The light peaked and then subsided, revealing a fourth creature standing before the ark.
He ran out to intercept Fallon and the mercenaries. The latter, taking note of his approach, shifted their guns toward him, but he ignored them, focusing on the billionaire. “Tell your robots to stand down.”
Fallon gaped at him for a moment, processing the request, then turned toward the four remaining automatons. He cupped a hand over his mouth and shouted: “Secure and remove!”
In unison, the four robots let go of Lazarus, dropping him in a heap on the cavern floor, and then began moving toward the Ark.
“No,” Pierce protested. “Get them away from—”
A bright flash and the harsh pop of an electrical current ionizing the air around the humanoid machines drowned out his warning. Their circuits fried by the discharge, the four robots fell over like broken toy soldiers.
Pierce shook his head in frustration then turned to Fallon again. “Stay the hell away from that thing! You’ll get us all killed.”
Then, ignoring his own advice, he sprinted across the chamber, maneuvering around one of the slow-moving shekinah creatures, to reach the supine form of Lazarus. The big man’s face was twisted into a rictus of pain — not from his injuries but from the expedited healing process. Pierce knew all too well how vulnerable Lazarus was at this instant, not physically but psychologically. Lazarus’s mental discipline did not make him immune to the agony that accompanied rapid cellular regeneration. But it enabled him to keep the madness that accompanied it at bay. If that discipline slipped…
A few steps away, the light around the Ark was reaching another peak.
“Erik. We’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
Lazarus’s eyes flew open and locked onto Pierce. For a fleeting instant, Pierce feared his friend had crossed the threshold. But instead of tearing Pierce’s head off, Lazarus sprang to his feet. There was a hint of wildness in his expression as he looked around, taking in his surroundings, catching up. Then he nodded.
Pierce turned and led the way back to the Tabernacle at a run, reaching it just a few seconds after Fallon and his men. The mercenaries were holding their weapons up tentatively, as if uncertain whether they were supposed to be guarding the others. When Carter ran to Lazarus and threw her arms around him, the men bristled, as if she was about to attack them.
“Put those things away,” Pierce snapped, directing most of his ire at Fallon. “Tell your goons to stay out of the way, and we just might all walk out of here.”
Without waiting for a reply, he moved past to join the others and addressed Mateos. “Tell the Abba to get suited up. We need him to keep the shekinahs from killing us all, long enough to get the Ark into the Most Holy.”
Mateos relayed this to Tesfa, who nodded and reached for the bundle containing the ancient priestly garments. Even with an efficiency borne of practice, it took a couple of minutes for Tesfa to get outfitted, during which time the shekinah glory cycled three more times. But despite the urgency of the situation, Pierce marveled as he beheld ancient holy artifacts that only a handful of living people had ever seen.
After the tunic-like ephod and the gem-encrusted hoshen breast plate were donned, Mateos settled the turban onto the monk’s head. Pierce glimpsed the writing on the golden crown but didn’t recognize the script — it definitely was not Hebrew.
Fiona recognized it though. “That’s the Mother Tongue,” she whispered. “I can’t tell what it says though.”
Despite her unique abilities, Fiona was by no means literate in the forgotten language of God. She had memorized certain phrases, and had used her knowledge of the Siletz tribal language to estimate others, but the script was indecipherable. There were hardly any existing samples of it, which meant that even figuring out its alphabet was a virtual impossibility.
“It’s the true name of God,” Pierce whispered back.
With the addition of the headgear, Mateos was left holding only a small cloth bag, tied shut with a length of red string. Pierce guessed that it held the two most mysterious artifacts associated with the High Priest of ancient Israel.
“Urim and Thummim,” he whispered, and he watched as Mateos opened the pouch and shook the contents into his palm, curious to see what they would really look like.
The first item was a smooth sphere of polished transparent crystal, about two inches in diameter.
Tesfa took it and slipped it behind the priestly breastplate.
Was that the Urim or the Thummin? Pierce wondered. Revelation or Truth?
Mateos gave the pouch a shake and something else rolled out, another sphere the same size as the first, but it was not a crystal or a stone. The object nestled in Mateos’s cupped palm was an orb of memory metal.
Of course, Pierce thought, resisting the impulse to smack his forehead.
Tesfa placed the second orb under the breastplate and signaled his readiness.
Pierce turned to the others. “Gus, get Fi into the Tabernacle and wait for us. Erik, you and Felice go with her. Fallon…” He fixed his stare on the other man. “If you care about making this right, we could use a hand.”
Fallon stared back in surprise, either at Pierce’s assertiveness or at the request itself. He narrowed his eyes. “We’ll help you get that thing in the tent, but we’re going to use it to control the Black Knight, not shut it down.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the mercenaries. “You heard him. Let’s go save the world.”
The men looked at each other and then back at Fallon. Even Pierce could see their hesitancy.
“This is why I prefer robots,” Fallon growled. “You do realize that if we don’t get out of here, you don’t get paid?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Pierce said, and turned back to the Ethiopian clergymen. “We have to do this, now.”
Tesfa was already moving, not waiting for a translation. Mateo followed him, and so did Pierce.
Lazarus stepped forward as well. “You need me out there,” he said.
Pierce nodded.
They encountered a shekinah as soon as they rounded the corner of the Tabernacle. Pierce was about to shout a warning, but Tesfa spoke first, raising his hand and chanting in what Pierce assumed was his native tongue. The words, Pierce knew, probably didn’t matter. Only the intention of the speaker, in tandem with the Originator artifacts he carried in his priestly garments.
The shambling thing stopped, turned and began moving away.
Pierce breathed a small sigh of relief, but there were at least a half-dozen more of the creatures on the floor of the auditorium chamber, all gravitating toward the group. And judging by the light level, there was about to be one more.
“Don’t look at it,” Pierce warned. “Keep your eyes shut!”
He covered his face with his hands, but despite these precautions, he could still see a bright swell of illumination accompanying the creation of yet another shekinah. Tesfa’s chant however, was keeping the living-light beasts at bay, parting them like Moses parted the Red Sea, clearing a path to the Ark. He lowered his hand and saw that they were almost there.
“When we get there,” he shouted, not looking back, “use the poles. Whatever you do, don’t touch the Ark itself.”