by Gilliam Ness
Bahadur put away his phone.
“The game is afoot,” he said. “May Allah help us.”
Pulling out into traffic, Bahadur accelerated up to speed.
“Now for more important matters,” he said. “British tea. We must not disappoint.”
CHAPTER 29
Los Picos De Europa, Northern Spain.
“To the Black Lake!” hissed a demonic voice.
The sun had already disappeared behind the mountainous peaks as Isaac battled his way down the rugged terrain. Around him the tangled branches of countless black trees seemed like threads in a spider’s web. At his feet, a tarp covered sled fashioned from plane wreckage carried what was left of the rotting corpse of his son, the stench of the thing filling him with constant nausea.
Dear Father, give me strength to endure this trial.
Isaac could do nothing to escape his fear. In the end the demons had won, taking possession of his faculties, but leaving him with enough consciousness to know what it was they were making him do. He was in a waking nightmare, and it was not easy for him to formulate thoughts. His memory told him that he had at last managed to free himself from the wreckage of the plane, and that he had been dragging the corpse for days now, crossing impossible barriers, descending perilous rifts, and all the time being made victim to an icy voice that filled his mind like a swelling ocean.
“To the Black Lake,” it hissed over and over again. “To the Portal of Ahreimanius.”
It was his son who spoke, and if he knew this, it was only because he was of his own flesh and blood. Isaac had spent a lifetime at his side. Singing to him, caring for him; loving, as best he could, a child who had never once uttered a single word to him; a child who had caused the death of his beloved wife. It had been a thirty-three year long vigil of parental duty, and even now, in death, the child would still give him no peace. Isaac felt a deep hatred for his son rise up within him, and with it came an encompassing sense of guilt for feeling this way.
“To the Black Lake! To the Portal!”
It was an incessant plea; a cyclical litany; minute after minute, day and night. It came as from a hungry infant; pleading, insistent, selfish, parasitic. On occasion the corpse would throw itself into violent tantrums, its hardened bulk twisting and jerking beneath the battered tarpaulin like a great dying fish.
Isaac made his way downward into the woods. Below him he could see a tiny island; the place of his son’s conception. He suddenly began to feel a great weight pressing down on him. It drove the air from his lungs, and the sight from his eyes. He brought his hands to his face as a vivid memory flooded into him.
He could see his late wife, Alina, materializing out of the blackness. She was on the edge of a circle of standing stones, the tangled trunks of the little island’s interior surrounding her. They had only just docked their boat. Alina had playfully run into the woods with a picnic basket. Isaac relived the intensity of his love for her. It ached in his heart, and made any other pain he was experiencing pale in comparison.
Almost thirty-four years earlier, Alina had been introduced to him by Father Adrianus. She had been a beautiful girl, over a decade younger than himself, and deeply in need of love and support.
“It is time you took a wife, my son,” the priest had told him one day. “You will take this young woman as your bride, and together you will raise a family.”
As always, Isaac had done as he was told, and it was not long before he had found himself on his honeymoon, walking the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago with a wife at his side.
Now, in his delirium, he was revisiting that time and place, and he saw that he and Alina were once again making love atop the great monolithic stone. A chilling fog had settled in. Something was terribly wrong. He looked down at Alina, but to his horror and repulsion found that the corpse of his son had taken her place.
Isaac broke from his twisted reverie, his eyes finding the cadaver at his feet. Through the tarpaulin he could make out its macabre form, and a sudden desire to destroy the thing filled him to the quick.
CHAPTER 30
Rome, Italy.
Gabriel emerged from the bathroom, clean shaven and wrapped in a plush white bathrobe. He found Natasha sitting cross-legged on his bed. She was wearing a pair of hotel pajamas two sizes too big, and her chestnut hair was piled up loosely on her head, accentuating her graceful, ballerina’s neck. A heavily laden tray of food sat at the foot of the oversized mattress, its contents still covered with fancy silver lids.
“I asked room service to put it here,” she said casually, reading his thoughts. “I hope that is alright. I thought it would be more fun this way. Like a picnic.”
She smiled shyly.
“Great idea,” said Gabriel with a nod. “And that’s quite the picnic. It looks like you ordered every item on the menu.”
Natasha beamed and then moved away a pillow that had been in front of her. Gabriel gasped in surprise. She had been busy. The Cube had undergone a complete transformation. It lay there amid six, cross shaped sheets of parchment, and a jewel encrusted framework that was completely dismantled. All that remained was a perfectly formed cube that looked to be made of semi-translucent stone. As before it was glowing, and the colour it took on was an incredibly beautiful iridescent blue.
“Happy to see me?” flirted Natasha.
“I guess I am…” Gabriel said, coming closer.
His eyes were glued to the artifact.
“How did you know?”
“Because it got brighter when you saw me.”
Gabriel sat on the bed, his attention fixed on the strange artifact.
“What the hell is this thing?” he asked. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
Natasha crawled to the foot of the bed and began to pour out the coffee. Gabriel glanced up for a moment, his stomach rumbling, but his eyes returned to the artifact like iron to a magnet.
