One Great Year (56 page)

“Where are we going? I thought you said we were going to go through the tourist entrance,” Elijah said, as Zahn turned toward the Sphinx.

Even though it was nearing midnight, there were many people milling around the area, pointing at the stars and remarking at their brightness.

“I've arranged passage for myself through the tourist entrance. If that is hindered, I will enter by cash or by force. You must enter through the Hall of Records. Your passage is through the Sphinx. We will reunite in the King's Chamber.”

“Why?”

“There is a question that can only be answered in the Halls of Amenti. You are one of three who have been prophesied to come from the west. I have prevented Marcus and Theron from fulfilling their destinies. They remain confined in Torres del Paine.”

Helghul thought of his dream of Marcus in the cenote.
Was Marcus still captive in Chile?
he wondered.

“Without them there will be no balance. The Pyramid will be activated long before the Golden Age, and without goodness and balance the Darkness will be perpetuated,” Grey Elder continued. “There is a phrase that must be spoken to initiate the process when we place the Emerald Tablet in the King's Chamber. I am not privy to this detail; only White Elder knows. But all knowledge is available in the Hall of Records, and all questions can be answered. You must ask for the words to initiate the process.”

“Why don't you come with me and ask yourself?”

“I cannot pass. You alone will be granted entry.”

“How will I enter? In my life as pharaoh, there were legends of the Hall of Records and the concourses between the Sphinx and the pyramids. I searched, but they do not exist,” Helghul said, as they stepped down into the trench surrounding the giant stone lion with its human head. A pair of soldiers passed close by, watching Zahn and Elijah curiously. The boy dropped his head, and they became silent.

“The tunnels exist. It is all in the timing. Pass the right front paw three times, just as you would have done at a stupa when you were Genghis Khan. The entrance will open for you,” Grey Elder instructed.

As Temujin would have done
, Helghul thought to himself as he began to pace.

Zahn stepped about ten feet away, farther from the lights at the base of the monolith, and blended into the shadows. The Emerald Tablet was tucked closely in its bag under his arm. As instructed, Elijah walked clockwise three times around the Sphinx, beginning at the right front paw. Zahn waited, listening to those passing by, watching for approaching soldiers, prepared to intervene if anyone came near.

On the third and final turn, the boy was confident … but the entrance did not appear. Nothing happened, and he looked to Zahn for an explanation. Together they stared at the solid statue with surprise.

Helghul had held some doubt that the entrance would open to him, a remnant of his disappointing days searching for the doorway as Alexander. Once again, he stood perplexed and shut out. Could Grey Elder have been mistaken? What would they do if the door did not appear?
Think!
he railed at himself.
Feel! Listen to your intuition! Why isn't it working?

“It's vibration. You must chant,” Zahn whispered cautiously.

“Yes,” Elijah answered. The eerie notes were indelibly etched into his deepest memory, and their recollection was always accompanied by images of the dark ceremony. He was reminded of the carnage and the vision of the parasitic Darkness as it had entered him and attached to his soul. The harrowing intensity of the energy swelled within him; his attention was a flame to its fire.

Elijah began again, this time droning the low, inharmonious chant. Once, twice, three times he walked clockwise the nearly one hundred and sixty yards around the Sphinx, humming. He returned to the right paw yet again and … nothing!
Was the entrance elsewhere? Did it exist at all? Was there a secret word or deed, or was the vibration inadequate?
Elijah looked to Grey Elder, but saw with alarm that his mentor was in an animated conversation with two suspicious army sentries.

“How would Temujin get in?” he mumbled, but he had tried that, and nothing new came to mind. Pace, pace, pace; he walked back and forth. Grey Elder was distracting the guards, but for how long?
How would Marcus get in?
he wondered, just as the guards turned to walk away, and Grey Elder simultaneously turned back toward the Sphinx in the
opposite
direction.

At that instant the answer came to him. His recent dream of Marcus had been a clue! The face of his counterbalance flashed through his mind, and he thought of them jumping, strangely united, into the cenote. Marcus would walk around the Sphinx clockwise three times, humming, just as he had already done. But he was not Marcus. Helghul knew what he must do.
Balance!

