God's Lions - The Dark Ruin (2 page)

Where before their life had been one of fluid motion and play, these nomadic tribesmen now toiled beneath an unyielding sun to build something that had never before been seen on the entire planet, and had it not been for the instructions given to them by the entity, they never would have considered building such a thing in the first place.

As far as they could tell, this circle of stone served no obvious purpose. It just sat there, a constant reminder of the seemingly endless days spent in back-breaking labor. A full seven millennia before the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza had even begun, these men had broken with thousands of years of tradition to build a complex stone structure by hand, all without the benefit of metal tools, wheels, or draft animals. The only question was—
why
?

It was a question that would cause archaeologists to scratch their heads in wonder when, in the 20
^th
century, the Stonehenge-like circle of stone was finally unearthed in modern-day Turkey. But unbeknownst to these present-day finders of ancient artifacts, even the primitive men who had labored so long and hard to build it had no idea why they had done it other than the fact that they had been told to do so by something that terrified them.

Now, sitting on a crude stone floor, the men waited, and in the afternoon, as the sun began to beat down on the grassy slope with a fiery stillness, the sound of a dog barking in the distance heralded the arrival of dark clouds that began to flow in from the east. They were roiling black clouds; the kind that brought strong winds and blotted out the sun, and right on cue the winds began to blow.

Huddled inside the circle of stone, the men lifted their fur skins over their heads in an attempt to shield their eyes from the swirling dust, all the while hoping against hope that the structure they had been ordered to build would somehow appease the thing they knew was coming.

Without so much as a whisper, a dark shape began to materialize in the center of the ring. It wavered in and out of the earth plane like a fluctuating hologram from another dimension, until finally, as a hot, sulfur-infused wind continued to blow, a leathery-winged apparition stood before them, swinging it’s monstrous head from side-to-side as its blood-red eyes fixed them with an otherworldly stare.

As the frightened men began to scuttle backward, the ground began to quiver, and as the shaking grew stronger the stone floor became transparent, revealing a black crystal abyss that fell away into the depths of the Earth beneath the feet of the terrified men.

Above their heads, a pillar of bluish light carrying two objects resembling large seeds suddenly descended from the base of the dark clouds, and as soon as they touched the transparent floor, the black surface seemed to liquefy, embracing the objects and pulling them into its depths. For a moment the ground seemed to quiver, as if Mother Earth had been struck by something she wanted to reject. Then all was quiet as the liquefied stone slowly returned to its original solid state.

Frozen in place by fear, the petrified men continued to shrink from the gaze of the hideous winged creature that towered above them, for their instinct for survival had kicked into overdrive, alerting them to avoid its demonic stare. Somehow they knew that if they gazed into the burning red orbs, it would only bring an end to lives that were already too short.

Please leave us!
The terrified men covered their eyes and began to call out in an instinctive plea for deliverance, for even though they had no true concept of God, they had come to believe that if the dark apparition standing before them existed, then surely its opposite must also exist somewhere, and maybe it could help them. If there was a spirit of darkness, then there must also be a spirit of light—one that could intercede on their behalf and deliver them from this evil. Just like day and night, where the night was to be feared because it cloaked the predators that stalked them in darkness, the light was to be welcomed, for its brightness illuminated their path and revealed those creatures that lay in wait to rob them of their lives.

But there was also another thing these men had figured out. The apparition wavering before them had come from somewhere, but it was not of this earth, which meant that there was another realm out there—one that was invisible to them. If this monstrous thing had come from a world of darkness, which surely it did, then that meant there had to be a world of light—and therein lay their salvation.
It had to be!

On the day the entity had first appeared to them standing inside a pillar of fire on the hillside above, the tribesmen had quickly agreed to do whatever it asked of them on the condition that it would spare their lives. They had kept their part of the bargain. They had built the structure it had commanded them to build ... n
ow go! Leave us in peace!