“It is no hoax, Gabriel,” she said plainly. “I am absolutely certain of it. Whatever this is, it is authentic. Look closely at those parchments.”
Gabriel examined each parchment in turn. They were cross shaped; comprised of six, equally-sized, square-shaped sections. Their creases revealed how they had previously been wrapped around the Cube. The parchments were beautifully worked, each one written in tongues belonging to the six great faiths: Islamism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, and Christianity. Gabriel could not understand. Given the tremendous detail, it would have taken a forger years to complete a work of this magnitude. The parchments simply had to be authentic.
“If you look on the back side of the one that is written in Latin,” said Natasha, pouring out the coffee, “you will find that it is signed by Gutierrez de la Cruz. Do you remember him?”
“He was the priest in Marcus’ story,” muttered Gabriel, picking up the parchment that Natasha spoke of. “The guy who found the Cube. He appears to be representing the Christian faith in these documents.”
Gabriel turned his attention back to the Cube itself, laying down the parchment and picking up the strange, semi-translucent stone. He was amazed by what he saw. Covering its glowing surface were strange and ancient runes.
“These are the runes that Marcus was telling us about,” said Gabriel, looking up at Natasha. “The ones that were deciphered in the Book of Khalifah.”
He returned his attention to the artifact.
“This Cube isn’t Sumerian. It’s Neolithic. By the structure of these runes, I’d say it was proto-Basque.”
“How old do you think it is, Gabriel?”
“It’s difficult to say,” he said. “The origins of the Basques have always been shrouded in mystery. Many theories point to them being the first Cro-Magnon people to populate Europe, some forty-thousand years ago. By the looks of these proto-writings, they might be right. If it’s genuine, this Cube could easily be that old.”
“You cannot read the runes?”
“Not at all,” he said, still studying them. “They’re abstract
symbols. Proto-writings. The Sumerians were the first to come up with an actual alphabet. Before that, people just drew pictures to tell stories. Whoever deciphered them must have been privy to some very specific knowledge. These symbols could mean absolutely anything.”
Gabriel looked up at her before returning his attention to the artifact.
“At least this explains how Gutierrez could have found this in the tomb with James the Just,” he continued. “This artifact would have been ancient even by their standards. It must have been Gutierrez and his contemporaries who built the framework and covered it in the illuminations. There’s only one problem. How the hell can a forty-thousand year old artifact be glowing?”
Gabriel shot a baffled glance at Natasha and then returned his attention to the Cube.
“To produce this kind of light, a power source of some kind would be required,” he muttered to himself. “It’s too bright to simply be phosphorescent.”
The more Gabriel turned it in his hands, the more confused he became. The material it was comprised of had a strange, organic quality to it. What was more; there was still the matter of its bizarre density. More than ever, it reminded Gabriel of a cube of very firm flesh, similar in density to the flank of a strong horse, but looking very much like translucent stone.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, shaking his head.
Natasha handed him a steaming cup of coffee.
“Would you like to see something really amazing?”
“Sure,” said Gabriel, taking a sip from his cup.
“Empty your mind of thoughts,” said Natasha. “Just think of your coffee.”
“Alright…”
No sooner had Gabriel done so than the Cube ceased to glow.
“What?” he said, looking up at Natasha, only to see it come to life once again.
Natasha clapped her hands in delight.
“It is magic, Gabriel!” she chimed. “It only glows when we are thinking of each other.”
“How on earth did you figure that out?”
“Because you stopped thinking about me when you went into the bathroom.”
Gabriel paused before answering.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” he admitted at length. “I was feeling a little overwhelmed about everything. I decided to have a timeout.”
“Interesting,” said Natasha, rubbing her chin. “And how do you feel now?”
Gabriel returned his attention to the artifact, his brow furrowed.
“Overwhelmed.”
Natasha leaned forward and kissed Gabriel’s cheek.
“I like you very much, Gabriel Parker,” she said, rolling off the bed before he could react. “And just for your information, I will be returning to my room as soon as we have eaten. So do not get any ideas.”
Gabriel gave her a curious glance, his eyes following her as she made her way to the suite’s balcony. Her words had sounded more like an invitation to him than anything else.
Like I said before: Don’t even go there, buddy.
“You seem so familiar to me, Gabriel,” she continued, gazing out over the glittering lights of Rome.
Gabriel tore his eyes from her, and brought his attention back to the Cube. She seemed incredibly familiar to him too, but he would not allow himself to be drawn into this conversation. There were more important issues at hand. Namely, a forty-thousand year old artifact that somehow glowed. He emptied his mind of her, and watched the Cube begin to grow dim as a result. After a few minutes Natasha returned to the bedside only to see that Gabriel had completely forgotten her. The Cube was like a lifeless stone.
“Hey!” she said, her hands on her hips.
Gabriel looked up at her, the Cube bursting to life the moment he had done so. He picked it up, shaking his head in amazement.
“Natasha,” he said, still fixated on the thing. “This truly can read our thoughts.”
“That is what I said,” she muttered dejectedly.