“I have it!” the boy hissed jubilantly to the Elder, who was scanning the sky and looking at his watch.

Instead of walking clockwise, Elijah proceeded
counter
clockwise, once again intoning the ancient mantra.

“Boy! Boy! What are you doing there?” a nearing soldier called out from the opposite side of the Sphinx.

Elijah began running, and just before the outsider reached him, he made his third and final turn. The Sphinx opened, as if it had lifted its paw, and he ducked quickly inside the narrow rabbit hole that had appeared. He slid in, knocking his hat off in his haste.

Elijah didn't hear the astonished exclamations of the soldier, who had been only steps behind and now held Elijah's fallen ball cap. The boy had simply disappeared. He was now a world away. Jubilantly, Zahn made his way toward the main entrance of the Great Pyramid, the Emerald Tablet protectively in tow.

The small Adversary stood easily inside the narrow tunnel that stretched out ahead of him. He dusted off the scraped, bloody flesh of his right elbow, flinching. His light jacket had torn through. He celebrated inwardly at having finally mastered the portal that he had sought so fervently in the past.

The corridor was lit, but Elijah could not understand by what source. There were no torches, no bulbs or crystals. There was no window or crack to the outside world, yet the passageway glowed dimly as he advanced.

Elijah came to a spiral staircase and proceeded downward. At the bottom he found another and another, until he had descended nine steep staircases in all and had walked for nearly thirty minutes. He worried that he was taking too long. He needed to reach the King's Chamber quickly. Grey Elder would be waiting.

The base of the ninth staircase rested in the center of a large stone room that was filled with shelves and tables bursting with scrolls, books, maps—every manner of preserving knowledge. Jutting out from the room there were nine long passageways.

As he paused, Elijah noticed that his injured elbow was still bleeding heavily. He thought of the cartoon bandages that his mother always carried in her purse, even once he had grown too old for them. The insignificant recollection instantly took him back to a time, less than a year earlier, when his ancient memory had been foggy and dull. A time when he was more Elijah and less Helghul. He had had a home, a bedroom with posters, and a quilt with a ratty corner that he had often chewed. Back then he had simply been a son to a loving mother. Mom … Eden …
Where was she now?
he wondered.

Movement to his left pulled him out of his reverie. Near the base of the staircase, waiting to greet Elijah, stood Red Elder. His long robe glowed and swished against the tile at his feet. His eyes were bright white and blue and bulged slightly. Helghul recognized the Elder instantly … but there was more. Something he was missing.

“Welcome, Initiate. I am the Keeper of Records … Red Elder … Hermes … also known by many other names before and after. Will you not greet me, Helghul?”

“You left us,” Elijah whispered, recognizing Jamie's spirit. The boy's grief bubbled up and overflowed. “You could have stayed with us,” he said sorrowfully, as a son to his father. For an instant he was simply an eleven-year-old boy grieving the loss of his dad. Elijah remembered their last trip together, snorkeling and surfing in the waves off the coast of Hawaii. Jamie had promised that Afghanistan would be brief, no big deal, and they would meet up again in Egypt. This time they would travel as a family for good.

“It was the way it was meant to be. It was not my choice to leave when I did, though I do not question it. You understand that lifetimes come and go,” Red Elder soothed.

Elijah stared at the record keeper. “You knew this would happen. You said we would meet in Egypt. You're
nothing
to me now,” he said bitterly, his Helghul-brain successfully squashing the sentimental boyhood pain that had spontaneously emerged.

“What is it that you seek?” Red Elder asked.

“I wish to know the phrase that will activate the great resonator.”

“As it is below, so it shall be above,” Red Elder answered automatically.

Elijah smirked at the simplicity of it and turned to leave. The mysterious light that had led him through the tunnels up until now was no longer visible. The nine hallways leading from the Hall of Records were dark. He didn't know where to go.

“There are many passages that one can take, Helghul,” Red Elder said.

