The Pharos Objective

by David Sakmyster

  Caleb grinned. “Perfect! Thank Mother Nature for preserving this for us in volcanic ash.”

  “Yeah, never mind all her children that she killed in the process.”

  “Cycle of Life, sis.” He jabbed her with an elbow, hoping she knew he was kidding.

  “Anyway. Here’s the symbol for Lead, and there’s the one for Tin.”

  “And there,” Caleb pointed, “near the one for lead . . . a cone drawn around a figure of a man who looks like he’s praying.”

  “Right, the next section is badly torn, and not much could be recovered, but next to the sign for Water we see the figure again, bound with two chains.”

  Caleb’s excitement mounted. “So far, this scroll is two for two. Whoever drew this at least got that far. Wait, was this how the scroll began? Wasn’t there any introduction, any words to the reader?”

  “Nothing,” Phoebe said. “Nothing but the word ‘Pharos’ and then that symbol . . .”

  “The one for Exalted Mercury.”

  “Yeah, that. Well, it seems more like a cheat sheet to be used by someone who already knew how to get into the chamber and what they were supposed to do once they got there.”

  He tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Then Cagliostro, having seen only the first inch, knew this for what it was.”

  The lights flickered for an instant, and Caleb’s eyes darted to the door, a window set in the middle. Did someone just walk by?

  “So the third symbol,” Phoebe continued, “Iron . . .”

  “It shows a man suspended above the floor.” Caleb quickly filled Phoebe in on what the psychics had just discovered.

  “Three for three. So far so good.” Phoebe clicked again, and enlarged a section. “Fourth. Copper. Here, it’s like the writer couldn’t draw what’s going to happen, so he wrote, ‘Go below.’”

  Caleb leaned back and rubbed his temples. He had a fleeting thought that maybe it meant the seeker was supposed to go down the stairs to the external vents and wait, but that didn’t make sense. There wouldn’t be enough time to then get to the next stone.

  “What if—?” He began, but saw movement to his left. A face at the window, looking in, then it was gone just as quick. Caleb leapt to his feet.

  “What is it?”

  “Somebody’s outside.” He started toward the door.

  Phoebe grabbed his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Evening classes are letting out.” She tossed her hair and batted her eyes. “I’m sure it’s just one of my many admirers.”

  Caleb took a breath and sat down again. Something about that face . . . the white hair, narrow, hawkish eyes . . . He had seen it only for a second, but he knew who it was.

  Nolan Gregory.

  “Keep working on it,” he told Phoebe as he stood up again. “I need to check something.”

  “You’re going to leave me in here all alone?”

  “I’m sure you can handle yourself, along with any ‘admirers’ who might come looking for you.”

  “Fine, I’ll solve all the puzzles myself. You just go. Have fun chasing shadows.”

  Caleb tore open the door and stepped into the empty hallway. He stopped and listened. To his right, up the stairs, a door closed. He took off in that direction, bolted up the stairs and out into the lobby, where he saw someone dressed in gray rushing out the front door.

  The walls seemed to close in, narrowing as he ran. Caleb slammed into the door and burst outside. Four steps at a time, then onto the street. He chased the fleeing man across Elmwood Avenue. A black Lexus screeched to a halt just as he hurdled the front fender, before being blocked by a passing transit bus. “Come on, come on, come on!”

  Seconds later he was across the street and racing up the hill. Caleb bounded the waist-high stone fence the other man had just climbed, and tore through the cemetery in pursuit. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, a driving sleet from the wintry evening sky. The shadows had grown long and jagged, and the tired elms sloped longingly towards their departed leaves. He chased Gregory through the older section of the cemetery, weaving around worn monuments and moss-covered stones, side-stepping miniature obelisks and urns, crosses and pillars. For an older man, he was in great shape. Caleb, on the other hand, was wheezing and cramping up his left side within minutes. But adrenaline kept him going.

  Gregory looked back once, then sprinted toward the eastern boundary.

  “Mr. Gregory!”

