“They are. That’s what makes them so valuable, particularly the one storing Malinyah’s memories. They prove the existence of a Stone-Age, tech-savvy culture,” Antonio said.
“If that’s all it is, why did you have a seizure when you were holding the Stone?” Katie asked.
“Wait, what?” Emerson asked.
Before Antonio could answer, Katie said, “Oh, my God. You should have seen it! It looked like the Stone was electrocuting him.”
Antonio laughed. “Well, there is electromagnetism involved, but not enough to harm someone. Let’s just say it can be an overwhelming experience. It’s hard for your mind to cope with what you see and feel. Sort of like the first time you try a virtual reality headset. Makes you freak out a bit, if you’re not prepared for it.”
“Huh. Sounds pretty ‘out there,’” Emerson said.
“A good way to put it,” Antonio said with a smile.
Emerson paused to ponder Antonio’s description while swirling his glass of ice water. “So, this Muran wants the Stone because of its archaeological value or its technology value? Or both?”
“I don’t think anyone knows for sure why she wants it, but she obviously wants it bad enough to kidnap and murder people,” Antonio said. “Hopefully, Anlon can find out more from Malinyah, although it’s a long shot. Would have been better if Pebbles were here to talk with her.”
“Why is that?” Katie asked.
“Pebbles is the only one who understands Malinyah’s language,” Antonio said.
From the back of the plane came a sharp clap. Katie flinched, while Emerson jumped up out of his seat. “What the hell was that?”
“It’s okay,” Antonio said, motioning for Emerson to return to his seat. “It just means the conversation has started.”
The first sensation Anlon noticed was the chirping of birds. Then a wisp of warm wind passed over him. As his vision cleared, Anlon found himself in a grove of fruit trees. Ahead, he saw Malinyah walking barefoot toward him, a smile on her face. In her hand, she held a piece of fruit plucked from the grove. It was round like an orange but had a bronzed rind. Malinyah was in the act of peeling away the rind when she stopped in front of Anlon. She raised the purple fruit inside to inhale its scent and then balanced it on a branch.
“Anlon,” she said, leaning forward to lightly hug him. As he wrapped his arms around Malinyah, he was once again taken aback by the tactile sensations that followed. He felt the silkiness of her blond hair touching his face and the warmth of her body pressed against his. His hands could detect not only the sheer fabric of her tunic but also the movement of her shoulder blades and muscles as she patted him on the back. The sensory elements flowing from Malinyah’s memories into Anlon’s mind were incredibly vivid, down to the minutest of details — a leaf tickling Anlon’s ear, her damp toes brushing against his feet, an insect buzzing by. And the colors! The fruit, the sky, the tan of Malinyah’s skin, the glow of her blue eyes.
While Anlon believed he understood the scientific principle that made the transfer of memories and sensations through the Sinethal possible, the exchange of neural signals via electromagnetic stimulation, he was far from understanding the technology that made it possible. But his curiosity would have to wait for another opportunity; there were more pressing concerns to address with Malinyah.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on an image of Pebbles, letting his fear for her safety dominate his thoughts. Malinyah stiffened and withdrew from the embrace. Her eyes reflected Anlon’s emotions. “Eleanor?”
Anlon nodded. He held up his right hand and said, “Eleanor.” He clamped his left hand around the right and squeezed it tightly. “Muran.”
Malinyah staggered back a step and covered her mouth with her hand. Swaying her head from side to side, she mumbled something in her native language. Anlon clasped his hands together in a praying position and said, “Anlon needs Malinyah’s help.”
It was pointless speaking to her. He knew she didn’t know English, just as he was unable to interpret Munuorian, but he hoped she would understand his hand gestures better supported by the emotions communicated by the tone and inflection of his voice.
Malinyah’s face grew stern. “Muran! Sikaer!”
Anlon didn’t need a translation. The animus with which Malinyah delivered the epithet did the translation for him. Sikaer! Betrayer!
She stepped up and held out both hands, gesturing for Anlon to take them. When he took hold of them, she looked in his eyes and said, “Eleanor.”
The grove disappeared, and Anlon’s mind was filled with the image of Pebbles with Malinyah in a field of blue flowers. They held hands and watched a girl chase butterflies among the flowers. Anlon’s heart ached seeing the happy look on Pebbles’ face.