Peering out from under his animal-skin hood, one of the men fell to his knees.
The entity was gone!
High overhead, the roiling black clouds were already disappearing over the horizon, while on the ground, the wind had descended to a gentle breeze, leaving the shaken men in a state of bewildered relief as the shrieking wind was replaced by the sound of dry leaves rolling across the still-warm stones of the temple floor.

In the days that followed, the men and their families decided to bury the temple as best they could and flee toward the coast, lest the entity return. In their exodus, these people and the generations that followed them began to spread out over the land, taking with them their newfound knowledge of the two opposing forces of darkness and light. It was a revelation within the human psyche that soon began to spread across an area of the ancient world that would one day come to be known as the Fertile Crescent—the very cradle of civilization.

Over the course of the next several millennia, thousands of temples dedicated to various gods representing both darkness and light would rise across the region in homage to the forces of both good and evil, until finally the world’s three dominant monotheistic religions would spring forth, surpassing all others in the belief of a single god of light. It would be from this area of the world that a beacon would eventually shine over billions of people around the globe, giving mankind hope that the god of light would prevail and the thing of darkness would be held at bay—
at least for awhile.

ISTANBUL — PRESENT DAY

Enveloped by the sights and smells of the bustling Bazaar Quarter, the two dark-clothed men watched the maritime parade of boats flow from the Golden Horn into the Bosporus as they sat drinking strong Turkish coffee next to the steamy entrance of a sidewalk café. Technically it was springtime, but a slight chill blanketed the old section of the city with the last vestiges of a long winter that clung to the land in a feeble attempt to keep the warming rays of the sun from reaching down into narrow streets still cloaked in dewy, early morning shadows.

Cardinal Leopold Amodeo tapped his watch and held it to his ear. “What time do you have?”

“Seven-thirty,” Bishop Anthony Morelli replied.

“He should have been here by now. Maybe you should call him again.”

Morelli’s brown eyes peered from beneath his black baseball cap. “He’ll be here. I’ve worked with this man for years on other archaeological digs here in Turkey. He’s never on time, but he always shows up ... and he’s very discreet about my activities. We can’t afford to bring anyone new onboard at this late stage.”

The cardinal turned the collar up on his jacket and stared past his friend at the turbulent blue water lapping at a distant promontory point facing the Sea of Marmara. He was actually looking at another continent, for they were on the European side of a city that straddled the two continents of Europe and Asia, a geographical position that had made Istanbul a strategic focal point throughout history.

“Too bad Lev couldn’t bring the
Carmela
into port here,” Morelli huffed, watching cigarette smoke from a nearby table drift over their heads. “This is practically the yacht’s second home, but her presence here now would have announced our arrival. I’ve been onboard twice when she was anchored off the coast of Turkey. The scenery was beautiful ... and the archaeology! There’s no other place on Earth where the ancient world is so evident. It’s all around us. We’re sitting in the cradle of civilization. The Assyrians, the Hittites, the Greeks ... the Romans. They were all here.”

“I know,” Leo said, picking at his small breakfast
baklava
with a silver fork before downing the last of his coffee. “It wouldn’t have surprised me if Lev had decided to build his villa here in Turkey instead of in Israel.”

“He’ll never leave the Holy Land, Leo, but he does love it here. There are more Roman ruins here than there are in Italy, and more Greek ruins here than in Greece. Even though Lev is surrounded by antiquity in Israel, this is where he discovered his love of archaeology. He brought Ariella here for her first dig when she was only ten years old. We all camped near the site of the ancient city of Troy, and that little girl wore everyone out tromping around looking for artifacts. We had to keep a constant eye on her because of snakes.” Morelli shook his head as he gazed out over the jostling flow of humanity walking past their table. “People who don’t enjoy learning about history ... I just don’t get it.”

By now Leo’s gaze had shifted to nearby tables, looking for eyes that lingered just a little too long in their direction. Like everywhere else in the world, crime was also on the rise here in Turkey, but there was another, more tangible reason for Leo’s growing caution.

