Area 51: Excalibur-6 (2 page)

"Maybe you haven't been looking closely enough," Khufu muttered. Building the pyramid had certainly been a feat worthy of some reward from the Gods, he mused.

Even with the Gods' drawings, his engineer priests had been fearful they could not do it. Others had tried on a smaller scale in other places, testing the design, and none had succeeded, such as the one that had collapsed on itself at Saqqara. Using the practical knowledge learned from those attempts over the centuries and the Gods' plan, Khufu had felt confident he could succeed—and he had.

They reached a junction. The path to the right was level. To the other side, the path curved left and down. Khufu had been taught the directions even though, as far as he knew, no one in his line of Pharaohs had ever actually been down there. The Pharaohs ruled above, but the Gods ruled there.

He turned left. It was cool in the tunnel but Khufu was sweating. He who had watched ten thousand put to death in one day on his orders after a battle. He who held absolute rule over the lives of his people felt fear for the first time in his life. But burning through the fear was hope, for he kept reminding himself what his father had told him—that inside the Roads of Rostau, hidden under the Earth, there was indeed the key to immortality, the golden Grail of the Gods that had been promised. And that there would be a day when the Gods would grant that to the chosen. Despite Asim's pessimism, was today the day, and was he the chosen one? After all, as Asim had noted, he had completed the Great Pyramid that season after twenty years of labor, a

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marvel indeed, exactly according to the plans left behind by the Gods. And he had put the red capstone up there, a thing that had come out of one of the duats down here, dragged to the surface by Asim and his priests under the cover of darkness.

The tunnel ended at a stone wall. Asim used the medallion around his neck, placing it against a slight depression in the center of the stone. The outline of a door appeared, then the rock slid up. Asim stepped aside and motioned for the Pharaoh to enter. Khufu stepped through, into a small, circular cavern, about twenty feet wide. In the very center was a tall, narrow red crystal, three feet high and six inches in diameter, the multifaceted surface glinting. Set in the top of the crystal was the handle of a sword. Khufu walked forward, drawn irresistibly toward the crystal. Asim was at his side now. An ornate sheath could be seen buried deep inside the crystal. The Pharaoh had never seen such crystal or metal worked so finely.

"It is called Excalibur," Asim said. "Take hold of the sword, my Pharaoh. Remove it from the crystal."

Khufu reached down and grabbed the handle of the sword. The sword, still covered by the sheath, slid smoothly out of the crystal.

"Now free the blade, my lord."

Khufu hesitated. "Why?"

"My Pharaoh, it will free the red capstone we just put on top of the pyramid to act outside of itself."

"That makes no sense. What can the capstone do?"

"I am telling you only what I was instructed, my lord. It is important."

Khufu began to draw back the blade. A shock coursed out of the handle through his hand and into his body as he pulled it out of the sheath.

Khufu staggered back as a golden glow filled the entire

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chamber. Khufu blinked as the smoothly cut walls flickered and came to life. A flurry of images flashed across them, so quickly he could barely note them: a massive golden palace that dwarfed the pyramid he had just built set on a hill above a beautiful city of white stone surrounded by seven moats of water; a wave-battered island with three volcanic mountains in each corner sitting alone in an endless ocean; a rocky uninhabited desert with mountains surrounding a dry lake bed; a desolate land swept by snow and ice; a strange land where the sand was red and a massive mountain dominated the horizon, and other images flashing by faster and faster so that he lost track. In some manner, he felt a connection to all those places.

Suddenly the walls went black, then a new image appeared, of a field of stars, so many Khufu could not even begin to count, and the stars were moving rapidly, wheeling across the walls.

Then blank again, before revealing a view of the surface above but from a perspective he didn't recognize at first. He could see the Sphinx and the Nile beyond as if from a great height and he then realized that in some manner, the walls in this deep cavern were reflecting the view from the top of the Great Pyramid. He was surprised to see that the red capstone was now glowing as if lit from within.

He started as a seven-foot-high red line appeared between him and the vision on the walls. The line wavered, then widened until a figure appeared, a twin to the statue above. Yet Khufu could see through the figure, to the display on the wall.

