set foot on the path to immortality. To Gold.

  Instead, Caleb stepped back onto the glyph for Tin. For an instant, he was certain such a backward motion would trigger another deadly trap.

  Nothing happened.

  He was impatient, and growing angrier with the mocking sense of nothingness that pervaded the room. The parted doors teased him with a false sense of progress that made him furious. But he knew for sure he wasn’t ready. Yet, finally, in desperation, he bolted and ran, determined to make it through regardless of what was expected of him.

  It started closing as soon as his weight lifted off the block. Caleb leapt for the narrowing aperture—