by D. J. Niko
The sound of footsteps broke her meditation. All she could do now was sit still and hope he couldn’t see her. If she ran, it would all be over. There was quiet for a few moments, and she let herself believe she had eluded him.
A pair of hands clasped her shoulders, yanking her to her feet, and turning her around.
“Sarah Weston,” the man said in that familiar drawl. “I knew it was you.”
Sarah never thought she’d be so happy to see Daniel. She fell into his arms. “What are you doing here? I thought you were long gone.”
“I’ve been in Addis, waiting for my visa to be renewed so I could head back to Riyadh. Damn bureaucrats take their sweet time. Anyway, I saw this little article in the Herald this morning and figured you needed me.” He winked and grinned.
Her body stiffened. “Well, you’re wrong. I don’t need you. I’m perfectly fine. You are free to go.”
“Not on your life. Not this time.”
His words pleased her more than she expected, and she felt a pang of regret. She exhaled and softened her stance. “Look, Danny, I don’t blame you for the things you said, for walking out. Anyone sane would have done the same. I mean, look at how badly this has turned out. I’m a fugitive, for heaven’s sake.”
“Yes, I know. And not a very good one. It’s a good thing I spotted you before the cops did.” He gestured toward the jeep. “Care for a ride?”
She let out a strained laugh. “As a matter of fact, I would.”
“Where are we going anyway?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Just—”
“I know. Trust you.”
The back entrance to the library was well hidden from the eyes of the world. The abbot had told Sarah it was on the opposite side of the mountain from the entrance to Yemrehana Krestos and that she would have to travel through a tunnel to reach it. What he’d neglected to tell her was how difficult it would be to get there. The slopes looked steep and the terrain impassable, even for two scientists used to conducting their work in such no-man’s lands.
At the last outpost of civilization before the mountains became too inhospitable to inhabit, there was a village of eight mud rondavels with thatched roofs. The gravel road gave way to a dirt path that led to a hillside dotted with meager legume crops.
“Park here,” Sarah said. “We’ll continue on foot.”
Daniel threw a compass, flashlights, some tools, rope, a tape recorder, and a camera into his pack and strapped a water flask across his chest. He checked that his Taurus .38 was loaded and tucked it into his pants.
Sarah had no idea he carried a gun, but a bit of insurance didn’t hurt.
The hiking was easy at first. They walked along established paths through terraces where farmers grew chickpeas, a staple of Ethiopian agriculture. The plantings showed signs of stress, indicating impending drought and all the ills that came with it.
The terraces went only a quarter of the way up the mountain. The rest of the journey was far more treacherous. Daniel and Sarah negotiated steep slopes for hours to get to the plateau Giorgis had described. The terrain was a combination of impenetrable brush and dislodging rocks. The thicket was the other enemy. The vegetation was so dense they had to carve a path by ripping dried bushes from their roots and tossing them aside. The process slowed them down considerably, but they persisted, stopping only occasionally to hydrate.
By the time they emerged on the plateau, it was dusk. The ground was black and gravelly, a combination of granite and volcanic rock, and the vegetation was much more sparse at this elevation. Above them rose raw cliffs, a climber’s dream. The exposed rock, stacked in eternal layers, had been torn asunder by the violent earth of prehistory. To the north lay the curious landscape of Lalibela—an unlikely combination of rock-hewn churches, mud huts, and nondescript concrete buildings. The jagged silhouette of the Simien Mountains, glowing lavender in the wolflight, crowded the horizon.
Sarah caught her breath and looked around the daunting rockscape. “According to the abbot, this is the place. Somewhere around here there’s an entrance.”
“I imagine the monks haven’t made it too easy. If they went to all the trouble to make a secret entrance, it’s probably pretty damn well disguised.” Daniel studied the sky. It was like an abstract painting, with strokes of alternating lavender and orange and random flecks of crimson and lion-gold. “We have about a half hour before we can’t see a thing.”