  He connected with the path and lost his footing on the icy pavement, slick with scattered leaves. Caleb was almost upon him, but he dodged him and ran out through the gates.

  He raced into the street, onto Mount Hope Avenue.

  “Mr. Gregory, please!” The old man turned, and in an instant Caleb saw his eyes shining their defiance—

  —and then he disappeared in a flash of white batted against the grillwork of a Ryder truck. The air split with the sickening sound of crunching bones, followed by a squealing of tires. Caleb’s heart lurched but he kept running, now chasing the flopping, rolling body twenty feet away. Nolan Gregory lay twitching in the gathering snow.

  Caleb held up a hand and shouted, “Call 911!” and then knelt beside Nolan. His face was clean on one side, a bloody, shredded mess on the other. One eye was missing and his nose had been crushed. His mouth opened and a dripping cavity full of shattered teeth tried to speak.

  Caleb touched his shoulder, but then took his hand away, afraid to cause the man any more pain. “You didn’t have to run,” he said, making fists out of his hands. “I just wanted to know . . . wanted to ask you why.” He leaned forward as the snow turned to freezing rain, mixing with his sweat and running into his eyes.

  “Why Lydia? Why sacrifice your daughter? Why me, damn it? Why!”

  Sirens wailed in the distant, sleet-soaked dusk.

  Nolan Gregory made a sound like laughter. “The Split,” he said in a choking voice.

  “What?”

  “The Great Split . . . the Keepers. The Renegade, Metreisse. Fifteen eighty-seven.” He let out a chuckle that gave way to an unearthly rattle, and his eye rolled back in his head.

  “Gregory. Mr. Gregory!” Caleb grabbed his hand, squeezed it and leaned closer. He thought of urging him to stay conscious, convincing him that help was coming, but he knew it was too late for that. Instead, Caleb sat with him. It seemed the thing to do at this momentous transition from one world to the next. And he spoke, not knowing exactly where the words came from. He just started talking, telling his father-in-law about the Light, about the truth. About going home.

  Caleb held his hand and rocked in the freezing rain. Closing his eyes, he felt the driving, frosted sleet. Soaking wet, he still felt warm, like a rush of heat radiated out from Nolan Gregory’s hand up Caleb’s arm and down his spine.

  Red and white lights beat against his eyes, and when at last he opened them, police and firemen were running toward him. He stood and let go of Gregory’s hand, then stared out across the battalions of tombstones, the dark sentinels observing without judgment. As he waited, Caleb repeated only one thing, whispering it over and over like a mantra.

  1587. Metreisse.

  17

  Back inside, Phoebe was waiting at the door to the lab. When she saw Caleb she turned pale. “Are you—?”

  “Fine.”

  “You were gone so long.”

  “Had to stay and fill out a report.”

  She searched his face, and then pointed to a nearby shelf. “Paper towels in there. And I have a spare sweatshirt around here somewhere.”

  “Thanks.” Caleb slumped into a chair after grabbing the roll of paper towels. “What did you find?”

  Phoebe offered a weak smile. She rolled back to the laptop, punched a few keys and turned the screen so he could see. “For the fourth seal, you’re on your own. That fragment is too damaged. We’ll have to hope for more visions. But the fifth is clear: Mercury. You need to bring something along with you. Stand on that block, place sulfur in the crevasses of the symbol, and li
ght it.”

  Caleb gave her a curious expression.

  She shrugged. “That’s what it says; I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.”

  After a moment’s consideration Caleb spoke. “It means,” he said, wiping his wet hair with his damp sleeve, “you’ve begun the process of destruction, and you’re starting on the path to purification of your soul.”

  “If you say so.” She tapped a few more keys and moved the mouse. “And then we come to number six: Silver, which corresponds to the Moon.”

  “Distillation,” he said. “Dissolving the ego and increasing purity. Releasing the lunar energies, and . . . okay, your eyes are glazing over. What does it say to do there?”