“I must get to the King's Chamber,” the boy replied.

“You
choose
your destiny.”

“I have already chosen, just as
you
have,” Elijah said coolly, rejecting Red Elder's familiar karmic energy.

“Your destiny is uncertain. Find the space in your heart where the spirit of the Source resides. There is always choice,” Red Elder counseled.

“I wish to go to the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid,” Elijah declared, certain that his choice was decided.

“Like everyone who passes through these halls, you must first make a deposit before leaving. What knowledge have
you
to leave for the Keeper of Records?” Red Elder asked.

“There
is
no new knowledge. Since the First Tribe it has all been done before. The cycle repeats, a balance of all things light and dark, male and female. How am
I
to add anything new? Are these shelves not bursting with that same message, patterns and symbols written in a million ways and languages?” Elijah said, exasperated. He had to hurry.

“Your deposit has been recorded. Follow the path that lights unto you. Follow the Light.”

“I don't answer to
you
, I answer to a higher power,” Elijah replied. His vulnerable emotions had been smothered and denied existence. One of the corridors to his right began to glow.

After the first twenty yards, the tunnel leading from the Hall of Records was irregular. Piles of rock and debris littered the corridor, and Elijah had to climb and step carefully to make his way. It was taking so long: up, down, over, and under.

Eden's tunnel was quite a different experience. The floor and walls were smooth and honed. The strange light glowed up ahead and dimmed behind as she ran and jogged up a totally straight, subtle incline. She imagined she felt Elijah somewhere close by, and it spurred her forward. Would she meet Quinn and Nate? They had been separated, but would Marcus be waiting ahead when she found her son?

Quinn had stopped running. He slowed to a jog and then a walk, his chest heaving from exertion. How long would the tunnel be? How much farther would he have to go before he reached the Great Pyramid and hopefully found Theron?

While he walked, he tried not to think about Nate. Instead he contemplated the significance of returning to Egypt. Why the Great Pyramid? He had his theories. He knew that the Pyramid was not only an important symbol of ascension, but it was also the greatest of all resonators. The energy that it was capable of projecting was immense … but how? It hadn't functioned in millennia. It had been defaced and altered, and the Nile had dropped so significantly that the river no longer flowed near the base of the structure.

Despite its spiritual significance and intention, the Pyramid was an instrument, and it required certain conditions to function. Quinn wondered if somehow the marvel would again become operational.

Grey Elder had timed everything perfectly. There were many in league with the Darkness. Explosives just south of Aswan had succeeded in collapsing the nearly two-and-a-half-mile-long dam, which had been holding back the Nile in the Nasser reservoir since 1964. Insurgents, terrorists, it didn't matter who would be blamed; the political discord in the country and in those surrounding it made it easy for Zahn to have his way.

The Elder had ensured the dam was built decades before with a financial agreement struck in 1958.
³⁷
Grey Elder had then been chief aide to the premier of the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev. The influential mentor had stayed in the wings, pulling strings and making plans, while yet another of the Adversaries shouldered the notoriety and fame.

Though the Aswan Dam was a significant collaboration, Khrushchev was better remembered for his infamous role in the Cold War. Khrushchev had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Later that same year Khrushchev's esteemed aide and puppet master died, and Grey Elder was reborn as Oswald Zachariah Zahn in a tiny town in southern Texas.

The torrent from the destroyed dam was flooding the Nile basin and overtaking precious ruins, boats, and villages. Thousands of unsuspecting people drowned in their beds. The swell swept up everything in its path as it headed toward Giza. It was naturally drawn to Port Said, where it would dump into the Mediterranean Sea—but not before flooding the site of the Great Pyramid.

Quinn thought he was hearing things—he heard rushing wind just as something wet and cold scurried across his foot. He jumped in alarm, but it was only water—not a rat, as he had first suspected. Quinn had finally reached the Subterranean Chamber of the Pyramid, and it was filling with water. He didn't know how it had come to be, but he knew he must get to higher ground as quickly as possible.