Beyond the Garden

by S. Y. Thompson

  A few hours later, Lil heard the ring of a shovel against a large stone. She bounded over the edge of the crater and rushed to the bottom. She shouted for the diggers to move away, motioning urgently with her hands to punctuate her orders. There was no way Lil would lose anyone else.

  “Muhammed, have them bring in pry bars. I don’t want them within two feet of that box.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  He commanded the men into place with the long iron bars. They took up all four sides and moved as one when Lil gave the order. She heard the sound of cracking stone and winced, hoping the damage was contained within the outer structure. The heavy rock gave way reluctantly. The men strained as she urged them on. Suddenly, one end heaved upward and a fissure erupted up one long side of the container. Simultaneously, the same pressurized acid that had killed the last worker hissed harmlessly into the sand.

  Lil waited, but moved forward cautiously when nothing else happened. She moved a foot past the nearest worker and placed a hand on the prying tool. When the man released his grasp, Lil pressed her weight into it to lever the end of the casket upward. As before, snakes and scorpions poured forth in an angry, swirling mass. She dropped the pry bar and leapt away as one of the deadly scorpions scrambled across the toe of her boot. The creatures disappeared, burrowing into the sand in their haste to vacate the suddenly too-crowded pit. Lil shivered slightly and dropped onto her knees beside the newly revealed jewel. She slid her fingertips down the length of the crack, judging whether or not the relic would survive the trip to the top. There was always the chance that they would damage it further as they hauled it upward and destroy the column inside. Lil decided not to take the chance.

  “Hand me the bar.”

  She held out her hand and someone pressed the tool into her palm. She didn’t know whom since she never looked away from the caisson. It wasn’t that she expected it to disappear like a mirage. Instead, she was keeping an eye out for any stray serpents. Lil set the tip of the bar into the breach and carefully pressed down. The opening widened and then suddenly split from top to bottom. Smaller cracks spider-webbed all along the aperture. Chunks of rock fell away as it suddenly broke apart.

  She glanced up to gauge Professor Clayworth’s reaction. She expected to see the same euphoria she currently experienced, but instead noticed that he appeared a little green. He had a pen and pad poised, ready to take notes, but he seemed frozen in place.

  “It’s all right. We want what’s inside the box. Remember?”

  Clayworth nodded, but didn’t seem reassured. Lil shook her head and dropped the bar on the ground with a muted thud. She dusted aside the loose debris and hefted the matching bovine-engraved column from the box. It was in perfect condition. Lil grinned and lifted the pillar over her head, showing it to her men.

  A cheer rang out though she doubted they realized the significance of the find. It was enough for them that Lil was pleased with the discovery. Muhammed reached out to relieve her of the weight, but Lil shook her head.

  “This one is mine, but you can retrieve the other one from my tent. Meet me over there.” She indicated her destination with a lift of her chin.

  Lil struggled up the dirt incline with the artifact resting on her shoulder. Her calf muscles burned from the exertion, but she reached the top without too much trouble. The laborers followed as she trudged across the ruins to Complex E. A great hush settled over the men as Lil slipped the cut end of the column into one of the two hollow receptacles. Just like the other one had a few days before, it dropped seamlessly into place. Seconds later, Muhammed lumbered up beside her, panting as he offered her the other pillar. Lil gratefully accepted and slid the second column into place.

  Nothing happened.

  “That was a bit of a disappointment,” Professor Clayworth observed. He wiped at his sweaty face with the handkerchief and shook his head before slipping his notebook into a hip pocket.

  Lil glanced back and forth between the newly replaced pillars and the pre-existing carving of a bovine. Somehow, she sensed the engraving held the answer. The carving faced east. Lil knew that many ancient civilizations placed great importance on astronomical events. The rising sun was as likely a candidate as any. With that in mind, she lifted and turned the columns so that the matching engraving on the pillars faced the same direction. Still, nothing changed.