  “This is where the scroll starts to really break down. There’s a big section damaged here, but it looks like it says to reflect a light onto the serpent’s head.”

  “Reflect? Like, with a mirror?”

  “Probably, although I wonder if a flashlight would do.” She scratched her chin. “I guess the point is to illuminate the serpent with a connection, linking it to yourself.”

  “See? You are getting this stuff.”

  Phoebe grinned. “I try. Okay, now here’s where you’re going to kill me. The description of the seventh, the Sulfur or Gold puzzle . . .”

  “Yes?” Caleb visualized the steps in sequence, putting together the path to completing the cycle.

  “It’s gone.” She sighed. “I mean, there’s nothing legible, other than the word for gold.” She bit on one edge of her pigtail. “I’m sorry. I can work at resolving the image some more, but . . .”

  Caleb slumped forward. “Despite that, Phoebe, great job. Amazing. We’re almost there. But as much as I want to continue this, please look something up for me—if you’re connected to the Web.”

  “Of course I am.” She gave him a dirty look. “I’m a cripple, remember? I don’t get to go out much. I belong to some chat rooms where everyone thinks I’m this professional tennis player. It’s great.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Caleb leaned forward. “Look up the name ‘Metreisse,’ and put in the date 1587.”

  “Okay. Spell it.”

  “I don’t know. Yahoo it.”

  She tapped some keys. “Alright . . . there it is, first try.” She looked a little closer. “The first hit is from a book by an English historian. Let’s see . . . ‘Henri Metreisse was an alchemist in the court of Queen Elizabeth the First.’ . . . Never successful, of course, in turning anything to gold, . . . but it says here he counseled the queen to victory over the Scots in several great battles. Oh, get this. He claimed to have clairvoyance, and could . . . He could see into the enemy’s palaces, even overhear their battle plans!” She stared at Caleb. “A remote viewer!”

  Caleb scratched his chin and fought the onset of chills. He’d have to find that sweatshirt. “What else? What about 1587?”

  She scrolled down and then followed a link. “It says he was known to have convened with fellow alchemists. They met at Stonehenge during every Spring Equinox, but after the meeting in 1587, he never returned.”

  She reached into her bag for a can of Coke. “Want one?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Phoebe took a sip. “What happened out there?”

  Sighing, Caleb looked up. “Nolan Gregory was spying on us. Spying on me . . . again.”

  “But, I thought Waxman checked us out for listening devices.”

  “Wouldn’t matter,” Caleb said. “Gregory was following me. He knew everything I was doing, especially anything connected to the Pharos.”

  Phoebe sat quietly, pensive. “Did you kill him?”

  “What? No. He ran into traffic . . .”

  Phoebe nodded. “So what’s this about 1587?”

  “As Gregory died he told me I was important to them because of something called the ‘Split.’ Something that happened to the Keepers in 1587.”

  Phoebe tapped her fingers. “Dissension in the ranks? Keepers against Keepers? Maybe that’s why he and Lydia wanted the treasure so badly. They have competition.”

  “Maybe,” Caleb said, his eyes swimming out of focus, as if his vision were being pulled in another direction. “But there’s only one way to be sure.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “I mean, get out your pencils and paper.”

  Phoebe clapped her hands. “It’ll be like old times!” She grinned. “Except now you’re not such a dork.”

  They dimmed the lights. Caleb changed into the dry sweatshirt and pulled up a chair beside hers. They decided against a formal trance. This one would just be free-form. Experience the visions and share with each other what they’d seen.

  “Ready, big brother?”

  “Yeah.” He took her hands. “Actually, no. Not yet. First tell me something. What did you see that time when I was in college? You told me about the girl with the green eyes.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Oh that. I was hoping you’d forgotten. Well, I liked to try to look in on you now and then. Not that I was snooping, I just missed you. But for a stretch of a couple weeks, every time I tried it was always the same: I saw you being pushed underwater and held there by this girl with green eyes. The weird thing was, though, she was weeping while she did it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what it means, but I kept hearing a baby crying. Wailing actually. The whole time while she was drowning you.”

