The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (5 page)

Another member of the Sangreal Knighthood, no doubt,
I surmised.

‘I am on a research sabbatical,’ our host explained. ‘I feel far more useful in the field than behind a desk.’

Taylor was a slender figure of a man and, like many archaeologically inclined persons, redskinned from years in the sun. His dress was a casual mix of well-weathered English attire and Persian desert robes. His dark hair hung straight, clearly in need of a trim as it took considerable effort to keep it from falling over his eyes. His slight moustache and beard were very neat, however, giving him the overall appearance of a rather dashing and handsome man. Despite being around Lord Devere’s age, he had yet to marry. Still, if he were part of Malory’s boys’ club it was not uncommon for members to remain unattached, due to their pursuit of secret interests. Unless, like my own Lord Devere, who had been initiated into the ranks of the Sangreal Knighthood when he was still a boy, they were encouraged to marry a daughter of the blood for reasons of strengthening the ancient, holy line. My husband had distanced himself from the secret order after our marriage.

A large smile crossed Taylor’s face as he shook my husband’s hand. ‘The prodigal son returns!’

‘As a temporary observer only,’ my lord assured.

‘Quite. And where is the famous Lady Suffolk I have heard so much about?’

I was not surprised that Mr Taylor had yet to spot me. I was wearing the hooded white cloak of an Arab male, with a pair of summer trousers underneath and a white shirt that I’d borrowed from my youngest son before leaving London, as he was just my size. The ensemble was completed by the riding boots that the Duc de Guise had given me twenty years before, and they served me just as well on this journey as they had on my last. Victorian female attire had no place in the East, and especially not on an excavation site.

Taylor gave a laugh as my husband gestured in my direction.

I slid off my camel to approach, Cingar at my side.

‘You are just as I imagined you.’ Our host took my hand, but before he could kiss it, I changed our grip and shook his hand firmly.

‘How do you do, Mr Taylor.’ I let go of his hand and motioned to my associate. ‘This is a dear friend of mine, Mr Choron.’

Taylor shook the gypsy’s hand. ‘And what is the purpose of your visit to our excavation?’

Cingar didn’t like the suspicious inflection of Taylor’s voice. ‘I’m not here to loot if that is what you mean.’

I intervened before the situation turned ugly. Gypsies had a reputation for being nothing but a dirty bunch of thieves; an assumption that, in my experience, was completely unfounded. ‘Cingar’s purpose is personal. Lord Malory has sanctioned Mr Choron’s presence here, as they are friends of old.’

‘Well, any friend of Lord Malory’s is a friend indeed.’ Taylor made an effort to disperse the sudden chill in the atmosphere. ‘I assure you, I meant no offence by my enquiry, Mr Choron. The Fertile Crescent is a long way to come without an objective; I just wondered—’

‘Oh, I have an objective,’ Cingar said. It was true that neither he nor I knew what his purpose was, but if Chiara deemed that I would need her great-grandson’s aid on this journey, then it would be so.

‘All shall be made clear in time,’ I told Taylor, smiling broadly and changing the subject. ‘I gather that Lord Malory informed you that our eldest son would be accompanying us on this journey? Let me introduce you to him.’

‘So this is the youngest man ever to be awarded a fellowship at Cambridge, only to resign it in favour of a stint in the Near East.’ Taylor shook Levi’s hand firmly, impressed by the lad’s decision.

‘I would rather study the facts than the theory,’ Levi explained. ‘And I am confident that my decision will prove most rewarding.’

‘And so it shall,’ Mr Taylor agreed. ‘I believe that we may be unearthing the great Ziggurat of Ur.’ He pointed to the craggy peak of the Mound of Pitch, where fifty or so diggers were hard at work. ‘Come, let me show you.’

As we negotiated the scattered dig sites of the outer excavation, Levi noticed a young woman climb out of a hole in the ground and hold a rubbing up to the sun to inspect it. She was a local woman judging by her attire; between her long, simple dress and the scarf wrapped about her head and shoulders, only her face and her hands were exposed.

‘What is down that hole?’ Levi inquired of Taylor, pointing to where the young woman stood engrossed by her work.

‘It is a small burnt-brick building from a later period, and of no real significance.’ Taylor pointed to the mats that covered the large hole in the ground. ‘The walls are so high that the workmen have roofed it and use it as a shelter.’

‘So what is that young woman’s interest in the dwelling?’ Levi wondered.