  An idea occurred to her so abruptly that Lil actually flinched. She covered up the movement by reaching out to the closest pillar. By putting her weight behind the stone, she was able to tilt it forward in the repository. Lil felt something click beneath her feet. Immediately, she shifted over to the twin column and repeated her actions. The region suddenly erupted.

  The ground shook with a deafening roar and sand belched into the air, billowing upward and swirling all around as the breeze caught the miniscule particles. Lil grasped the lintel on the complex enclosure as the others were knocked off their feet. She barely avoided the same fate. Her eyes riveted to the narrow fissure that suddenly snaked across the ground, running from the unearthed pillars to the seemingly purposeless set of steps.

  Men screamed and lunged out of the way as the earth quaked and the ground opened. While the erupting crack was jagged, Lil could see that was true only of the surface sand. Beneath at least six feet of dust, hard stone emerged and parted like the massive hold of a ship. The sand must have blown in throughout the ages and covered the original stone doors. The edges of stone fit together flawlessly, clearly chiseled by a long-dead master stonemason.

  The rumbling ceased as abruptly as it began and for a moment, no one moved. Lil coughed and wiped at the dust covering her face. The others stood slowly as she walked hesitantly toward the steps. Scientists had theorized that the five steps must have led upward to a structure when first created. A glance into the gaping maw below told Lil they had things backward. The steps had led down, not up. In the dim lighting, she could see more chiseled stairs leading into the darkness.

  “I need a torch!”

  A man ran to do her bidding as Lil squatted down on the balls of her feet. Professor Clayworth was on his knees peering into the gap. He had a hand slapped over his mouth. She grinned at his astonished expression. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. Then he cleared his throat. “This is…w…w.” He shook his head and looked at her. “How did you know?”

  Lil just shrugged. How could she say that an archangel had told her there was something here? The returning worker saved her from the necessity of telling him anything. Lil stood and took the lit torch. She headed around to the foot of the steps to begin her descent, but stopped when it seemed the entire troop would follow her.

  “Everyone stay here. It could be dangerous. I’ll go in alone.”

  “Not to be crude,” Clayworth began, “but the hell you will. I’ve never been involved in anything so exciting and I’ll not miss out on this discovery.”

  “I will also accompany you,” Muhammed interjected. “If it is unsafe, I will be there to protect you.”

  Lil adamantly shook her head. “No, I need you here to guard the location. I’d hate for someone to trip the pillars back into place and lock us inside.”

  He scowled in response, clearly not appreciating her instructions. Nevertheless, he nodded and moved back toward the enclosure. Lil wanted to order the professor to remain as well, but couldn’t do so after looking at the excitement on his face. This man was only in his seventies, a child by comparison to Lil. Though he sported gray hair and a wrinkled visage, his energy matched his comparative age. This was his life’s work and Lil understood the need to see a dream realized.

  “Stay behind me, Professor. Be very careful and don’t touch anything. Step where I step.”

  He swallowed hard and nodded.

  Lil held the torch aloft and started down the rubble-strewn steps. She stopped approximately four stairs down and bent low to peer into the chamber. The torchlight revealed little outside the circle of illumination, but she sensed a wide
-open and cavernous space. Cool air brushed against Lil’s face, driven by some unseen force and made more acute in relation to the heat above. She swung the light to the right and the glint of metal caught her eye. A huge metal basin resided against the wall. It was the first object she’d discovered anywhere in the region that wasn’t made of stone.

  Slowly, she eased down into the subterranean cavern. Before she stepped onto the marble floor, Lil carefully inspected the area. Nothing seemed unusual except that the stones were arranged in a checkerboard-type formation of red clay and white limestone tiles. A red one lay directly in front of her. Lil set her toes against the red stone and pushed downward, keeping the balance of her weight on the steps. When the floor didn’t collapse, she moved off of the stairs and turned toward the basin.

