by John Booth
“Thampthis felt the box would prevent others getting at the Krius. I had courted him for twenty years after I heard a whisper his uncle had found an Atlantean object. His uncle was Pharaoh at the time and I couldn’t get near him, so Thampthis it was.”
I found what I was looking for on the map. A mining company had drilled many shafts into this mountain before eventually going bust. I searched through company records to find out who had bought the mine. It turned out to be a computer company about thirty years ago.
“I’m surprised it took you twenty years to make your man Pharaoh,” Brian said with a broad grin on his face.
“It didn’t, though his uncle was a wily old fox. Nobody stayed Pharaoh of Egypt long in those days if they weren’t suspicious of everything. But it took years after Thampthis reached the throne before we found where he’d hid it. I didn’t know it was the Krius until I saw it.”
I turned the pad so the others could see. “This mine is being used as a storage facility for important data files. It was bought by a company owned by Arthur Regis twenty five years ago and its main entrance is about fifteen miles away from the tunnel as the crow flies. It’s over a hundred miles using the roads.”
20. Memories
“So what are we waiting for? I’ll get the boys on the phone and we’ll meet at the mine,” The Don said reaching into his pocket for his phone.
“Wait,” I told them. “There’s no point going off half-cocked. We’ll need serious artillery if we’re going to attack them.”
“Mike, show her what we got,” The Don said, waving his phone at the car. Mike grinned like an idiot and opened the boot of the limo.
It wasn’t the heavy duty machine guns or the grenades that surprised me, but I have to admit the two hand-held missile launchers achieved it.
“You guys know how to handle this stuff?”
“Pa made us practice,” Vinnie said proudly, “And Mike used to be in the Marines. That’s how come he set up the explosives so well.”
“Wow,” Brian said as he looked over my shoulder. “Can I have one of these?” His hand slipped around one of those oversized machine guns with V shaped legs. It took all my willpower to stop from slapping his hand. Boys and toys, what is it with them?
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I said and stepped back, accidently on purpose pushing Brian away from the new love of his life. I looked at my watch. I figured it was over half an hour since I’d changed back to Fey at the end of the tunnel and it was 18:40 now. Looking up at the sky, I saw it was clear of clouds from horizon to horizon. With a bit of luck that meant we’d be fighting by moonlight. I’d be able to shape-shift again by 23:30. That might prove useful.
The Don took his phone away from his ear. “Joe and the others will join us on the road outside the mine. Are you guys gonna make a move or what?”
He had a point. Mike slammed the trunk door down and we all got into the car.
Brian and I sat in the back of the limo with Vinnie and The Don while Mike drove. Vinnie stare continuously at me, his desire barely concealed as he licked his lips. I suppose the fact that Brian and I reeked of sex was hardly helping him. While I love carnality, I had no intention of ever letting Vinnie have his way with me. Whatever the consequences to the relationship we had with The Don, I resolved to kill Vinnie if he tried anything again.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I needed to concentrate and find out what I’d been told when I held the box. I used a meditation technique, contracting tight and then relaxing every muscle in my body starting with my toes and moving up. By the time I got to my neck I was having difficulty staying awake.
The two loudest voices had been close friends, one speaking ancient Egyptian and the other a Minoan dialect. That was what had confused me before, the fact that the voices weren’t speaking in a single tongue. Ramis spoke Fourth Dynasty Egyptian in a cultured manner. I remembered his face, dark brown and with many wrinkles that fascinated me with their shifting patterns whenever he smiled. He had been a good man who didn’t deserve to die at the hands of Thampthis’ guards. A man with a wife and children, not yet fully grown. I concentrated on listening to his voice and reran the memory from the beginning.
“My Goddess Cear-Lotha, beloved queen and consort of the Pharaoh Thampthis, hear my words. By order of the Pharaoh we have created this box, melting and forming the bronze around the Krius by magic so it nestles in the box’s base, hidden and safe. Our magic has protected the box and it would take heat ten times beyond the power of man to melt it and reveal the Krius.”
I gulped, at that time people couldn’t even make furnaces hot enough smelt iron. A laser could produce temperatures a hundred times higher than that today. Peleus could get at the Krius if he was willing to destroy the box. It wouldn’t take him long to reach that state of mind where he’d try it, if he hadn’t already.
“The box was designed to submit to your will, oh Goddess. Striking it with your Atlantean Sword will crack it like an egg and the Krius will be yours. May you never need to do so.”
Well, that was just fine and dandy. My sword was currently locked up in the deepest, darkest, safest vault in London. The opportunity to wear a sword in public in the western world had become severely limited, though there were places in the uncivilized countries where I could still get away with it. I use the word uncivilized loosely.
The second loudest voice was Malan. I conjured up her beautiful Minoan features and saw her in front of me once again. She’d been such a pretty girl. The most powerful magician for a thousand years, but untrained in the ways to protect herself the way someone like Hankle could have done. I had brought her to Egypt and promised her mother and father that she would be safe with me. I had never gone back to Crete to tell her parents, the shame of her death being far too great.