“We’d better get to work then. Father Giorgis said to walk northeast from here and look for a rock shaped like a camel’s head. From there, we’ll need to descend the cliff until we come to a stream. We should then follow that stream’s course for about half a mile, until we see a ledge overhead.”
Daniel consulted his compass and nodded toward their destination. “Northeast.”
It was almost nightfall when they spotted the rock. The cliff beneath them looked too steep for a walk down, especially in the encroaching dark. Daniel handed Sarah a headlamp and put on his own. He produced a handful of carabiners and anchors, two harnesses, and a length of fixed rope.
“You travel with this stuff?” She picked up one of the harnesses.
“Always.” He grinned, obviously satisfied with himself for being so well prepared. “Now let’s get you strapped.”
About midway down the rock face, Sarah saw the stream the abbot had described. Illuminated by the waxing moon, it was a vein of liquid silver flowing through an ebony womb. The haunting beauty of the landscape immobilized her, and she hung there, a daughter of this wild land.
Though this was not a difficult descent compared to others she had negotiated, she rappelled slowly, mentally cataloguing the darkening landscape. Considering how much had happened in the past weeks, she was cautiously upbeat, hopeful they would find this mysterious library.
When they reached the bottom of the canyon, they found themselves inside a fortress of cliffs. The face they had just descended looked like flat land compared to the sinister pitch of some of the others. Though the terrain was forbidding, especially under the dark cloak of night, Sarah felt safe and strong. She admitted to herself she appreciated Daniel’s company. He was coolheaded and wise to the quirks of the back-country, a friend in an unfriendly place.
The walk along the stream was the easiest part of the journey. Thanks to a schism in the rock, their path was illuminated by a shaft of moonlight.
For almost two hours they walked, until the ledge appeared. A thin shelf jutting from the sheer cliff face, it was barely big enough for one person to stand on.
Sarah knew it was the right place. She recalled Father Giorgis’ description of a pile of rocks stacked like bricks: the entrance to the tunnel leading to the library.
She turned to Daniel. “We’ll have to go up one at a time. I’ll go first.” She took a deep breath and placed her unbandaged hand into one of the holds, then kicked her toe into a crack and pulled herself up.
The climb wasn’t too bad, but she took it slower than she normally would have, the faint light and her injury putting her at a disadvantage. When she reached the shelf, about thirty feet above ground level, she had only one option: to grab the ledge and pull herself up.
Small pieces of rock crumbled down the precipice as she strained to hoist herself up to chest level. She gritted her teeth and pressed on, anchoring herself by holding on to the hairline cracks between the rocks. All that remained was to hurl her lower half up to the narrow lip. That was the easy part. Her legs were so long and flexible she was able to lift one knee, then the other, until she had solid purchase.
Standing on that precarious platform was far scarier than anything they had encountered earlier in the trek. One misstep on the narrow ledge would send her tumbling down the rock face. She stood still for a while, summoning all her confidence. Her thoughts turned to Apostolos and his last words.
“This is for you, my dear friend,” she said softly and carefully removed one of the stones.
Whoever had devised this system was a
genius. The stones had been hewn to interlock perfectly yet still looked natural. Sarah could not help but think the people who had built this had also sealed the tenth saint’s tomb; the technique was so similar. With slow, deliberate movements, she removed a handful of the puzzle pieces until she could go no farther. She tried every stone within her reach, but none would budge.
“They won’t move,” she shouted down to Daniel. “I’m stuck.”
“There’s probably a combination,” Daniel offered. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before—in funerary chambers in Egypt.”
“The abbot said nothing about a combination,” Sarah said to herself as she felt around for a clue. She tried to pick out unusual shapes in the rock or hidden levers. There was nothing. She tried pushing on rocks to the north, south, east, and west, making the sign of the cross with her movements. When that didn’t work, she followed a triangle pattern, the symbol of the divine trinity. Again, nothing. “Come on, Sarah, think.”
Her thoughts were interrupted by a momentary flash, a streak of white light in the sky, neither lightning nor a shooting star. It was like nothing she had seen before. At that moment she felt the monk’s ice-cold hand in hers. His presence was tangible, encouraging.