Malinyah abruptly pulled her hands away, ending the image and returning Anlon to the grove. She pointed to Anlon, then reached up and tapped his forehead, saying, “Eleanor.”
She held out her hands again, encouraging Anlon to grasp them. He quickly understood the meaning of her gesture. Though they couldn’t communicate with words, she could share images with him, and to Anlon’s astonishment, Malinyah was trying to tell him he could do the same with her.
He wrapped his hands around hers and focused his thoughts on Pebbles. He filled his mind with an image of her injured and in pain. He had seen the photo of Muran in the café with Goodwin, so he presented Malinyah with an image of the two holding a struggling Pebbles. He said, “Muran. Goodwin. Eleanor.”
Anlon then formed a mental image of the Sinethal and showed Malinyah a scene where he handed the Sinethal to Muran, and Goodwin let go of Pebbles. He felt a sudden blast of anger pass back from Malinyah before she let go of his hands. She spat the epithet again.
Okay, thought Anlon. Message transmitted and received.
The next part would be trickier. Anlon knew that Pebbles had told Malinyah about Foucault’s discovery of Mereau’s Sinethal. In that same conversation, Pebbles also had let Malinyah know that Foucault had given her the medallion and the necklace Malinyah had originally gifted to Mereau. So, it would be easy to show Malinyah a mental image of another Sinethal, saying the word “Mereau,” and then an image of the necklace, saying, “lyktyl.” It would also be easy to depict a scene where Anlon handed the second Sinethal and necklace to Goodwin and Muran. The hard part would be asking Malinyah to explain why Muran wanted these pieces, and then interpreting her response.
Malinyah seemed puzzled when Anlon showed her the image of a second Sinethal and said Mereau’s name. When he presented the image of the necklace with the medallion and said “lyktyl,” Malinyah gasped and tugged her hands free from his grip. This time, Anlon felt a sense of dread flow from Malinyah.
“Eku Mereau,” she said, with a downward slash of her arm. “Omereau!”
She grabbed Anlon’s hands and filled his mind with a strange flurry of images while she chattered in an urgent tone. At first, the images made no sense, just a jumble of different memory snippets. But then Malinyah’s voice slowed and her tone steadied. When she laced the snippets together in a more rational way, Anlon finally understood. “Son of a bitch!”
Chapter 15 – One Step Behind
In flight over the Atlantic Ocean
September 28
Foucault leaned through the cockpit door and tapped his pilot, Henri de la Roche, on the shoulder. “How much longer?”
Henri slid his headset off his right ear and turned to Foucault. “An hour, maybe less.”
“Bon. The refueling arrangements have been made?” Foucault asked, sliding into the empty copilot seat.
“Oui.”
“How long will that take?”
“Depends. If we are first in line, we can be back in the air quickly, but if we’re down in the queue, could be an hour or two,” Henri said. “LaGuardia is always hard to predict.”
“Let us hope we are near the front, then,” Foucault said, looking out the cockpit window at the endless, grayish ocean ahead.
“Are we still heading to Reno after topping up?”
“I am still waiting to hear back from Dr. Cully,” Foucault said, turning back to Henri. “If he doesn’t respond by the time we are ready to go, then, yes.”
Henri nodded and slid the headset back into place. Raising the headset microphone to his mouth, he responded to a command from air traffic control while Foucault returned his gaze to the ocean.
As he waited for the skyline of Manhattan to appear on the horizon, Foucault flexed his bandaged hands. Poor Christian, he thought. There had been no need for his rash act. Foucault had known Navarro would refrain from killing any of them until he had his prize, despite his threats to the contrary. If only Christian had heeded his advice to remain calm, both he and Margaret would still be alive.
Thinking back, Foucault rued his simple cue to Christian. “Calmer, ami. This nonsense will be over soon.” He had hoped Christian would understand the comment was meant to communicate that Foucault had devised a plan, one that would have saved them from Navarro. He should have instead said, “Calmer, ami. We will give him the Tuliskaera and Terusael, and this nonsense will be over.”