He was trying to take all this in when the figure began speaking. The speech was singsong, in a language the Pharaoh had never heard.

"Do you understand the words?" he asked Asim, his voice a whisper as if the image could hear.

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"It is the language of the Gods, my lord. I was taught as much of the language as has been passed down and remembered among the high priests."

Khufu waited impatiently for the priest to translate.

"It was hoped the Great Pyramid would bring more of the Gods," Asim finally said, his head cocked to one side, his single eye closed as he listened closely and tried to understand. "That was the design." Asim's thin tongue snaked around his lips as he listened further. "It has not worked that way. Instead an enemy comes." Asim's good arm slowly raised until it pointed upward. "From the sky above."

Khufu looked at the ceiling of the chamber. He could see the sky displayed. It was clear, not a cloud or bird visible.

"What kind of enemy?" Khufu asked, but Asim was again listening and didn't respond right away.

"The Ancient Enemy of the Gods," Asim finally said. "The killer of all life. The enemy with the patience of"— Asim shook his head—"I know not the word, but something like the patience of a stone, infinite. And the specific word for the enemy, the closest I can come to is when the locusts gather—a Swarm."

Khufu had seen swarms of locusts so thick they made day into night passing overhead. When they alighted in a field, they stripped it bare within minutes.

He tried to imagine a Swarm that could be a threat to the Gods but could not conceive of it. The vision continued speaking, the sound almost like that of a bird, Khufu thought.

'The capstone—what it calls the Master Guardian—will stop the Ancient Enemy,"

Asim finally said as the vision ceased speaking. "Excalibur controls the power to the Guardian. While the sword is inside the sheath the Master Guardian cannot work. You have freed it and thus the Master Guardian has power. The Master Guardian can now take action against the Ancient Enemy."

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Khufu turned to the priest. "How will this Master Guardian do this? What Ancient Enemy?"

Asim was looking up. He pointed at the display on the roof of the cavern that showed the sky above the pyramid. "That enemy, my lord."

Khufu looked up and blinked. There was a dark spot high in the sky, rapidly growing larger. As it descended it began to take shape and Khufu felt his stomach knot and twist with fear. It was a large black flying spider—that was the only thing he could think. Eight legs, spread wide around a central, round body. And large—how big he had no idea, but its shadow was now covering the top of the pyramid.

"How will the Guardian fight this?" Khufu whispered.

"You have given it power by removing Excalibur from the sheath," Asim repeated.

"Watch the power of the Gods, my lord."

Khufu wanted to strangle the priest. He could not tear his eyes from the rapidly approaching monster. Suddenly a golden orb of power streaked upward from the Master Guardian toward the object and hit it. The spider jerked sideways. Khufu kept his eyes on it and a second golden orb raced into the sky and struck the enemy. Bright red flames burst out of the side of the flying spider and it jerked once more, now going upward, trying to escape.

A third golden orb hit it and enveloped the entire object. It was still going higher and higher, edging toward the west. Khufu staggered back as there was a blinding explosion. When he looked up, the sky was clear.

The golden glow inside the chamber decreased and Khufu almost collapsed, feeling drained. The Pharaoh started as the image began speaking again.

"We are safe for now," Asim translated. "But"—he paused as he translated, eye closed—"it is not safe."

"What isn't safe?" Khufu demanded.

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"The Great Pyramid. The Master Guardian. The pyramid did not work as intended.

It summoned the Ancient Enemy and not the Gods of old. If the Ancient Enemy came once, it can come again. What drew it here must be destroyed."

The figure chimed on for a minute and Asim remained silent, until the figure stopped speaking, coalesced into a thin red line, then disappeared.

Asim opened his eye. "I have been told what is to be done. Put the blade back in the sheath, my Pharaoh."

Khufu slid the blade into the scabbard.

"Come, my lord." Asim was hobbling toward the tunnel. "There is much to do."

So stunned was the Pharaoh by the recent events that he didn't even question being ordered about by the priest. He simply followed him out of the chamber, the covered sword in his hands.