‘I have no idea. She is my linguist…come, I’ll introduce you. Miss Koriche!’ he called ahead to the young woman.

She looked up, and was startled to find she had a rather large audience. She rolled up the rubbing, obviously to avoid showing it to us. ‘Mr Taylor.’ She nodded to acknowledge him, although judging from her tone he was not one of her favourite people. ‘Your new translators have arrived, I see.’

Taylor appeared exasperated by her comment. ‘These people are not here to replace you. I thought I had made that clear.’

‘I am Lady Suffolk, Miss Koriche.’ I stepped forward to introduce myself, holding out a hand to shake hers. The moment I touched her, I recognised her energy. ‘It was your translation I read in Lord Malory’s library—the account was very impressive,’ I said. ‘I am not a translator,’ I went on. ‘My son, Mr Levi Granville-Devere, is the expert on languages.’

I referred her to Levi, only to realise, when I noted how fondly he observed her, that this was the woman he had foreseen meeting here.

‘I am still a learner,’ Levi said, bowing to Miss Koriche. ‘I was hoping I might pick up a pointer or two while I am here.’

Miss Koriche appeared a little overwhelmed and embarrassed, so I continued with the introductions. ‘This is my husband, Lord Suffolk.’

My husband tipped his hat to her. ‘A mere spectator.’

‘And my dear friend Mr Choron.’ I directed her to Cingar, who held high two fingers and gave a wave.

‘Mysterious guest,’ he said, to vex Taylor.

‘Is that a rubbing you have there?’ Levi dispensed with the formalities, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

‘A small one.’ Miss Koriche downplayed her find.

‘I would dearly love to see a rubbing of an actual Sumerian text,’ Levi persisted, despite the linguist’s obvious reluctance to share.

‘We can go one better than that.’ Taylor pointed to the hole in the ground. ‘Come down and take a look at the original engraving.’

‘That would be splendid.’

Levi and Taylor both climbed down the ladder.

I noted Miss Koriche suppress an urge to protest; she was trying to hide something, which explained my son’s interest in this particular hole in the ground. I threw Miss Koriche a smile of consolation as I too climbed down into the dwelling.

It was a two-roomed ruin made of burnt brick with two arched doorways. Levi was inspecting the brickwork, which, unusually, was set in bitumen mortar, when he noticed something and moved in very close.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘These bricks have been stamped with an inscription.’ He turned to Mr Taylor. ‘Have you had this translated?’

‘I believe we have had it looked at.’ Taylor referred to Miss Koriche, who had followed us down into the pit.

‘As there are several eras of history all deposited on top of one another here, it is difficult to pin this dwelling to a specific period,’ Miss Koriche advised.

Her words faded as I wandered through one of the arched doorways and into the next room, where I found a quiet corner to place my hands upon the ancient brickwork.

One of my most developed psychic talents was psychometry, meaning that I could read the psychic imprints off inanimate objects. Levi had inherited this talent, which was how I knew he was lying about not being able to shed any light on the inscription that had him so intrigued.

As I focused on the atomic structure of the brick, the first thing I perceived was the cool darkness of being buried. As the memory worked backwards, the dirt receded and the dwelling reconstructed itself into the two-roomed dwelling Taylor had claimed it to be. It was not the abode of simple folk, however; it was a temple shrine dedicated to a god-king that I did not recognise. The symbol featured on the walls was that of an ibis sitting on a perch; I made a mental note of it to reference later. Sunlight penetrated the dwelling and, looking to the light, I spotted an arched doorway that led outside. I directed my consciousness to move in that direction…a brick pavement led straight ahead between two tall walls to a wide-open space. I was awestruck as I found myself standing on a high level platform of the great ziggurat, overlooking the huge paved inner courtyard. I turned to look in the direction of the Mound of Pitch: there stood the grand uppermost
level of the ziggurat, but another huge shrine was located there.

‘Are you coming, my dear?’ My husband’s voice startled me back to the present.

‘Yes,’ I called back to him in the other room. ‘Just a moment.’

My eyes scanned the earthen floor; my psychic perception clearly defined that there was more to this structure, directly beneath us, even though I didn’t recall any stairs in my vision of the little shrine. I noticed the earthen floor dipped considerably near the far wall, where someone had been digging. The brickwork differed there; a closer inspection confirmed the bricks were stamped with an entirely different inscription.

