“You were here when this place was built, weren’t you?” Duncan asked before he could say anything.
Aspasia’s Shadow nodded. “I was here. Aker, one of Aspasia’s lieutenant’s, hollowed out the six chambers. He bore the tunnels to link them. He placed the Black Sphinx in this chamber and directed the carving of the stone sphinx above. This was long before the time your scientists think the stone sphinx was carved. This area was very different then. It was a lush land, fertile for many miles where there is now desert. That was why we chose to come here after Atlantis.”
“If you helped build this, how did you lose control of it?”
Aspasia’s head snapped toward her, anger in his eyes. “I was betrayed.”
“How? By whom?”
“By Aspasia, of course. He removed something I needed to rule. His machine was afraid I would get too powerful while he slept.”
“What was taken?”
“The master guardian.”
“To Mars?”
“No. It was hidden here on Earth. I have searched long and hard for it, as I have searched for the key to the Grail. And you wonder why I care not for those who still live on Mars? They cared little for me all these years. But now my time comes!”
“There are some who won’t allow that,” Duncan said.
Aspasia’s Shadow laughed. “Do you know what you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“What humans are?”
Something was at the edge of Duncan’s consciousness, just like it had been when she had first seen the Grail. She knew more than she could bring to her conscious mind, which scared her. How had she gained this information?
“We’re intelligent beings who deserve a place—”
“Intelligent?” Aspasia’s Shadow laughed again.
Duncan remembered the strange planet she had seen in the vision from the Ark. “I’m standing here, where you want to be. If I’m not intelligent, what does that make you?”
The smile was gone from his face. “Are you ready to negotiate?” Aspasia’s Shadow asked, the words echoing in the chamber.
“Are you making me an offer?” Duncan asked in turn as she stepped outside. Aspasia’s Shadow held up a canteen. “Would you like to drink?”
“What do you want in exchange?”
“The Grail.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I never joke,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “You will not last much longer without water.”
“Then I die here, but at least you don’t get the Grail.”
“Those who you work with don’t know who you are, do they?”
“I will not give you the Grail,” she repeated.
“Perhaps if I made you a better offer,” Aspasia’s Shadow said, “you would change your mind.”
“There is nothing you can offer me that will get me to give you the Grail,” Duncan said.
“Do not be too sure of that,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “What if I give you the greatest treasure one can give?”
“And what do you believe that to be?”
His answer was succinct. “Immortality.” He signaled and the soldier with the box stepped forward, knelt and placed it on the floor several feet in front of him. He opened the lid, then went back to his position.
Duncan took a step forward without thinking, then halted. She felt the weight of the essen on her shoulders, the crown on her head. She could see the two stones set inside the box. “What do you have?”
“The Grail is worthless without these. They were called the urim and the thummin, long ago by those who really didn’t know what the Grail was — just like you. Those names are as good as any. Even I no longer remember their real name.”
“The Grail isn’t worthless without those.” Duncan was trying to collect her thoughts. “It just won’t work without them. But the Grail still has value. We are still in a standoff.”
“‘Work’?” Aspasia’s Shadow repeated. “What exactly do you think the Grail does?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“If I give one of the stones to you,” Aspasia’s Shadow asked, “will that end the standoff?”
“And allow me safe passage out of here with the Grail and stone?” Duncan knew it was foolish even to ask.
“Of course.”
“Now you lie.”
“Perhaps. But you will die of thirst if you persist.”
“Then the Grail remains safe in here.”
Aspasia’s Shadow snorted. “For how long? Do you think you wear the only set of priest’s clothes? I am sure I can find another set. Or get through the guardians by other means. It will only be a matter of time, and that variable is on my side.”
“Then wait for me to die,” Duncan said.
“You do not ever have to die.”
That gave Duncan pause. “What exactly does the Grail do? I know it is an Airlia machine, but how can it give a person immortality? That is not natural. How can eternal life be manufactured?”
“The Grail does more than just give eternal life,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “But turn the question around. Why is there death? Perhaps it is death that has been manufactured? Perhaps it is death that is not natural?”
CHAPTER 15
“Ten minutes!” Captain Graves’s black form was the rearmost figure in the cargo bay. The loadmaster was dwarfed by him, a slight figure in a green jumpsuit holding Graves’s static line.
“Go to rebreathers,” Graves ordered.
“Rebreather on,” Turcotte ordered. The computer on his back immediately sealed the suit’s air inlet on the back of the helmet and switched over to the internal rebreather.
“Stand up.” Graves gave the command quietly, knowing that each man could hear him clearly through the suit radio.
Turcotte stood, reaching up and hooking his left arm over the steel cable that ran the length of the plane.
“Hook up, loadmaster,” Graves said, a departure from the normal procedure. Because each man had weapons attached to the end of their arms, the loadmaster had to go down the line, remove their snap hook from the parachute, and attach it to the static line cable.
Turcotte felt a slight tug as the loadmaster did his. He turned, making sure it was secure.
“Check static lines.”
“Sound off for equipment check.” Graves gave the next jump command, but then once more he added something. “And I mean all equipment. If your suit isn’t working right, now is the time to say something.”
Turcotte, the last man in the stick, nudged the man in front. “OK.”
The word was passed up the line until the man right behind Graves announced, “All OK, jumpmaster.”
Graves turned to face the rear of the aircraft. Turcotte, through the suit’s external sensors, could pick up the change in flight speed as he staggered slightly and quickly adjusted. The plane was slowing to drop speed.
“Three minutes,” Graves announced.
Turcotte watched the screen just in front of his face as it showed a dark crack appear at the junction of the top of the rear. The crack widened as the ramp came down until it reached a level position with the floor of the cargo bay. Graves knelt, then lay belly down, and slid over, sticking his black helmet out into the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-mile-an-hour wind.
Looking past Graves, Turcotte could see dark desert a hundred and fifty feet below. An occasional light, bright as a flare, dotted the landscape here and there. He knew they were east of the Nile coming in low over the desert.
The plane dipped down even lower and banked hard right. A dark black ribbon lay below. The Nile. Turcotte felt a familiar wave of anticipation. For just a second he remembered his last jump. Over China, also over water. Peter Nabinger was the man next to him, and he’d helped the archaeologist get over his fear. And now he was going where Nabinger had considered his home — Egypt, the center of the mysteries that had consumed Nabinger’s life. And the archaeologist had never made it out of China alive.