Suddenly, she remembered. When they had tried to evade the intruder in the labyrinth, Apostolos had pushed on the stones in a distinct pattern. She didn’t realize then but now knew it was the five-pointed star. She mimicked the movements exactly.
The stone gate parted.
“Atta girl,” Daniel shouted.
“What are you waiting for? Come on up.”
The subterranean tunnel leading to the library was long and unwelcoming. Sarah and Daniel followed a series of stone steps—about a hundred of them, or so it felt—down to a tubelike chamber they could traverse only single file. It reminded Sarah of a prison escape route, which was probably not far from the truth. In any case, it looked like no one had been through in the recent past. Cobwebs hung from the low ceilings, and the moist ground crawled with rats.
Moving slowly, Daniel and Sarah silently made their way through the endless passage. Oxygen was at a premium in the catacomb, and they knew better than to waste what little they had. Many times Sarah wanted to stop, but her commitment to Apostolos and her own hunger for what she might find inside the vault kept her moving forward.
Eventually they came to a fork on the path. They stopped to look around and weigh the options.
Daniel took a coin out of his pocket. “Shall we toss for it?”
“I think we should follow this route.” She pointed to the right. “In the portion of the labyrinth leading to the Sheba Stone, we seemed to always be following a series of right turns. It may be random, but my hunch is that this was by design.”
“Jesus being the right hand of God?”
“Something like that.”
Daniel didn’t question Sarah but let her lead the way.
The tunnel grew a bit more spacious, allowing them to quicken their step. It wasn’t long before they came to an arched door whose wood planks were held together by rusty iron nails. Sarah parted the cobwebs and turned the handle. “Locked.” She tried Apostolos’ key, but it was obviously designed for a smaller keyhole.
Daniel tried his own luck. He alternately pulled and pushed at the door, hoping to dislodge any sediment keeping it shuttered. He looked inside the thumb-sized keyhole. “I can actually make out some stone aisles. It looks like a mausoleum in there.”
“Must be the place,” Sarah said, the excitement adding an octave to her voice.
“Yup. Now if we could only find the keys.”
They scoured every corner of the entrance vestibule for potential hiding places.
When they’d run out of options, she shook her head. “The monks wouldn’t make it so easy. They probably carry the keys only on their person.”
Daniel winked. “Lucky for you, I am an expert lock picker. It’s one of my many hidden talents.”
“How did you learn that?” She lifted her hands. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”
“It comes with the territory. The trouble is, you can ruin the lock in the process. Very delicate business.” He reached inside his pack for an L-shaped metal gadget and a handful of pokers of varying lengths and thicknesses. “Now, which of these goes in first?”
Be serious.
“Lighten up. It was a joke.”
Daniel wiggled the poker in the keyhole to find the sweet spot. His expertise at breaking and entering was evident within thirty seconds, which was all it took to pop the lock. The door creaked as if it hadn’t been opened in centuries. He shone his flashlight at the church’s inner sanctum.
The complex was a maze of stone columns and open shelves built into the cave walls. Parchment codices and books filled every nook. At the far end was a wall of lockers sealed by heavy stone doors. An ancient plank table and two straight-backed wooden armchairs occupied the middle of the room.
“Get a load of this place,” he said in a hushed voice that trailed off7 to a whisper.
Sarah had never seen anything like it. Perhaps a miniature version of the Library of Alexandria, or at least how she imagined it based on the multiple theories she’d researched. Though the place was fairly small—couldn’t have been any more than three hundred square feet—there was enough material, much of it probably dating back centuries, to give a scholar an entire life’s work. Fighting the urge to thumb through every tome, she focused on the task at hand.
“I think those vaults are what we’re after,” she said, nodding toward the back wall. She looked at Daniel and twirled the key in her hand. “Shall we try our luck, then?”