‘Must be from an earlier period,’ I muttered to myself. Sensing someone behind me, I turned to confront my husband.

‘Find something interesting?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ I replied, taking his arm to leave. I would return later to investigate these older bricks.

Lord Devere leaned close to whisper in my ear, ‘Liar.’

‘Later,’ I returned, just as quietly, and, satisfied he had the truth out of me, he let the matter rest.

As we climbed the ladder out of the pit, Levi was still discussing the finer points of Sumerian text with Miss Koriche. ‘Go on without me,’ he told us. ‘I shall catch up.’

Both Lord Devere and I had to struggle to repress a smug grin.

‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Koriche,’ I said.

‘We shall see you again,’ Lord Devere concluded.

‘The ziggurat is a peculiar feature of Sumerian architecture,’ Taylor explained. ‘The people who settled the Euphrates Valley came down from the hilly country in the east and, finding themselves on vast level plains, set about building a “high place” where they could worship their gods and keep watch for their enemies.

‘The ruins at Ur are, in the main, the remains of the great ziggurat built by Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty. However, his was only the last of many such structures to have been built on the site since a much earlier dynastic period.’

Taylor’s lecture was fascinating, but quite frankly I was surprised that anything had been dug out of the ground here in one piece.

Taylor’s main objective was to find sacred relics and texts to enrich the shelves of the British Museum (and the secret brotherhood’s library, no doubt) and in his haste to do so, little consideration was being paid to the excavation itself. A lack of experienced excavators meant that the ruins were
being butchered by the local workmen’s picks, and Taylor complained that more often than not the small precious finds that were exposed in the course of the digging were pocketed by the workmen and sold privately. He had ordered security checks of personnel at the end of each shift, which at first had exposed some of the thieves, but it had failed to be an effective long-term solution, and even spot checks had failed to catch any further looters. It seemed the men had found another means to smuggle out their little treasures.

Over dinner I inquired if anyone could remind me which ancient god was depicted by the glyph of an ibis sitting on a perch. Levi informed me that the ibis was the symbol of Thoth, the scribe of the gods.

I waited until the dishes from the main course were being cleared away to bring up the subject of the two-roomed ruin, to avoid this topic being connected with my question about the symbol.

‘Mr Taylor, I have a bone to pick with you,’ I began.

‘Already, Lady Suffolk?’ Taylor replied in good humour.

‘I am afraid so.’ I kept my tone light but professional. ‘It is in regard to the two-roomed dwelling we inspected today.’

‘What of it?’

‘Unlike you, Mr Taylor, I believe that no archaeological find is insignificant and I really do not think that you should be allowing the discovery to be used as a shelter. On behalf of the authority vested in me by Lord Malory, I would like to ask that you have the area vacated pending further investigation.’

‘But there was nothing found there of any value whatsoever, bar the inscriptions on a few bricks.’ Taylor couldn’t understand my concern.

‘However, as Miss Koriche mentioned earlier, there are many layers of history compacted together in these ruins.’ I looked to the linguist, who forced a smile in acknowledgement of my credit. Despite this, I sensed she was concerned by my interest in the dwelling. ‘Thus, why run the risk of damaging the find further? Huts are for shelter, Mr Taylor; an excavation site is for excavating. Even if you have no interest in such a find, please consider the archaeologists who will follow you here and leave the structures as intact as possible for their reference.’

Obviously Taylor felt a little perturbed by my lecture. ‘As Lord Malory has claimed many times, you give wise counsel indeed, my lady.’

‘So you will have the dwelling vacated?’ I pressed.

‘First thing tomorrow,’ he assured me, holding up his glass to decree that the matter was settled.

‘But what of the men who have made the dwelling their temporary home?’ Miss Koriche protested on behalf of the locals.

I was surprised by her stance and took the opportunity to expose something of her little secret.

‘I am sure Mr Taylor will see them suitably relocated,’ I said. ‘As a scholar, Miss Koriche, I had rather expected that you would be eager to see the site properly preserved.’

‘Of course.’ She realised her error in speaking up. She placed her napkin on the table and stood. ‘Could you all please excuse me? I have just remembered something that I must attend to.’

Everyone at the table stood to bid her a good night.

From her light-body I could tell that Miss Koriche was a good person and yet I knew that she could not be trusted. She had a hidden agenda, and something told me that her quest and ours were about to cause a very disagreeable collision.

