It was a fight they couldn’t win. Like it or not, Fallon had already checkmated them. The Ark was his.
The realization triggered the unlikeliest of memories, and Pierce turned to the others. “Fall back. Find somewhere to hide. Whatever you do, don’t look back.”
Gallo stared back. “You’re going to do something crazy, aren’t you?”
Pierce didn’t answer, but turned to the Ark and started tearing away the woven papyrus wrapping as the four robots closed in, multiple arms extended, metal fingers open like claws.
Fifty feet away, Lazarus let out a tortured roar. The robots surrounding him had each seized ahold of one of his extremities, lifting him off the ground, stretching him out between them, as if they intended to pull him apart. Pierce could see the strain on the big man’s face as he fought against them. The robots’ metal feet scraped across the floor, unable to get enough traction to dismember him, but that wasn’t going to stop them from trying. Every inch Lazarus gained, he lost almost as quickly.
With another howl, Lazarus pulled his arms in hard enough to slam two of the robots into each other.
The clang of metal striking metal and the crunch of breaking bones echoed throughout the cavern, but the robots did not let go. Lazarus slumped in their grasp, unmoving, unconscious.
Or worse.
Pierce knew he would never be able to endure the same level of punishment as Lazarus, so as the other robots closed in on him, he wormed his fingers into the papyrus mesh, curling them like hooks, and pulled with all his might.
The woven shroud tore down the middle like a dried corn husk. Pierce back-pedaled, ducking away from the grasping arms, but he did not let go of his double-handful of the reedy material. As he pulled it free, the ragged edges snagged the layered blankets underneath, pulling them loose as well, partially uncovering the golden prize they concealed.
The robots did not pursue him, but instead took up defensive positions at each corner of the relic, their quadruple-arms raised and ready to fend off any attack, defending it just as Fallon had ordered. Pierce however, had no intention of getting closer. For the first time since laying eyes on the still mostly hidden object, he knew with absolute certainty that he was in the presence of the true Ark of the Covenant.
The change was barely perceptible, but it was there. A faint hum, almost too low to be heard. A tingling against his skin like static electricity, growing more intense with each passing second. Pierce had a pretty good idea of what would happen next. He flung the tattered papyrus fragments aside and scrambled after Gallo, who was trying to shepherd the others toward the relative safety of the Tabernacle and shouting for them to look away from the Ark. Fiona and the two priests were on the move, but Carter hesitated, concerned about Lazarus.
“Felice!” Pierce shouted. “Cover your eyes.”
Just as he reached her, almost tackling her to the ground, there was a bright flash behind them and a loud, harsh pop. The air filled with the crisp tang of ozone and a fouler, fishy smell of burnt insulation. The tingling sensation had abated with the lightning-like discharge, so despite his own warning to Carter, Pierce risked a backward glance.
The four robots surrounding the Ark lay face down, unmoving under a haze of blue smoke.
For a few seconds though, that appeared to be the limit of the effect. Lazarus was still caught in the grip of the remaining automatons. Fallon and his mercenaries were blinking and rubbing their eyes like they had just looked into a camera flash, but they were not out of the fight.
Then things got really interesting.
Without waiting to explain, Pierce dragged Carter along with him, fast-walking to catch up with the others as the entire cavern began to fill with light. In the time it took them to reach the shelter of the far side of the Tabernacle, the reflection off the limestone walls was so bright that the shadow cast by the great tent was indistinguishable.
Then, just as quickly, the brilliance faded.
Carter tried to pull away, but Pierce held her back. “You don’t want to go out there.”
“But Erik—”
“He’ll be okay. We won’t.”
“What’s happening?”
“It is the Glory of God,” Mateos said in a grave voice.
Pierce had figured that out already. “Shekinah.”
“You should not have uncovered it.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Pierce muttered.
The older monk said something in his native tongue, and the bishop nodded to him. “Abba Tesfa says that the shekinah will create for itself a body from the very dust.”
“Just like the holy cows on Mount Sinai,” Fiona put in.
“It is very dangerous to approach the shekinah,” Mateos continued. “Abba Tesfa can command it to return to the Ark, but to do so, he must be wearing the priestly garments. And the Ark must be covered, or more will be created.”
Gallo called out. “It’s happening again!”
In the space of just a few seconds, the light level in the cavern increased again, building to a climax and then diminishing, as if a switch had been thrown.
The old monk began speaking again, his tone on the verge of panic.
“It should not be happening so quickly,” Mateos translated. “Something is not right.”
“It’s the Black Knight,” Fiona said. “Now that Tanaka turned it on, it’s drawing more power.”
Pierce heard the certainty in her voice, the same assuredness that had guided them out of Arkaim.
The light cycled again, the whole process taking less than thirty seconds.
“Stay here,” he said, as the peak brightness signaled the end, or rather the beginning of the next cycle. He ignored the questions of the others and darted out into the open.
The first thing he saw was Fallon huddled with his men against the wall, shielding their eyes. Then he saw the four robots holding a still unmoving Lazarus. They had gone statue still, as if awaiting new orders.
Then he saw the shekinah creatures.
There were three of them, horse-sized constructs that looked like living boulders with legs and horns. They were similar in some respects to Fiona’s golems, but as they moved, meandering in circles around the partially concealed Ark, brilliance shone through miniscule cracks in their solid shells, revealing the living light within.
Fiona’s words from Mount Sinai came back to him. The Originators made them to store the energy they harvested from the sun… Living energy inside a shell made of melted rock.
Now he understood. The Ark had been built to contain the Originator power collection machine, to which the Black Knight and the pieces of memory metal were all connected. When the Black Knight was dormant, the energy trickled into the Ark, but now the process had been kicked into high gear.
Pierce did a quick calculation. Three cycles so far, each creating a new shekinah creature, all in less than two minutes. In ten minutes, the cavern would be full of the creatures, each one a walking bomb.
The light from the Ark was getting brighter again.
“Fallon!” Pierce shouted. The other man’s head came up and turned in his direction. “Get over here. And stay away from those things.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Fallon rallied his men and began moving along the wall toward Pierce, even as the brilliance spiked toward maximum intensity. Pierce looked away to avoid being blinded. In the instant that he did, he saw tiny charcoal gray particles, like fibers of ash, blowing across the cavern floor. They bonded together in fibrous chains, like dust motes transforming into cobwebs, as they were drawn closer to the Ark.
This was how the shekinahs formed their bodies. Pierce recalled reading about a recently discovered phenomenon known as teslaphoresis, in which a strong electrical field caused carbon nanotubes to assemble into wires and even more complicated structures, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together on command. The Originators had evidently taken the process a step further, drawing carbon from dust particles on the cavern floor, maybe even pulling them out of the air, atom by atom, to form the shells that contained the living energy of the shekinah.