  From down here, Lil could smell petroleum. She glanced at Clayworth.

  “Wait here. I’ll see if I can get us a little more light.”

  Lil cautiously advanced across the space, stepping only on the red tiles. She wasn’t sure that the light-colored stones were traps, but she saw no reason to take the chance. Eventually, she traversed the distance until she stood beside the copper basin. As expected, it was filled with some type of shimmering liquid. By hefting the torch aloft, Lil saw that the basin connected to another via a small trough, and then another, and then another.

  Around the eighth century, the Chinese had invented something called Meng Huo You. It was a type of flammable substance created from liquid petroleum. Although the ingredients used here were probably slightly different, Lil recognized their intended purpose. She kept her face back as she lowered the torch toward the bowl. Flame burst upward, triggered by the fumes long before the fire touched the liquid. The conflagration started a chain reaction that flowed down the trough and set the petroleum in the next vessel ablaze. This continued all the way down the wall, around the back of the chamber and back up the far side. In seconds, the entire grotto was as bright as a sunny day.

  “Impressive,” she whispered. Lil shoved the end of the torch between the wall and the slender trough.

  “Indeed.”

  Clayworth straightened and stepped down onto the floor with her. His foot landed on a white tile and it crumbled beneath his weight. Clayworth’s foot disappeared from view as he fell, but he managed to catch himself with a hand on the adjacent red clay square.

  “I guess that answered that question,” Lil mused. “Stay on the red squares unless you relish a repeat performance.”

  “Duly noted.”

  With the light, Lil could see the finer details. Along with the checkered floor, holes of various sizes lined both sides of the wall. The concentric rings were carved directly into the stone. So, more of the same, she thought. Stone floors, walls and at the end of the room, a huge stone statue that could have been a twin to her medallion if not for the size. Everything in the chamber directed a visitor’s attention to the statue.

  Lil hopped from stone to stone, maneuvering down the long stretch toward the statue. She had a feeling that after a certain juncture, stepping on the white tiles would be worse for her health than falling through the floor.

  “Whoops,” Clayworth muttered from behind her.

  She turned in time to see him pull his toes back from a deadly square. Lil didn’t have time to call out a warning as she heard the whoosh of something shoot from the walls. She reached out and yanked the professor toward her, heaving him onto a safe spot. She wasn’t quite fast enough and Clayworth squealed in alarm. A dart drove into his butt and his hips jerked in reaction.

  “Are you hurt?” Lil shook him a little to bring Clayworth out of his shock.

  Rather than answer, he reached down and pulled the barb from his seat. “It hit my notebook. I think it saved my life.”

  Lil took the small projectile and sniffed the end of it. Her nose curled from the bitter smell. “A rather crude form of strychnine. I’d say you’re probably right. Why don’t you wait here professor? I promise you won’t miss out on anything.”

  “No, no. I’m fine. I’ll be more careful.”

  “Are you sure? Professor, I understand how excited you are about this, but you could get yourself killed. I can’t always pull you out of harm’s way.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” he responded huffily. “I can take care of myself.”

  She dropped the issue and concentrated on reaching the end of the room. If Clayworth died it would be his own fault. She had warned him more than once and refused to coddle a grown man any more than she already had. They reached the far end without further incident and left the checkered pattern to stand on black marble. Lil figured they had passed through the booby traps.

  Lil stood for a moment in front of the seated statue. Like the amulet, the figure squatted on its heels. The rounded head was an androgynous vision, neither male nor female. The mouth was rounded in an obscene manner and its hands were cupped together as though offering a gift to the supplicant. Lil looked into the cupped palms and spotted a hand-hammered copper bowl. The container had a straight, plain rim and rounded gently at the bottom. It was decorated with three engraved bands: one at the top, the middle and the bottom.

  “Is it safe?”

  “I doubt it,” she responded honestly. “In any case, standing here debating the issue will not get us anywhere. We’ll have to chance it. Just get ready to run.”