“Goddess, you must help us. Thampthis means to kill us to protect you as those lusting for power will seek you out if they find out that only you can open the box.”
I sighed, she and the other magicians were already dead by the time I saw the box. Word of their massacre had spread through the palace like wildfire, hours before my audience with the Pharaoh. The message had been delivered far too late, even if I had taken the box in my hands that day. I returned to her message with sadness weighing on my heart.
“He plans to spread word that we are already dead to stop you from saving us, but he means to keep us alive until the magic of the box is proven. You can still rescue us, my lady, if that should be your desire. We await your coming with love in our hearts, knowing you would never desert us in our moment of need. Hurry, my lady.”
I felt tears I had denied for millennia rolling down my cheeks. I could have saved them if I had only had the sense to hold the damned box. But no, I had to show how angry I was at Thampthis. Their deaths were down to my pride. The other voices repeated the same message as Malan in half a dozen dead languages, ‘Save us Lady Cear-Lotha for we do not deserve to die.’ Brian put his arm around me as I began to sob.
“It’s okay, Car. We’ll get back the box,” he whispered, giving me a hug.
“Cear,” I told him between sobs, “As in, she didn’t care enough.”
I calmed down within the hour. I didn’t explain my outburst to any of them, though Brian probed me with gentle questions. It was all over a long, long, time ago; and if I could make it up to the dead in even a small way, it would be in what I did now. I had to make their sacrifice mean something.
At the rate we were making progress on back roads, we wouldn’t reach the mine entrance until gone eleven. In places, Mike slowed the car down to walking speed, worried that parts of the road might have subsided. We were travelling from nowhere to nowhere and the United States can still be a wild place beyond the confines of the cities.
Things had changed as a result of what Ramis had told me. A frontal assault was out of the question as it might force Peleus into doing the one thing that could make the Krius his. I had modified the plan accordingly.
&n
bsp; “I need to get into the mine without being spotted and retrieve the box. You guys will provide the diversion for me to get back out.”
“I like the idea of blasting the entrance and letting the bastard starve to death or run out of air,” The Don said laconically and Vinnie nodded in agreement. Even Brian seemed to prefer the idea.
“He can get the Krius out of the box, but only if he’s desperate enough to try and melt it out. If we trap him in there, what does he have to lose?”
“How comes you didn’t tell us that before?” Vinnie asked.
“There was a message on the box. I have a photographic memory, but I only just deciphered it.” Not far from the truth if you thought about it.
“And that’s why you went all girly on us?” The Don asked.
I nodded. I didn’t want to think about it in detail. I might cry again.
“So what’s your plan for this diversion?”
“I go in, disguised as one of the tame scientists. You wait half an hour and then you use all your firepower to blast the entrance of the mine to kingdom come.”
The Don grinned. “I like the way you think, Missy. I guess we can give you your half an hour.”
“I’m coming with you,” Brian said defiantly. He knew I wasn’t going to let him.
“Not a chance, kid,” I replied, knocking his chin with my knuckles like we were in a Mickey Rooney movie. “I need you to stay with The Don and make sure his men wait the full thirty minutes.”
I sat back into my seat and tried to go to sleep. It was going to be a long night.
21. Mine
We arrived at the heavy duty wire and steel gates of the mining complex at quarter past eleven, 23:17 according to my watch. We drove past and stopped just beyond the perimeter fence on the far side. The mine had started out as a quarry a hundred years ago, when the minerals were close to the surface. The quarrying cut a bite out of the mountain, the level ground this created had since been covered with offices and living quarters.
The fence started at one edge of the cut into the Mountain and finished at the spoil heap where we were now. When I say spoil heap I mean an artificial hill of rubble, which looked a pretty treacherous thing to climb.
“Brian and I will scout out the site while you wait for the others,” I told The Don and motioned for Brian to follow me. The moon was out big time and I felt energized and more than a little turned on. We bounced up the fake hill scattering rocks behind us.
“Shouldn’t we be doing this quietly?” Brian whispered about halfway up. He had a point, though I doubted it mattered until we reached the top. In deference to him, I slowed down and we approached the brow of the hill in silence.
The facilities below were floodlit and it looked as though my escape and the destruction of the railway tunnel had driven the workers into a frenzy. People were running about all over the place. A set of railway lines ran towards a massive mine entrance. Apparently the mining company had bored straight into the mountain when the surface minerals ran out. It didn’t look as though the rails had been used in years. Two massive steel doors stood open at the entrance and groups of people were running in both directions.
There was the end of a long hopper about twenty yards away, designed to carry rubble to the top of the spoil hill and dump it on the side we’d just climbed. I motioned to Brian and we made our way over to it. It would provide excellent cover for us on the way down.
Brian pointed to a cabin some yards from the entrance. It seemed to be some kind of changing facility, as people were entering it in normal clothes and leaving it in the white coats scientists seem required to wear when on duty.
I pointed to the mine entrance and whispered, “If those entrance doors are closed when The Don attacks, he might as well not bother with the rockets. They’d bounce right off it.”
Brian nodded.
“Tell the hoods to spread themselves out across this hill and attack the mine with the rockets if the doors begin to close.”