Satisfied at last that they were not being watched, Leo looked at his watch again just as the loud screech of brakes on the street jerked his attention to a mud-splattered Chevy Suburban that had just pulled to the curb after cutting off a slower-moving car. Behind the wheel, peering from beneath a head of curly dark hair, the Chevy’s grinning driver pulled his sunglasses down over his nose and winked in their direction.

“That’s him,” Morelli said, rising from his chair. “Let’s go.”

Hefting their backpacks over their shoulders, the two men quickly made their way through the jostling crowd before piling into the large four-wheel-drive vehicle. Glancing in his side-view mirror, the driver lurched the big Chevy out into thick traffic, joining the flow that crossed the famed Galata Bridge—a bridge that was named after the 6
^th
century tower that overlooked the Golden Horn from the top of one of the seven hills that rose above the European section of the city.

Sitting in the front passenger seat, Morelli smoothed his thinning red hair under his cap before turning his heavy-set frame sideways so that he could peer into the back seat. “Leo, I’d like to introduce you to a close friend of mine. This is Abbas Sadik. Abbas is an archaeologist attached to the Turkish Ministry of Antiquities, and for the past twenty years he and I have made several important archaeological discoveries, both here and in other areas around the Mediterranean. Without his help here in Turkey I would have been totally lost on more than one occasion.”

With his tanned forearms gripping the steering wheel, Abbas threw his head back in laughter. “Actually, Cardinal, your friend the bishop here is the one who keeps me from getting lost. He sent me a GPS for Christmas a few years ago after we accidently crossed over the border into Iraq. Luckily for us a group of U.S. Marines pointed out our mistake before we ran into any bad guys. Even though he knows I’m not a Christian, he keeps sending me Christmas presents every year just in case I suddenly convert without his knowledge.”

Leo’s stark green eyes narrowed as he smiled at the back of the man’s head. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Abbas. Bishop Morelli tells me that you’re a Muslim.”

“That I am, Cardinal. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Sunni Muslim.” Abbas grinned into the rear-view mirror. “Pay no attention to the bulges under my jacket ... they’re just sandwiches.”

It was quickly becoming obvious why Morelli had chosen this man to be their guide into the remote hinterlands of the Turkish countryside. Morelli enjoyed being around happy people with a good sense of humor, and this guy certainly fit the bill.

“Your people have a proud heritage, Abbas. Have you always lived in Turkey?”

“Yes, except for the time I spent at Cambridge. I was born in
Meryemana
. That’s about 8 kilometers from the ruins of Ephesus, one of the greatest ancient cities in the western world. The proximity of my birth to such places is probably one of the main reasons I took up the study of ancient cultures. My friends and I used to play in the ruins when we were kids, and my parents still live in the area—a few blocks from the house where the Blessed Virgin Mary spent her last days.”

“That’s some neighborhood you grew up in,” Leo said, impressed.

“It was the best. My father told me that, after Jesus asked Saint John the Evangelist to look after his mother, John brought Mary with him to Ephesus after the crucifixion. She lived there until the day she died, and her house still stands. It’s a revered shrine to both Christians and Muslims alike.”

“I’d love to visit there someday.”

“You will, Cardinal,” Abbas winked up into the mirror at Leo’s blurred silhouette in the back seat. “I will see to it personally.”

Speeding from the crowded Bazaar Quarter along the
Ciragan Caddesi
, the wide boulevard that parallels the Bosporus on the European side of the city, Leo watched the sprawling metropolis pass outside their windows in a blur of vibrant color and muted sound that reminded him of Rome. He was instantly struck by the similarity of the two ancient cities. Not only were they both dominated by seven hills, but Rome and Istanbul had once been major centers of the Roman Empire. In fact, after the Roman Emperor Constantine had made the city the new eastern capital of the Empire in 330 AD, it became widely known as the “City of Constantine” or
Constantinople
. Constantine himself wanted the city to be called
Nea Roma
, Latin for
New Rome
, but due to the confusion of having two cities with the same name, it never caught on. For almost 1600 years the city was called
Constantinople
, until the 1930’s, when Turkish authorities formally announced that the city would be called by its Turkish name—Istanbul.