  Lil placed her fingertips on either side of the vessel. She held her breath and started to lift when Clayworth whispered, “Wait.”

  He pointed to an etching on the effigy’s chest. It matched the one on the pillar’s bottom. In hindsight, Lil thought their stone key also doubled as a warning.

  “Thank you. If I had pulled the dish away, fire probably would have shot out of the statue’s mouth and incinerated me.”

  “That’s a pleasant image. Perhaps we should just push on.”

  “Good idea.”

  Lil used her amulet to dismantle the security trap on the statue and removed the bowl. Other than the three crosshatched bands, they discovered a rosette of twenty-four petals on the bottom. The petals radiated from a double circle in the center of the container.

  “It’s another key. But where is the lock?”

  Cobwebs were very heavy down here, especially at this end of the chamber. They took up most of the back wall and Lil wished she had brought the torch to burn them away. Despite the heavy strands, she saw a low wooden table to the far right side.

  “Do you find it interesting that everything useful down here is made of something other than stone?”

  “What do you mean?” Clayworth asked.

  “I mean that the metal basins contain oil to light our way. The copper bowl is a key. And the wooden table probably houses the lock.”

  “What wooden table?”

  “The one over in that corner.”

  Lil led the way, brushing aside the massive webs with her free hand. Sand, pebbles and spider webs adorned the knee-high table, but she didn’t hesitate to whisk these away as well. As she had anticipated, a similar pattern to the one on the bottom of the bowl was arranged in the center of the table. Lil placed the bowl over the etching and prepared to turn the lock.

  “Brace yourself. I don’t know what will happen.”

  It took effort to turn the vessel. Lil thought it was probably wedged in place from centuries of falling sand. Fortunately, her strength proved more than a match for the obstinate mechanism. As had occurred above, a rumbling sound began that she feared would trigger another earthquake. Instead, a stone slab directly on the wall in front of her slid aside. Lil found herself staring into another dark hole. This one was approximately one foot square.

  Despite the light generated by the petroleum cauldrons, little illuminated the inside of the compartment. Lil wasn’t about to stick her hand inside a dark hole without knowing what was in there.

  “Damn, I should have brought the torch.”

  “Here, I have just the thing.” Clayworth pulled something out
of his front pocket and offered it to her.

  Lil took the lighter and cast the professor a speculative look.

  “I like to have a smoke each night before bed.”

  “Hmm.”

  Lil flicked the wheel on the lighter and held it up to the dark opening. Web strands shriveled in the face of the heat and soon, Lil had a clear view. The only thing inside was a baseball-sized crystal orb. The sphere was completely and impossibly free of dirt. She almost rolled her eyes.

  Another mystery wrapped in an enigma and part of a conundrum. She didn’t understand why these things couldn’t just be straightforward. Why couldn’t she just find a scroll saying, “That which you seek is hidden under the stone at X location. Oh and by the way, look out because lifting it will trigger an avalanche”?

  Irked by having to continue the fruitless treasure hunt, Lil plucked the ball from the compartment without considering the consequences. The professor gasped and flinched away as blue static zipped from the orb and encompassed Lil’s grasping hand.

  Lil could feel the power in the object as the air shimmered around her. Strands of hair blew up from her bangs, lifted by a breeze that existed only in her mind. Energy coursed through Lil that caused her whole body to stiffen. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as visions flooded her, projecting from inside her head and flashing across her eyes. As familiar as a memory and yet also newly realized, Lil viewed greenery, flowers and brightly colored birds. Trees of every variety in the world that bore fruit thrived in this oasis. Angels walked the hidden paths and splashed in clear, clean water that fell straight from a rock parapet.

  In the center of it all, a magnificent tree stretched high overhead, its branches and foliage providing shade from the sun and shelter for all living creatures. It was the one tree in all creation from which man was strictly forbidden to eat. The Tree of Life itself.