Wreckage from the scout ship tumbled toward the empty desert west of Giza. Among the debris was a black pod, approximately fifteen feet across, the metal surface unmarred by the explosion. As the pod approached the surface of the planet, its terminal velocity began to slow as some internal mechanism interacted with the planet's electromagnetic field. Still, it was moving so fast the outer surface gave off heat, glowing in the sky like a falling star. Despite slowing, the pod hit a dune with enough velocity to plow deep into the sand. It was completely covered when the pod came to rest, submerged twenty feet in the desert.

An hour after the crash, a camel rider approached. A Libyan who was heading toward Cairo to do some trading, he'd seen the falling star from his caravan ten miles to the south. Leaving his son in charge, he'd ridden in the direction the object had fallen, curiosity pulling him across the sand.

He'd already passed places where it was obvious objects

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from the sky had impacted in the desert, but whatever had hit, they were deeply buried under the sand. He approached a sixty-foot-high sand dune and noted the disturbed surface near the top indicating another impact. The Libyan halted his camel at the base of the dune and dismounted. His robe flapped in a stiff breeze and all but his eyes was covered with cloth wrapped around his head.

The Libyan paused, his head swinging back and forth as he looked about. He had the sense of being followed, but his eyes detected no sign of another person.

He'd had the feeling for a while, but there was no evidence to support the instinct.

He cocked his head as he heard a sound. A grinding noise. Then nothing but the wind for several moments. He took several steps closer to the dune where the sound had seemed to come from. Then he heard something different. Almost a slithering sound. He took half a step back, then paused. There was something inside the dune. Of that there was no doubt in his mind. He looked left and right but there was no movement. He could feel the heat of the sun on his shoulders but a cold chill passed through his body. The Libyan drew a curved sword from his belt. The noise was getting louder.

Mustering his courage, the Libyan took several steps forward until he was at the base of the dune. The sound was very close now. The Libyan jabbed the point of his sword into the dune, the blade easily spearing the sand. He did it again and then again.

He pulled the blade back and cocked his head. Nothing.

The tentacles came out of the sand underneath his feet, wrapping around his legs. He was pulled under, desperately trying to slash and stab with his sword at whatever was below him. His scream was cut off as he disappeared under the sand. His camel bolted off into the desert, desperate to get away.

Then all was still.

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A quarter mile away, on the far side of a dune, two dark eyes had watched the encounter. The possessor of the eyes waited a few moments, staring at the spot where the Libyan had disappeared, then he slowly slid down the side of the dune to his waiting camel. He headed back the way he had come, toward Giza. The sun glinted off a large ring set on the man's right hand, highlighting the eye symbol etched on its surface. The hand the ring was on held the camel's halter, but it was shaking so badly from fright, that he had to let go and allow the camel to make its own way home.

It was the middle of the night and by order of the great Pharaoh Khufu no one was allowed outdoors in sight of the Giza Plateau except himself and his high priest Asim. Given the strange apparition the previous day of the flying

"spider," no citizens tried to resist the command. Khufu and Asim stood on the roof of the temple at the base of the pyramid. The night sky was clear. The red capstone no longer glowed as if lit from within as Khufu had Excalibur inside the scabbard now strapped to his own sword belt.

Khufu could still see in his mind's eye the black spider that had come down from the sky. He did not understand what it was, but there was no doubt in him that it was a danger. Whatever entity controlled such a flying creature and was capable of fighting the Gods was indeed something to be feared.

"What are we waiting for?"

"When the sword is in the sheath, the"—Asim searched for the right words—

"Chariots of the Gods cannot approach the capstone. You must take the blade out once more."

Khufu drew the weapon. He watched as the capstone glowed once more.

Asim continued. "Since you have removed the sword, the capstone can be approached."

"By who? What Chariot of the Gods?"

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"There, lord." Asim was pointing to the north.

Something was approaching through the sky. Khufu started, and then realized it wasn't another air-spider. This object was shaped like an inverted dish and golden, reminding him of the glow that had surrounded him in the chamber far below during the day.