Climbing onto the bed, Natasha busied herself with the food, occasionally glancing over at Gabriel as she prepared the plates. Gabriel seemed to reside in his own universe. He was like a planet, and she like a reluctant moon caught in his gravitational field.
I should never have let him hold me in the catacombs. It was a big mistake.
Gabriel studied the glowing artifact, oblivious of Natasha’s thoughts. He was not one to believe in magical trinkets and unicorns. There was a scientific explanation for its light, and another to explain its obvious thought reading, neuro-feedback capabilities. The Cube somehow knew when they were thinking of each other, but that hardly meant it was magical.
Gabriel passed a hand over his jaw, absently looking for any stubble he might have missed. He could remember reading about BCI’s, or brain-computer-interfaces, but he had never heard of wireless versions before. He could devise no hypothesis that might explain why an object of such seemingly advanced technology would be inscribed with Neolithic proto-writings, and wrapped in authentic, eleven-hundred year old manuscripts. It simply did not make sense.
At that moment, Gabriel noticed the lights in the room dim. He looked up to see Natasha standing by the light switch, the sight of her driving the enigmatic Cube from his mind. He felt as though he had been freed from one trance only to be entrapped by another. He watched her climb onto the bed, taking up the two plates she had prepared. Their delicious aroma reminded him of how hungry he was.
They ate mostly in silence, each of them lost in their thoughts. Gabriel made an effort not to think about her, but failed entirely, the glowing cube betraying his outward appearance of indifference. It amazed him that they could be so comfortable together, sitting alone in a hotel room without having to say a word.
Once they had finished, Natasha piled the dishes onto a tray and carried them back to the serving cart. When she turned to face Gabriel again she could see that he had leaned back and closed his eyes. She stood there silently for a moment and then gave a forced yawn.
“Well, I guess it is bedtime,” she said.
Gabriel responded with a sleepy grunt and pushed himself back into the pillows. Natasha stood looking at him for a while longer. Every man she had ever loved had lied to her and caused her pain. As she looked down at Gabriel she could not help but wonder if he was like everyone else.
Go to bed, Natasha. You are thinking too much.
Natasha moved to the bedside and turned off Gabriel’s lamp, reaching down to touch his shaggy hair, but pulling her hand away at the last moment. Who was this man? How could he be so gentle and yet so strong, all at the same time? She smiled softly and then went back into her adjoining suite, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.
CHAPTER 31
Amsterdam, North Holland.
Christian stood on the terrace of his penthouse suite, a lit cigarette in one hand, and a brimming glass of red wine in the other. A full moon was beginning to rise over Amsterdam, and far below he could see the last of the conference attendees boarding their limousines at the hotel’s front entrance. He drained his glass of wine as if to toast their departure, ending his farewell with a grimace of disdain.
Turning back inside, Christian filled his glass again, drawing heavily from his cigarette as he poured. In his mind there was still the insistent voice of his father. It echoed only two words, over and over again:
“The Cube!” it whispered urgently. “The Cube!”
Having no idea what the words could mean, Christian was content to suppress their message, using the familiar tools of denial and alcohol to do so. There was no need to worry. His doctor would soon be providing him with medications that would silence the voices completely.
He fell onto the sofa and clicked on the television. It was eleven o’clock, and one of the many Vanderhoff-owned news channels was filling the screen, its famous slogan being proclaimed against a background of flashing imagery and hypnotizing graphics.
“GNN. The planet’s most trusted news network.”
Christian
smiled wryly.
“What a joke,” he said bitterly. “The only reason they are the most trusted is because they don’t stop saying it.”
Christian watched the introduction finish with a flourish. Within seconds the anchorman had announced the top story.
“Today, the President of the United States, along with the Canadian Prime Minister, and the President of Mexico, sign the final legislative documents ushering in a new age for North America. On the first of January, the Amero will become the newest currency in the global marketplace. Coming up, a rebroadcast of this evening’s Presidential address from the White House.”
Christian turned off the television. It disgusted him. He had only wanted to see that all had gone as planned, and it had. The machine he had so recently been given control of was working perfectly. He threw the remote onto the coffee table, and just then heard a knock at his door. Rising slowly, he made his way to answer it.
“Hello, Mr. Antov,” said the beautiful young woman at the door.
She had an innocent, seductive smile, her hair red and curly.
“Good evening, whore,” he said with hatred in his voice. “I want you naked on the bed, and I don’t want to hear another word coming out of that painted mouth of yours for the rest of the night. Is that clear?”
The smile vanished from the girl’s face. She nodded in affirmation, her eyes focused on the floor as a sudden fear flooded into her. Hopefully he would not hurt her. She had been warned that he was very rough, but nobody paid more than Christian Antov.
Christian watched her undress and climb into his bed. She was perfect, but he saw no beauty in her. He was engulfed in hatred. He felt it flare up within him, and once again, it was directed at himself. He despised his need to lie with women. He despised that he should require any service from any human being, least of all the demeaning act of animal satisfaction. Many had been the times that he had tried to deny his bodily needs, but he had always failed.