It wasn’t the tallest peak in the region, a mountain to the southeast being a few hundred feet taller, but it dominated the terrain all around. The locals called it Jabal Mosa for the Hebrew leader who had brought his people here on their Exodus from captivity in Egypt on the way to Israel. Of course, if one drew a straight line from Egypt to Israel, Jabal Mosa was not anywhere close to being on that line.
Even before the Israelites came to the foot of the mountain, the place was one of reverence for the people of the desert. They worshipped the moon God, Sin, for whom the entire peninsula was named, but the mountain was one they feared and avoided. There was always a cloud around the top of the peak, even on the clearest day, a most unnatural thing.
There was rumor of a creature, who might be a god but looked like a man, named Al-Iblis, who haunted the mountain and the surrounding area and who traveled to Egypt and other distant lands on occasion. This legend stretched so far back in time, that none had heard of a time when the shadow of Al-Iblis did not stretch over the desert.
Deep inside Jabal Mosa, which the Christians would not rename Mount Sinai for several centuries, Aspasia’s Shadow had cultivated his persona as Al-Iblis among the people of the desert for centuries. He had no Airlia blood running through his veins and thus was required every normal life span to return to Mount Sinai to have a new body regenerated and his memories and personality implanted into the new clone, much as he had been “born” with Aspasia’s memory and personality so many years before.
He carried these memories in a small device that hung on a chain around his neck in the form of two hands outstretched in prayer. It was called a ka and he kept it as updated as possible. Against the unlikely event he died while away from Mount Sinai, a fresh body was always ready in the regeneration tube and the memories through his last visit were in the Guardian computer. If he did not return by a specified year, the memories would be implanted, the body brought up to speed, and Aspasia’s Shadow would live once more, lacking only the most recent memories since the last update.
As alarms sounded and the Guardian informed him of the trouble in Egypt — that someone had penetrated the Roads of Rostau — Aspasia’s Shadow had other matters on his mind. He had just returned from a foray into the Mediterranean to assess the burgeoning civilization in Greece. He was impressed with what the humans were accomplishing, but they were millennia away from being a threat to Aspasia, who was his charge. However, the journey had taken a toll on his body and a fall from a horse while traversing Anatolia, which would later become Turkey, had wrenched his back, leaving him in agonizing pain.
Aspasia’s Shadow walked up to the Guardian computer — a golden pyramid buried deep in a chamber inside the mountain — and sat in a chair just in front of the ten-foot-high object. A golden glow came out of the Guardian and encompassed him. His body hurt, not only from the bad back but also from the arthritis that often plagued a human body beginning to succumb to age. He was immediately updated on the situation in Egypt from the various surveillance devices hidden there by the Airlia.
Great changes had occurred while he had been away and Aspasia’s Shadow slowly reviewed them.
The Assyrians had overthrown the Pharaoh and held sway in the land. And Vampyr had infiltrated the Roads and shut down the tubes of the four remaining Airlia. Aspasia’s Shadow was not surprised by that. He knew the power of vengeance and he had let Vampyr live this long, expecting such an outcome sooner or later. The six Airlia who had been left in Egypt had overstepped the mandate given them by Aspasia prior to his departure to Mars with the rest of his followers to go into the deep sleep. They were supposed to set up a civilization with instructions to get the Great Pyramid built as a signal into space, not set themselves up as Gods. The last four had finally gone into the deep sleep — following two thousand years of rule— after the Undead had rebelled and killed Isis and Osiris.
The pyramid plan had failed. It had been built by one of the Pharaohs according to the plans passed down, but rather than signaling more Airlia, it had drawn in the Ancient Enemy of the Airlia, a spacefaring race known as the Swarm. The Airlia had immediately ordered the smooth limestone facing of the massive pyramid — which sent a massive radar signature out into space — to be torn off and the plan abandoned. Thus there was no longer a need for the four Airlia who slept beneath Giza and Aspasia’s Shadow felt no great loss at their deaths.
Aspasia’s Shadow had been imprinted with Aspasia’s memories and personalities, but layered on top of them were millennia of his own experience as a human on Earth. He was no longer that which he had been set up to be. He had awareness, a dangerous thing to give to something that is just supposed to be a tool. He knew that he existed simply to serve a purpose and that once that purpose was fulfilled and Aspasia came out of the deep sleep on Mars and returned — or Artad came out of his deep sleep under Qian-Ling in China — that the war would be renewed, one side would win, and he would no longer be needed regardless of which side won.
If Artad won, Aspasia’s Shadow knew he was doomed. But in a strange way, he had enough of Aspasia’s personality to know that even if his side won, he was also doomed. Aspasia would not allow a creature that held so much of his essence to live. Either way, the future was bleak if left to run its obvious course.
That was one of the reasons he had not bothered to track down either of the surviving Undead. They were a wild card that not only made things more interesting, but added potential allies, depending on how the future developed. One thing he could count on was their hatred of the Airlia.
With a sigh of pain, Aspasia’s Shadow left the Guardian chamber. He went down a stone passageway to another chamber. Inside, a body floated in a large vat of green fluid, a black tube pumping air into the mouth, thence to the lungs. The head was shaved and covered by a skullcap, with several dozens leads running from it to a main line connected to the command console. The body’s eyes were open but showed no sign of intelligence. Next to the vat was a black tube, similar in size and shape to the sleep tubes used by the Undead.
It was time to pass on.
Aspasia’s Shadow went to the control console and put his hands over the backlit hexagonal display. Quickly he tapped out a sequence, just as he had done hundreds of times in the past. The lid to the black tube swung up, revealing a contoured interior designed to fit his body.
Aspasia’s Shadow removed the ka from around his neck and slid it, two arms forward, into the small holes on the right side of the console. It fit tightly and a small six-sided section next to it glowed orange, indicating it was in place.
Aspasia’s Shadow went to the black tube. He stripped naked and lay down inside. The lid lowered onto him, trapping him in utter darkness. A few probes lightly touched his head, injecting painkillers. There were several minutes of stillness as the top of his head became numb. Then nanoprobes slid out of the lining of the tube into his brain, tapping into the needed sections for update.
His memories and experiences since the last download were transferred to the ka and the probes withdrew. Aspasia’s Shadow took a shallow breath, never prepared for what came next, because he didn’t know what it was going to be like. It was the one memory that was never transferred.
Out of small pockets in the lining of the tube, black particles, the size of grains of sand, were expelled onto his naked skin.
He screamed helplessly into the darkness of the tube as the particles dissolved flesh, muscle, and bone from the outside inward, triggering every pain response the body had. The only positive aspect was that it lasted for barely five seconds before the body was gone.