First thing after breakfast the next day I headed over to the two-roomed dwelling that Taylor assured me had been vacated and was now off limits to the general site staff until further notice. Lord Devere, who had extracted all my psychic observations from me in the privacy of our room the previous night, accompanied me on my investigation.

Down in the pit’s second room, I was not surprised to find that more of the older brickwork had been exposed since I had been there yesterday. The labour had not yet found the floor of the lower dwelling, however, and, considering the height of the walls around us, there might still be quite a dig ahead.

‘A last attempt by the workmen to find a little treasure in here?’ My husband suggested a reason for the fresh effort.

‘Or a last attempt by a linguist expecting to find something in particular?’

‘You do not trust Miss Koriche,’ he observed.

‘And she does not trust us,’ I retorted.

‘No, Mother, it is Mr Taylor that Miss Koriche does not trust.’ Levi stood in the archway between the two rooms, covered in dirt.

‘You did this?’ I referred to the freshly dug soil.

‘I did,’ he grinned, ‘with some help from the men we evicted. I paid them, naturally.’

‘And what inspired this sudden burst of energy?’ I asked, keen to know how much he had already discovered.

‘The dwelling we stand in is not of a later period, as Taylor suspects, but dates back to around the fourteenth century BC, to the time of the Kassite king Kuri-gulzu,’ Levi began.

‘It was his name stamped on the bricks?’ I interrupted, and my son nodded. ‘Miss Koriche told you this?’

Levi could tell that I was still wary of the woman he was so taken with. ‘I can read the glyphs, as you know,’ he said, ‘but Miss Koriche has been deciphering a king list inscribed on an ancient clay column, and from this we were able to deduce a rough time line. The older bricks date back much further, to the time of the Larsa king Ishme-dagan. The rubbing that Miss Koriche took from the wall in the other room yesterday confirms that Kurigulzu restored the ancient house, which, from days of old, had been decayed. He rebuilt the four sides and restored the E-dublal-makh to its glory, by making good its foundation.’

‘In other words, he built over the top of the old ziggurat,’ I said.

Levi nodded. ‘However, he did not follow its design exactly. The original ziggurat was smaller, with many temples outlying and, I suspect, underlying too. See for yourself.’ He motioned to the bricks I had taken an interest in the previous day.

Without further ado I placed both palms flush against the brickwork, then turned my focus inward to perceive the history of the wall before me.

The two-roomed dwelling I stood in crumbled to the ground and vanished. Above me, night and day, dark and light, flashed by in a heartbeat over and over, creating a rapid pulsing effect. Beneath my feet there was a pounding sensation, and in a great explosion of fire a building erected itself underneath me. I floated down to stand on the uppermost level of a far grander ziggurat than the first, for even though it was not of the same huge proportions, the detailing on the architecture was far more intricate and beautiful. Indeed, the whole design of the building was a masterpiece. In the entire structure there was not one straight line; every wall and every walkway was a carefully calculated curve, creating the same optical illusion that the builders of the Greek Parthenon were to achieve many centuries later. To my right, the platform on which I stood dropped to an amazing garden courtyard, so lush with vegetation that it could have been in Europe. In fact, there were hanging gardens adorning every level and corner of the structure. To my left was a sheer drop off the side of the ziggurat and a view of the city below, which was also reminiscent of Ancient Greece. Some of the grand dwellings appeared well aged already and had probably been built in an earlier period. I was amazed to see manmade waterways running through every level of the great ziggurat and also through the city below. Surely, if one were able to stand and admire the ancient city of Atlantis from such a viewpoint, it would appear very much like this.

Look behind you.

I perceived Levi’s instruction and swung my consciousness around to see stairs leading downward into the ziggurat.

I followed the brick staircase down to a long corridor that was lined with twelve huge golden statues, six goddesses and six gods, placed in a male-female pattern. In the centre of the six sentinels, a huge golden orb was set in the wall. In the centre of this orb was the all-seeing eye and inside the pupil was a lotus, the flower of life. On the outer wall, long, thin slitted windows allowed the rising sun’s rays to warm the statues. One end of the long corridor curved around a corner. The other end—that closest to me—led to a large arched doorway adorned with jewels and painted gold. Inside was a shrine bearing the same ibis glyph that I had seen in the site that would later be built above it. A large stone altar stood in the centre, on which to place offerings. This centrepiece was covered with glyphs that I could not read.

