Edward smiled at her, like he would his own daughter, if only he looked at his own daughter like that. She had betrayed him. Of that, he was certain, but he didn’t know why — after all he’d done for her. He looked around the temple. “Now that we’ve reached this point, do you have any idea how the hell we are going to get out of here again?”
Billie reached for a lever behind Poseidon and pulled. “That’s simple. We reset the three challenges, like this.”
The door opened behind them, as well as a number of doors behind that, so that they could simply walk out through the same entrance they came in.
“Okay, let’s go,” Edward said.
They climbed through the tunnel, across the stepping stones, past the swinging pendulum, which should have killed Edward, had it not been for his sacrifice. Then across the deep chasm, where the bridge remained after they worked out the right number of stones to move. And then through the tunnel with the cantilevered roof. Following the entrance tunnel, the dim light of the outside world became visible once more.
Billie stepped into the dismal sunlight of the pygmy’s jungle.
Mark picked her up in a joyous hug and said, “You did it Dr. Swan! By God, I thought for certain I was waiting for my death, and then the door popped open again.” He then noticed her more despondent appearance. “What’s wrong? Did you get it?”
“Someone beat us to it,” Billie mumbled under her breath.
“It was all for nothing.” For the first time, Billie heard Edward complain.
In the background the hundreds of pygmy warriors began to chant. Their weapons pounded the ground with a dire staccato. It could have been a warrior dance after victory, but as she studied them, Billie knew they were more sinister than that.
Mark looked at them, and said, “I guess we won’t have to worry about the end of the world, or stopping the cataclysmic event at Atlantis.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I think these pygmies are going to finish us now.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Through the forest of warrior pygmies came their leader, Zanzibe. He was smiling like a fiendish demon. It was impossible to tell whether or not this meant he was happy or angry. He approached with a knife in his hand. It was made of orichalcum and adorned with precious and semiprecious stones. Billie noticed that despite its ornamental appearance, the weapon still had a razor sharp edge.
Was that the weapon designed to kill his Gods?
It wouldn’t have surprised Billie in the least if these violent pygmies actually slaughtered their own creators. They may have worshiped the ancient people of Atlantis for eleven thousand years, but they were slaves to no one.
She didn’t bother to look for somewhere to run. They had passed the point of escape. Surrounded by hundreds of pygmy warriors, and deep in the jungle, their time had ended. Watching as the leader approached her, she noticed a heightened sensation in everything she did. Every precious breath of air she drew into her lungs, every smell, the constant drum of her own heartbeat in her chest, all made her feel alive.
“Zanzibe,” Billie said his name as he approached.
“Dr. Swan.” He grinned revealing a mouth full of white teeth, sharpened like fine spikes. “You are the first white people to have ever beaten the three challenges.”
“That’s great, but it was all for nothing.”
“Why so sad? You have what you came for. You reached the inner sanctum of the temple. Have you not?”
“Yes, but it has been looted and stripped until all written markings were entirely removed. There is nothing of any intellectual value for us there.”
“Yes. Before I became king some white men came with guns. They forced their way into the temple, and stripped it of everything.”
“The Nazis reached it!” Billie said.
“That’s the first I’ve heard about them getting this far,” Edward said.
“All this time, and Hitler’s little vermin still have the ability to kill millions of lives.”
The little pygmy bowed his head. “I’m sorry that you have traveled so far only to discover that what you searched for had been stolen years ago. Can I ask precisely what you seek?”
“How much do you know about the people who built this shrine?”
“You mean our Gods?”
“Yes.”
“They came from a land across the sea and were the most powerful of all, until the heavens became jealous and struck them from above with a million individual fires, until their land sank once more into the sea.”
“That’s about as much as we know about your Gods,” Billie confirmed. “In their first home, a machine survived the disaster, which has the power to create much good or death in the world. Legend has it that there is a code to activate the machine. It was so valuable, that the code was broken into two and then a shrine in two separate parts of the world stored one half each. We have already found one of the halves in mountains far away from here. The other half, we were hoping to find here.”
“Yes, I know about the code to Atlantis. People, before you have come in search of it. I wish I could help you. Maybe if I had something similar to see, then I could help. Perhaps I’ve seen it before.”
She looked at him, doubtful, and then handed her tablet over with the image of the second half of the code to Atlantis. The pygmy took it, and Billie asked, “Ever seen anything like this?”
The pygmy grinned. “As a matter of fact, Dr. Swan, I have.”
“Really, where?”
“Until recently, it was in the temple, just here.”
Her heart sank.
So it was destroyed then, and with it, all hope.
“There is nothing more we can do.”
“That’s not true.”
“Why? What else do you have in mind?”
“Because, my people built this temple thousands of years ago, as a tribute to the real Gods. They adorned the walls with gold — the closest metal to that which the God’s covered their own temple, which glowed red.”
“Your people built this temple?” Billie asked, in surprise.
The pygmy nodded his head.
“It’s not the original temple of Poseidon? It was a replica?” Edward said.
“Yes,” the pygmy replied.
Billie looked around. “But where’s the original?”
“The original was found by my great ancestors thousands upon thousands of years ago. But I’m afraid that when the Congo River swelled, our God’s shrine was flooded. For years, our men would swim into it and study it, so that we could recreate it exactly in their image. As the millennia went by, the mighty Congo grew, and soon only the strongest of swimmers could reach it. Now, it would be impossible to swim to such a depth.”
He grinned again. “But on your boat, Dr. Swan, I’m sure you would have the means to reach it!”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Andrew opened the second meeting of the Phoenix Resistance via video conference. Without wasting time with any of the formalities, or arcane rituals, Andrew began his rundown of their situation.
“So far we have followed Mr. Reilly and his companion to an Atlantean Temple, in the high altitude mountain of Kanchenjunga, which rests partly between Tibet, Nepal, and Sikkim. The place appears to be an 11,000-year-old cavern that stores the archives of the entire history of the people of Atlantis. I have been told that despite it being built after the destruction of Atlantis, it spans nearly a hundred thousand years’ worth of their documented history.”
It was news to some of the men within the society — but to others, he had said nothing they didn’t already know.
Andrew continued. “We have reason to believe the temple has recently been examined by Dr. Swan, and in doing so, she has found the location of the second temple. Our team are currently on Mount Kanchenjunga attempting to solve its numerous markings and notations. And work out where her team has gone.”