Said in that way, Christian would have immediately understood Foucault’s plan. Navarro, unfamiliar with the Tyls’ Munuorian names, would undoubtedly have demanded to know the meaning of the names. Foucault would have told him they were the Stones he wanted. Satisfied with the answer, Navarro would have sent one of his men with Christian to fetch the Stones, while Navarro and the other man stood watch over Foucault.
Foucault envisioned Christian returning with the cone-shaped Tuliskaera and the egg-shaped Terusael. He knew Navarro would immediately object to the Terusael. “This is not the right stone! Where is the other one, the one that looks like a tin?”
Foucault would have reassured him. “No, no. This is the right one. Let me show you.”
The skeptical Navarro would have commanded him to stay put, but even so, Foucault knew Navarro would not be able to resist the impulse to try the device. The fool would have tinkered with the Stones with no success. “See, I told you. Get me the other one.”
Foucault would have said, “You are not using them properly. Grind the egg on the bottom of the cone in a circular motion. It will heat the egg. When both Stones begin to glow, then hit them together, but be careful where you aim the tip of the cone. It will shoot out a deadly bolt. The hotter the Stones glow, the more intense the bolt.”
It would have been glorious. Navarro, eyes twinkling with anticipation, rubbing the two Tyls together until they pulsed with light. Foucault was sure Navarro would have then aimed the Tuliskaera’s tip at him. In fact, he counted on it. The explosion when the two Stones collided would have ripped Navarro to shreds. The Terusael, a grenade when stimulated in this way, would have exploded on contact with the Tuliskaera, the force of the blast directed toward Navarro. The Tuliskaera would have shattered and crumbled to the floor. All but Christian and Foucault would have been paralyzed by the explosion, giving them the opportunity to disarm Navarro’s men and end the stand-off.
Foucault sighed. If only Christian had remained calm. But he hadn’t, and now Foucault’s friend and confidant was dead, and there would never be a time to properly mourn for him.
Ludlow, California
By the time Anlon, Antonio and Emerson reached the Mojave Palms motel, a dozen police vehicles lined the road on both sides of the lot entrance. Emerson flashed his badge to a uniformed officer who flagged them to stop, and the policeman directed them to park at the end of the line of cars. While Emerson left to confer with the CHP detectives gathered by an unmarked cruiser, Anlon and Antonio stood at the lot entrance, looking beyond the police tape cordoning off the area toward the room where a forensics crew moved about collecting evidence.
The vision of tent cards marking evidence on the ground outside the room, including a large blood stain on the sidewalk, brought back unpleasant memories of Anlon’s arrival at his home.
“Place looks like a ghost town,” Antonio said.
Anlon looked around. Antonio was right. The strip motel shared a parking lot with a diner and a gas station/minimart. Outside of those structures, there was nothing to see but a lonely road, desert, scrubland and mountains in every direction. Each of the dusty buildings looked as if they’d been built in the 1950s. Aside from the few late-model cars parked at the diner, the three buildings did give the impression of being the last vestiges of a long-abandoned town.
“Certainly is remote,” Anlon said. “Doesn’t seem like a random choice, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Antonio said. “Especially given all the escape routes.”
As Anlon had seen in his earlier review of the map app on his phone, the motel was within a block of a four-way intersection and sat only a quarter mile from the entrance to I-40 and its parallel sister-road, Route 66. From the motel, Goodwin could have quickly hopped onto either road and headed east or west. If he hadn’t wanted to risk taking the major thoroughfares, he could have proceeded north along a two-lane desert road that crossed several similar east-west roads and ultimately linked up with another major highway, I-15. If he opted to drive south on the desert road, he could have linked up with CA-52 at the city of Twenty-Nine Palms. Therefore, despite Emerson’s repeated assurances, Anlon considered it quite possible that Goodwin was long gone. The question was — where?
“What do you think the game plan was?” Antonio asked.
“What do you mean?” Anlon asked.
“Well, I’m going to assume they didn’t want all this police attention, right? So, they expected to sneak in and take Malinyah’s Stone from you, likewise with the Stones from the bank, and then, what?”
“Oh, this has only a little to do with Malinyah. It’s all about the necklace, and Omereau’s Sinethal. Excuse me, Aramu Muru’s Sinethal.”