  “A baby?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, weird.” She gave a wistful smile. “Probably I was getting your visions mixed up with my dreams.”

  He reached for her. “Oh, sis, I’m so—”

  “I know.” She sniffed, then pushed Caleb away. “So anyway, are we going to do this? Because if we are, you should prepare to get outmatched by your baby sister again.”

  Later, Phoebe would say she hadn’t seen anything. Only a confused jumble of scenery, with no people. A land of hills, forests and rivers. And rain, lots of rain. She lingered too long in the setting, and when Caleb shook her, after what had seemed like hours, it was over.

  Caleb’s vision began at once, as if it had been waiting there, expecting him to join . . .

  . . . eighteen men and two women standing under the stars in a clearing, surrounded by a stone circle made of immense blocks. They are all wearing gray robes with planets and stars stitched onto the black fabric. Seven torches burn in a straight line toward a smaller stone to the northeast, upon which a large burning brazier sends its smoke into the air. Overhead, the moonless night is clear, the stars bold and close, peering down through the terrestrial curtain to watch the spectacle.

  One of the elders steps forward. He is a white-bearded, hunched-over man, but with a surprising vigor about him. “We are here to discuss how to handle Metreisse. I had hoped he would honor tradition and come to our gathering, but it seems he has fled.”

  “Kill him,” says one in the back of the crowd.

  “Find him first,” says a woman leaning on a twisted staff entwined with ivy. “Find him and see if he’s the one.”

  “We know he’s the one,” says the first speaker. “Who else could have learned the way past the traps?”

  “Are we sure someone did?”

  “Yes. Our watchmen reported seeing a cloaked figure enter the ruins of the Pharos last month during the lunar eclipse. This intruder was underneath the structure for many hours. When he emerged, my spies say he sought them out, called them from their hiding places, then gave them something to tell us. ‘Tell your masters that I have found the final Key,’ he said. ‘And I will hide it for all time, as long as your interests diverge from our original purpose. I have not entered the vault, and no one else shall until it is time.’”

  “How dare he?” someone in the front mutters.

  “He dares,” says the other female, “because he believes he follows the will of Sostratus.”

  “Sostratus lied,” a new voice speaks up. “We all kno
w this. Once, Sostratus did the world a favor and protected the great works from the centuries of coming darkness. But he did not intend us to wait this long!”

  “And wait for what?” asks the first female.

  “It is decided, then.” The elder steps into the center of the circle and raises his arms. “We are to seek him out. As long as it takes. Seek, and retrieve this key, whatever it is. Determine how to use it.”

  “Do we have any idea where he went?”

  “Only that he sailed east into the Mediterranean aboard a galley.”

  “Then that is where we shall start.”

  One man who has been silent up until now steps forward. “And if we fail to find him in our lifetime?”

  The elder sighs and looks wearily at his feet. “Then the search will continue in the next.”

  When Caleb came back into the present, it was with calm, relaxed breaths. His eyes fluttered, and he blinked in the somber light. Phoebe sat in front of him, chewing on a Snickers bar.

  “How is it that you’re not fat?” he asked.

  She grinned and made a muscle in her right arm. “Tennis, remember? What did you see?”

  He told her.

  “So, someone had figured out the puzzles, found a way past the traps.”

  “Someone with the gift,” Caleb said. “We know Metreisse could remote view, or at least he claimed to have that power.”

  “And yet, if he found the treasure, did he really leave it there?”

  “Seems like it. Or maybe, having viewed the way past the traps, he never actually opened the door. It sounds like he considered himself bound by his ancestors’ pledge to keep the treasure safe.”

  “So how do we use this information? And what did Gregory mean by it?”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb said. “It has something to do with me, though. And . . . what?”

  Phoebe was gaping at her laptop screen. “Something just happened. My screen flickered like it does whenever a new program starts up. Weird.”

  She bent over the keyboard and moved to a new program. “Just checking something . . . Oh no!”