The main tunnel widened beyond the scope of the lights Lexina and her comrades carried. From the echo their feet made on the stone floor, it was obvious they were entering a large open space.
Lexina froze, seeing a tiny point of light, above and ahead. The light grew stronger, illuminating the cavern they had entered. It was over a quarter mile wide and a half mile long, with the roof over four hundred feet above their heads, where the glowing orb was now at full power. The walls were smoothly cut stone, the floor so flat it looked polished. But it was the center of the far wall that drew the attention of Lexina and the other Ones Who Wait.
Two golden doors, inlaid with intricate lettering, each one hundred feet high and fifty wide, were set in the wall. Doors worthy of a god. Like moths to a flame, Lexina, Coridan, Elek, and Gergor were drawn forward, across the cavern floor. They stopped in front, overwhelmed by the sheer size and beauty of the doors. Etched into the gold was High Rune lettering mixed with Chinese symbols.
Elek pointed. “That is the sign of Shi Huangdi, the first Emperor of China.” But Lexina could make out something in High Rune that was much more significant. “Artad and his people are behind these doors waiting to awake!”
“How do we open them?” Coridan asked, always the practical one.
Lexina continued to translate what she could of the High Runes, and found the answer, right before them. “This—” she held the Spear of Destiny “—goes here.” She put the point on a spot at eye level exactly along the seam where the doors met. The spot she was pointing to was outlined with black metal, b’ja, the metal of the Airlia.
She pushed the spear, pressing it against the black. The point slid into the b’ja to the base of the tip, then stopped. Lexina let go and stepped back. The doors seemed to shimmer, then, as if a stone had been thrown in a pond, the gold changed to black in an ever-widening circle. When both doors were completely black, there was a loud groaning, as if the metal were protesting. The seam split smoothly and the doors began swinging outward, the spear staying in the opening.
Professor Mualama hit control-D on his keyboard and looked up as the screen filled with words. He turned as Che Lu came into the conference in response to summons.
“What do you have?” she asked.
“You’ll find this interesting.” Mualama pointed at the screen.
BURTON MANUSCRIPT: CHAPTER 2
Following the destruction of Atlantis and the departure of Aspasia for the skies and the disappearance of Artad, the Watchers at first thought that the world was free of the direct influence of these creatures from the stars. It turned out they were wrong.
Some of The Guides traveled to the Middle East and established a place called The Mission. There appeared in Egypt around nine thousand years before the birth of Christ, new gods, called Neteru, of whom Isis and Osiris were the two primary ones. The Watchers eventually learned that these new gods were a different form of Guide who wore the ka of Aspasia and some of his other Airlia, being their Shadows on Earth to prepare for their return. These were of an order above that of Guide in a way, because they had the memories of the Airlia imprinted on their brain.
There is a device called a ka. The word in ancient Egyptian means soul or spirit. The symbol for it is two extended arms with no body in between. I have seen this sign on walls and even carved into statues, such as the ka statue of Hor Auibre from the thirteenth dynasty.
I have talked to scholars about the root of the ka and there is much that is not known. They feel that the ka means something more than just the soul. It represents the sustaining power of life, an interesting term if one thinks about it. There are many representations of a ka being fashioned by the ram-headed god Khnum and it was meant to be a double or twin of the person from which it was drawn. The ka came into existence when a person was born, and the term “to go to one’s ka” meant one died and the ka was passed on.
The hemu-ka were a kind of priests that facilitated the passing on of the ka.
I was told by Kaji about the Airlia. But he also talked of Ones Who Were Not Born of Women, also known as The Ones Who Wait. Throughout the history I will recount to you, there will be those who are “shadows” of Airlia from both sides. How they come into being, I do not know. But they are not born.
This first age of civilization in Egypt was the age of the rule of the Airlia Shadow gods. As the Watchers received this disquieting report, it was often debated whether they should interfere to stop this, but they remained true to their rules. Also, it appeared that this handful of Shadow Guides did not seek to conquer or expand their empire. Their mission was unclear for a very long time.
I think, also, that unspoken among the Watchers was the knowledge there was nothing they could do to fight the Shadow Guides, who had the loyalty of their new cast of Guide-priests and the population who followed the priests, as the wedjat themselves had once given their loyalty.
For thousands of years there was peace and prosperity in Egypt — as long as the people worshipped the Shadow Guides under their new names.
It appears that Aspasia was able to rescue more out of Atlantis than was first thought and pass it on to the Shadows. The Grail was reported to be in Egypt along with the master guardian machine and other Airlia artifacts. This guardian machine was the device Aspasia used to transform men into Guides. There was also a machine that was used with the ka to imprint the personality of each Airlia on the human mind, allowing it a kind of immortality.
The guardian has been described to me as a gold or red pyramid of varying heights, from several to twenty feet, which makes me think there might be more than one of these things located at various places around the world. I came close to seeing one in South America, but that comes later.
The ka machine has been a closely guarded secret among the Guides. Wherever it is, The Mission is. For many years it was at Giza — the Highland of Aker, a region named after one of the Shadow Guides.
Extensive tunneling was done by the Shadow Guides underneath the Highland of Aker. The Hall of Records, taken from Atlantis before it was destroyed, was secreted below the stone sphinx. The carving became a thing of legend among the people of Egypt; they spoke of it only in whispers and no one wrote of it under penalty of death. None were allowed to approach close or else they were struck down by guards. This is why historians today know so little of the stone sphinx or why it was carved.
Plans were made for more buildings near the sphinx, but these were not carried out before the end of the age of the Neteru.
As happened in Atlantis, there were others who could fight these Shadow-gods. As long as the Neteru maintained a low presence, they existed. But around the time of four thousand years before the birth of Christ, they attempted to expand their empire. Thus there appeared in Northern Egypt two of The Ones Who Wait who pretended to be Gods named Nepthys and Seth. A civil war broke out. The Ones Who Wait were successful at first, slaying Osiris and Isis, and the other Neteru, thus ending the first age of that kingdom. But the Ones Who Wait were not able to make their escape before being slain in turn by the faithful followers of the Neteru, led by a Guide named Horus.
Thus Egypt passed into the second age, the time of the followers of Horus, a Guide, not a Shadow.
While all this was happening in Egypt, Watchers tried to find where The Mission and The Ones Who Wait were hiding and what they were doing. As near as I can determine, the Watchers suspected that The Ones Who Wait had a secret base in Africa, close enough so that they could keep watch on Egypt and The Mission, which they also believed was now somewhere not far from Egypt. Having traversed that harsh land, I know how well hidden those bases might have been.