The moment Malinyah’s vision revealed his Sinethal as a golden disc, Anlon recalled Elton Sinclair’s tapestry and Diane Jones’ description of the mythical Aramu Muru. When Malinyah flipped the disc over to show him the notch in its center and held up a gold medallion with a black stone in its center, he understood. The lyktyl was essentially the Naetir that activated Omereau’s Sinethal.
The vision had gone on to show Anlon the great Omereau himself crafting the other Tyls in a volcanic foundry. While Anlon did not understand the narrative Malinyah provided along with the visions, the images told him enough. Omereau was the man who conceived the Lifintyls. The Einstein of their race. His Sinethal contained his memories and his consciousness. That meant whoever possessed his Sinethal had the means to tap his intellect and recreate the Tyls. At least, that’s the implication Malinyah communicated through her vision.
To reinforce this latter speculation, Malinyah had shifted the vision to show Anlon a snippet of the post-Munirvo revolt, a scene where Malinyah and her guards surrounded Muran in a marble hall. In Muran’s hands was Omereau’s Sinethal, and on her chest swung a necklace with a gold pendant with a black stone. Muran screamed at Malinyah as the guards took both from her. It was Anlon’s first view of Muran as she had been born.
She looked nothing like Anlon had expected. Based on the stories of her wickedness, his mind had conjured up an evil persona for Muran. Cold, unfeeling black eyes. A wizened, ugly face. Dark hair and a physique cut like a warrior’s. The truth — she looked eerily like Malinyah. Beautiful, blond and tanned with lithe curves and penetrating blue eyes.
As Malinyah’s snippet finished with Muran escaping from the guards, she displayed two follow-on scenes. One was familiar to him; a scene Pebbles had described on a few occasions: Malinyah stood on a dock and gave the medallion to Mereau before the captain and his men left on ships.
Unlike Muran, Mereau looked exactly as Anlon had expected. Tall, proud and chiseled, his bearing was commanding, yet his eyes were compassionate and his embraces with Malinyah were filled with tenderness. It was easy to see why Foucault had been so taken with the man. He looked virtuo
us, brave and caring, a hero the likes of which Anlon had never seen.
The final scene depicted Malinyah on a ship, approaching a lush island. Upon landing, she stepped off the boat with a cadre of men and women. Together, they traversed the island until arriving at a volcano. Up they climbed, until Malinyah and two others carved a cavern into the volcano’s midsection. Into it they carried a sarcophagus and several boxes like the ones Anlon’s team found in Indio Maiz. For Anlon’s benefit, she showed the sarcophagus lid opened. Inside were the bones of a man draped in a crimson-and-gold robe. On his chest was the golden disc.
The implication was clear — Muran had used the revolt to sneak in and snatch Omereau’s Sinethal and the lyktyl. Malinyah caught her in the act and relieved her of the booty. Fearing Muran might make another attempt to steal the precious pieces of their history, Malinyah first sent the medallion away with Mereau. Pebbles had misinterpreted the purpose of Malinyah passing the medallion to Mereau. It was never intended as a gift from one lover to another. The act was a precautionary measure intended to prevent Muran from accessing Omereau’s memories. As a further safeguard, Malinyah then had hidden Omereau’s remains and possessions, including his Sinethal, in a remote volcano Maerlif.
Anlon recognized the volcano from its three mounded peaks — Morne Trois Pitons, on the island of Dominica. And in that moment, Anlon realized the litany of lies and half-truths spewed by Jacques Foucault. They were fabrications that put Pebbles at the center of Muran’s crosshairs. She had been the bait for his trap, a trap that Anlon feared had less to do with bringing Muran to justice and more to do with the ambitious designs of the crafty Frenchman.
However, his design included a faulty assumption. Foucault presumed Muran had Omereau’s Sinethal already. Based on this flawed belief, Foucault had hoped to lure her out into the open with the lyktyl. On the surface, it seemed a ludicrous plan to Anlon. Why tempt Muran with the key to unlocking Omereau’s memories? If she acquired it, and Foucault was unable to stop her, he would have literally handed her all she needed to create new Tyls and embark on a modern reign of terror.
Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3) Page 23