“What if you’re still inside?”
Bless the lad, he cares. I shook my head.
“What matters most is destroying this facility. I’d prefer to retrieve the box first, but if I can’t do that then I want Regis trapped inside with me.”
“I thought King Arthur was a good guy?”
I sighed. History was a difficult thing to explain if you haven’t lived through it. “He wanted power, first to rule England and then the world. The clever tyrant figures out that the best way to rule is to get his lieutenants to think they’re his equal. That way they don’t scheme to kill him. It was cool being one of his knights. Not so good if you were a peasant having your house destroyed, your crops burnt and your wife and daughters raped.”
“And you tried to kill him?” Brian’s eyes shone with reflected moonlight or possibly excitement.
“I gutted him, he should be dead. Those damned female magicians must have found a way to save him.” I took Brian by the shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. “I let him use my sword because he promised to unite the tribes that were making people’s lives hell with endless raiding. I came back to find the country destroyed and what remained of the warriors of the tribes united in their desire to kill him.”
Brian nodded and I hoped he understood. Peleus wasn’t the first or last Fey who had tried to enslave humanity. I’d hate to have to come after Brian in the future.
“How are you going to get in the mine?”
I grinned. “I have a plan.” My watch indicated it was 23:32. “Go back to The Don and tell him to attack after midnight. At the speed they can get up that hill it’ll take them at least that long to get to the top. Probably a good thing to let them start firing as soon as they get in position.”
Brian took me in his arms and kissed me passionately. Damn the boy, I didn’t have the time to respond properly, though maybe I could delay the attack by thirty minutes? My mind wrestled with other parts of my body and narrowly won.
“Save it for later,” I said, though I pulled him back for another lingering kiss. I knew I’d better get a move on. I looked at him significantly and he got the message.
Brian flittered back up the hill like a shadow. I saw his outline for a second as he crested the top of the hill and then he was gone.
Making my way down the slope cost me a couple of minutes. They must just have finished a shift change because nobody was going in or out of the hut. I ran from building to building, staying in the shadows wherever I could. Opening the hut door just enough to give me passage, I slid inside.
At first I thought the hut was empty. Then a young woman stepped out of the cubicle, saw me and took a deep breath to scream. The blow from my fist crushed her voice box and broke her neck. She fell dead at my feet like a sack of potatoes.
“Sorry,” I told her corpse absently as I stripped off her white coat and carried her into the cubicle she’d come from. If she hadn’t looked as though she was going to scream I would have risked trying to knock her unconscious, but this was not a time for squeamishness.
There was a centre pivoted window at the back of the cubicle and it was the work of a moment to open it and drop her body onto the ground outside. Nothing overlooked the back of the hut so she might lay undiscovered for days.
I put on her white coat, picked up the woman’s clipboard and shifted to become the scientist who told Peleus about the box’s reaction when I held it. I checked in the mirror that my hair was straight and left the hut for the mine entrance.
Just inside the entrance a woman behind a protective glass screen smiled at me.
“Dr Philips, I could have sworn you came in earlier.”
“I did.” Naturally I sounded exactly like Dr Philips. I had heard her speak. “But I went out again because I left my notes in the hut.” I waved the clipboard at her.
“Where’s your security pass?”
I put my hand on the breast pocket where the pass should have been. I had discarded the dead woman’s pass in the hut as it looked noth
ing like my current form. “I must have dropped it. And Mr. Regis is waiting for me; I’m already late for my meeting.”
The girl smiled. “I’ll give you a temporary one. It’s not like we don’t know who you are.”
As I walked away from the girl into the mine I wondered if the glass would be strong enough to protect her from a rocket attack. I very much doubted it.
I found a map on the wall and glanced at it, memorizing it instantly. As I walked with apparent purpose through the tunnel I realized I’d taken a wrong turn. Doubling back I approached the front vehicle of a line of golf carts that served as taxis in the primary axis tunnel.
“You going to the Inspection Lab, Dr Philips?” the driver asked and I nodded. It was better to say nothing as Dr Philips might usually speak to him by name.
“They say the railway tunnels collapsed and the medics have been bringing bodies back for hours. Were you there when it happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped and the driver got the message. The rest of the journey was in stony silence. It seemed to go on forever.
I gathered we had reached our destination when he pulled to a halt in front of a set of double doors. Glancing at my watch I was surprised to find it was nearly midnight. This mine was much bigger than I thought. Not that it made any difference.
“Wait here,” I commanded the driver. “I have a package to take outside.”
Beyond the double doors was a corridor I recognized. There was nobody in sight so I ran to the lab. When I got there I doubled over with a pain in my chest. I had taken on human form and until I shed it I was stuck with a body that was old and feeble. It took me nearly a minute to recover. A minute I didn’t have.
The temporary pass opened the lab doors. Inside, Thampthis’ damned box sat on its plinth like a prized exhibit. There was nobody in the room. I walked to the box and picked it up. I got it about half an inch up before its weight brought it back down. Dr Phillips could barely lift it. There was no way her body could carry it back to the golf cart.