‘
It is a discourse about the god to whom this shrine is dedicated,
Levi told me. ‘
It begins:

The venerable Ibis, heart of the Sun and the Moon shining in the Heavens, who brings the knowledge that was faraway that giveth Life to men. The Universal Benefactor, splendid in speech, astute in his plans, the Orderer of Fate, the Gracious One who can avert this evil. Lord of Eternity, Magic and Script. The Reckoner of Time for Gods and Men. The Lord of the Amulet and Scribe of the Divine Book that gives breath to the weary of heart. The Golden Youth who came forth from the Lotus Flower will be thrice born. The Guardian of the Island of Blue Flame, who tests the hearts of men in the Hall of Life, beneath the Ray of Force, awaits the next aspirant…

My curiosity pulled me from my trance and back into the present. ‘So what is the shrine of Thoth, an
ancient Egyptian god, doing in a Sumerian structure?’ I asked.

‘Nowhere in the discourse did the scribe name the god in question,’ Levi said. ‘It is only from our modern understanding that we recognise the god spoken of as having the attributes of the Egyptian god Thoth, or the Greeks’ Hermes. In Mesopotamia he was the youngest son of Enki, Ningizzida, Lord of the Tree of Truth. In Roman myth he was known as Mercury, son of Zeus and so on. I thought the choice of stone for the altar rather curious,’ Levi went on. ‘Very hard to come by in this neck of the woods at the time. That altar was built to last.’

‘Yes, everything else was built of mud brick,’ I said. ‘And judging by the size, it wasn’t to be moved either!’ A thought came to me. ‘You’re not going to try and dig down to the altar, are you?’

‘Hardly,’ Levi said. ‘That would be more like tunnelling and it would take an age. I wish to dig to the next level of flooring, as, according to the impression I perceived from these walls, the staircase that descends to the level of the old shrine was enclosed to accommodate the rebuilding of the newer, higher ziggurat.’

‘The Guardian of the Island of Blue Flame…’
I thought back over the inscription. ‘Could this refer to the plane of Sharon and the Fire-Stone that grants entry to that realm?’

‘In ancient Egyptian cosmology, there is a place known as Amenti,’ Levi said, ‘which has been mistakenly construed as an abode of the dead. Unlike the Egyptian underworld, however, where the souls of the deceased are judged by Osiris and punished or rewarded for their deeds, I understand
Amenti is more correctly translated to mean “the hidden place”, where dwell the souls of the eternally living who guard a blue flame that is said to hold the blueprint of human evolution on this planet. Hathor was considered to be the Lady of Amenti and Thoth was the scribe. Among the outer chambers of Amenti is the Hall of Records, reputed to hold the writings of the scribe Thoth and the ancient doctrines of Atlantis. In some esoteric circles, Amenti was believed to be located beneath the sunken city of Atlantis; others claimed it was beneath Giza. It does not exist on the physical plane, however; on that point everyone agrees.’

Footsteps on the ladder alerted us to company.

I gave myself a quiet scolding—I should not have been discussing the Fire-Stone in the open where we could be easily overheard; it was better that that ancient mystery remain buried.

‘Miss Koriche.’ Levi greeted our intruder warmly.

She had a smile for him too.

‘The workmen are wondering if you wish to employ their services in this part of the dig today?’ she queried, almost playfully. Then, noting the presence of Lord Devere and myself, she quickly concealed her openness towards Levi with a more professional countenance.

‘You can tell the workmen that I would very much like to employ them today,’ Levi said. ‘Let us see if our hunch about finding some of the old structure underneath this one proves correct.’

Miss Koriche’s smile returned. ‘I fear Mr Taylor is not going to welcome your interest in this area. I have suggested many times that this ruin is worthy of further investigation, but he will not listen.’

‘Well, I am listening,’ Levi assured her, ‘and as Mother and I both agree with you—’

Do we?
I thought at him, although outwardly I served him a supportive smile.

‘—Mr Taylor will just have to grin and bear it,’ Levi finished.

Miss Koriche climbed back up the ladder, presumably to recruit a small work force. ‘Your presence here is proving far more fortuitous than I expected,’ she told Levi.

‘I am comforted to hear you say so,’ Levi called after her.

Then, looking back to us and seeing the odd look on our faces, he said, ‘What?’

‘I am not here to fall in love.’
I repeated the claim he had made just before landing in Persia.