She inserted the key in every vault door, but it worked in none of them. She wasn’t surprised. If it contained such precious documents, the vault in question was probably not that conspicuous. She groped the perimeter for any sign of a removable stone or rotating wall while Daniel examined the floor. The herringbone-patterned tiles could easily disguise yet another secret passage constructed by monks, veterans at the art of hiding. Both came up empty.
Sarah glanced in every direction. “There has to be something we’re overlooking.”
“What about behind those?” Daniel pointed to the shelves piled with scrolls and stitch-bound books thick with the dust of the ages.
The two set about gingerly removing each volume and placing it on the table. They emptied shelf after shelf but still no luck.
While they replaced the documents on a low shelf, Daniel stopped. “Check it out. Look at that crack. The wall there looks superficial.”
“Spot on. Let’s see if it gives way.”
He placed the scrolls carefully on the floor beside him, inserted his fingers into the crack in the stone, and pulled the plaster toward him. It gave way too easily, confirming their suspicions. He clawed at it until all the plaster was removed, revealing a small door. With a contented smile, he said, “I’ll bet your key works now.”
“Why, Dr. Madigan, I do believe you’re a genius.” She bit her lip as she inserted the key. When it yielded a satisfying click, she gasped.
This was it. Apostolos’ vault.
She reached inside and felt a sculpted metal object. She carefully pulled it out.
A Coptic cross, a simple figure carved of solid gold.
“The crux ansata,” she whispered. “The original Coptic cross, begotten from the Egyptian ankh.” She recalled Apostolos’ mention of the saint’s cross. “He must have been buried with this.”
“Which explains the extra holes in the coffin. Whoever found him must have taken this out to protect it from looters.”
Sarah reached inside the vault again and pulled out a loosely bound, wax-sealed papyrus codex. The fragile paper almost came apart in her hands. She surmised by the quality of the papyrus that the text had been written in the early centuries of the Common Era.
To prevent the transfer of oils from her hands to the paper, she put on a pair of white cotton glov
es. “Do you have a magnifying glass in your bag of tricks?”
Daniel reached inside his pack and handed her one.
She took a close look at the impression made by the seal. The ideogram was identical to the one that had marked the entrance to the tenth saint’s tomb.
“Take a look.” She handed him the glass.
He held the seal next to the Coptic cross. “They’re practically identical. The untrained eye would think they were one and the same. There’s obviously some connection.”
Sarah pointed at the outer circle of the ideogram. “I can’t believe I never saw it before. It’s the Greek letter omega. And inside it, the circle divided in four by a perfect cross—the ancient symbol for the lower heaven. Apostolos said the prophecies foretold the final doom that would befall the earth. It all makes sense.”
She bowed her head as she prepared to open the codex. She ran her thumb over the intersecting lines that formed the cross on the wax, took a deep breath, and broke the seal. As she turned the yellowed pages, she noted they were handwritten in ancient Greek script, one of the official languages in early Christian Ethiopia. The text was in all capital letters, in the same manner used to inscribe the stelae and thrones erected in the days of the Aksumite empire. Her guess was that it originated between the fourth and sixth centuries of the Common Era. These had to be the earliest, and perhaps the only, interpretations of the original writings. She was in awe.
She carefully opened each page of the codex and photographed it. She removed the first memory card from the camera, placed it in the inner pocket of her trousers, and photographed everything again. She wasn’t taking any chances. When she was satisfied with the documentation, she set about translating the text. She was fluent in ancient Greek, so it would not be terribly difficult. She paused to savor the moment and glanced at Daniel.
He was smiling. “This moment is all yours, Sarah Weston. God knows you’ve earned it.”
Thirteen
Gabriel’s route took him southwest of Ubar along the edge of the mighty Rub’ al Khali desert. He traveled along the beaten path of the frankincense traders but hadn’t seen a caravan in some days. In this desolate place, his only company was his faithful camel. He missed the chatter of the women as they kneaded the day’s bread, the scent of the embers as he drifted off to sleep each night, the giggles of the children as they chased each other across the sands, the taste of strong bitter tea on his lips. Though he knew he had to move on, he felt the angst of separation from these people, his only friends.