The ancestors of the Khmer people had once traveled halfway around the globe to avoid the Shadow and for many generations they had seemingly foiled the force that had destroyed their original homeland until the new gate opened upon their city. Their home before Cambodia had been the legacy of the ancient ones; the ones who knew the secrets of the Shadow and the Ones Before. Secrets that their descendants had forgotten or remembered only as myth.
On the edge of the Shadow’s fog a lone woman named Tam Nok now stood in an abandoned guard house made of large blocks of finely fit stone. The guard house was high on a ridge-line overlooking the fog that delineated the edges of the gate. But the fog, normally a swirling grayish yellow mixture, was now very dark, almost black and more solid than anyone remembered since fleeing Angkor Kol Ker.
Tam Nok stared out over the jungle, at the unearthly fog, toward where she knew the city lay. She was a priestess from Angkor Wat, taught all the knowledge that remained in the Khmer’s collective memory of the Ones Before and the Shadow. Sadly, and dangerously, that knowledge was incomplete. She had traveled here on foot to see the Shadow for herself and because the first stop of her journey lay inside the darkness in front of her.
Tam Nok was tall and slender, wrapped in a finely woven black cloak with red trim. Her eyes were slanted, her skin dark brown. Her black hair was cut short for functionality rather than style. At her waist a dagger hung in a sheath and on her back was a leather pack, containing what she would need to begin her journey. A bamboo case stuck out the top of the pack, both ends corked with a piece of wood. Inside lay precious documents, handed down through generations of priestesses.
Looking at the darkness, the priestess accepted one thing: the end was coming. The end for every living thing on the planet. The writings of the ancient ones indicated that the signs they were now seeing indicated they were approaching the point where danger would come again. The presence of the Shadow, darker than ever before over Angkor Kol Ker backed up those writings. The Earth was rumbling every so often, giving warning that the gods underneath were disturbed. There had been a great explosion in the ocean to the southeast. Ash had fallen for days afterward and a dark cloud darkened the day. The sky was still red as the sun set every night.
The writings handed down about the Ones Before said there was a way to survive, to fight back against the Shadow. But again, unfortunately, the writings were not complete. There was a Shield that the ancient ones had been given by the Ones Before. A Shield that worked against the creatures and beings in a gate. That could even shut a gate. But the Shield had been lost in a great battle, lost where the Khmer’s ancestors had come from. The ancient ones had won the battle but in the process lost their home and much of their knowledge and most especially, the Shield they had used to win the battle. Tam Nok would have to travel back the way they had come to search for it and the path was long and hard and she was uncertain of exactly where it was she was to go. She only knew where she was to start from.
On each corner of the guardhouse was a statue of a Naga- the seven-headed snake from the creation myth of the Khmer. The Khmer who did not honor the Ones Before. Who had lost the truth in the telling of the story over the years dissolving into legend. Even among the priests and priestesses, Tam Nok was aware that much of what she had been told had to be viewed warily to separate fact from fiction.
The inside walls of the guardhouse were covered with carvings and drawing. Some the scratchings of bored soldiers, but other markings obviously the work of skilled artisans. They told parts of the history of the Khmer, stretching back to the ancients’ ones and the Ones Before.
Tam Nok had been here four days studying the writing and drawings. According to the words, the Khmer had established Angkor Kol Ker, the city now abandoned in the fog, over five thousand years ago. The ancient ones had come from an island located in the sea beyond the sea. That had caused Tam Nok to sit and think. There was a great sea to the east, one that no sailor in known memory had ever crossed. To think there a sea beyond the land that no one had ever gone to caused her some concern, because she knew that her destination lay far away.
According to the writing, her ancestors left their island to escape the Shadow. They traveled far before settling here. And for many generations they thought they had succeeded in their evasion. And because of that feeling, much ancient wisdom had slowly been forgotten. And then the Shadow had come here.
Tam Nok knew about the failure here- the story of the coming of the Shadow over Angkor Kol Ker was too recent to have faded into legend. She was more interested in the island in the sea beyond the sea. It was described in some detaiclass="underline" rings of land and water, surrounding a central hill on which was a mighty temple and palace. Even at Angkor Wat where she had come from, the use of rings of water to protect those within was preserved.
But the water had not saved the ancient ones. The island was attacked by fire from the dark Shadow and decimated so completely it disappeared beneath the waves of the sea and the people scattered.
Tam Nok knew her people had come from the ocean, from the direction of the rising sun. But the ability to cross that sea had been lost- or perhaps deliberately forgotten as the generations passed. She could not go east. The writings she had told her there were others who had escaped and gone in different directions. And that she would have to find some of those others in order to uncover what she was looking for.
As the sun rose in the east, she shouldered her pack. She climbed down the stone stairs on the interior of the watchtower. Tam Nok turned toward the Shadow and began walking into the valley.
If she survived this first part, she still had a very long journey before her.
Chapter 3
Dane peered out the window of the helicopter and all he saw was open ocean. He held Chelsea’s leash tightly and scratched behind her ears to calm her down. She had been on helicopters before when they worked search and rescue and she had never liked the ride. The high pitch of the turbine engines caused her great discomfort. She strained against the leash, her tail thumping against Dane’s leg to show her displeasure.
Keeping tight hold, Dane slid down the red web seating, closer to Sin Fen, the only other occupant of the cargo bay of the two-bladed Chinook helicopter other than the crew chief. The middle of the cargo bay was full with two pallets of tied down gear.
Before getting on the chopper, they had taken a Navy transport from Andrews Air Force Base to Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station on the eastern tip of Puerto Rico. Throughout the trip, Sin Fen had maintained her silence, working on her lap top computer. Dane had spent the early part of the flight napping, catching up on lost sleep and then reading, going through several books he had purchased at the post exchange before they took off, when he had been able to shake Sin Fen for a few minutes.
Chelsea squeezed between Dane and Sin Fen and promptly collapsed, her belly on the toes of his shoes, her chin resting on her front paws, somehow feeling comforted lying in that spot.
“What’s the fallout from the nukes in the Atlantic?” Dane asked.
“I received the latest report from Foreman over the modem before we took off,” Sin Fen said. “The bombs all detonated on the ocean floor, at depths between one thousand and three thousand feet. The navy has sent ships and subs to do a survey, but we have to assume there was damage to the line between the plate tectonics. I think this was a test- like the United States used to test nukes in Nevada and the Russians in Novlaya Svetlanya. Checking yield and effect. The fact that the Shadow tested along the junction of tectonic plates shows their electromagnetic surveillance of those joints definitely has a purpose.