“The keys?” Renée frowned. “Plural? How many are there?”
“Three, according to the legends. Spread out across the earth at ancient sites, or buried with the dead rulers who might have had the means to construct elaborately defended resting places. Hidden, some maintain, by men related to the ancient order of Thoth. Followers like Noah and Ziusudra and all the rest.”
“Magicians and prophets?” Renée noted.
“Psychics,” Phoebe whispered.
Renée stood and started pacing, gripping her cell phone like a pointer. The plane dipped and she reached for a chair to steady herself. “So Montross broke into your lighthouse, stole this Emerald Tablet which, if I hear you right, is likely an Egyptian archaeological artifact, and its theft is a serious breach of international law, but never mind that now. Montross then kidnapped your son and is now off seeking three legendary keys, all of which he’ll need in order to gain access to a chamber under the Sphinx and open a box which contains a translation of the text?”
Caleb shrugged. “Sounds about right. I know it’s less than convincing, but that’s the only rationale I’ve got right now.”
“So why St. Peter’s?”
“The Mausoleum,” Phoebe said. “He must’ve RV’d the keys, found that one might have been hidden there. Mausolus must have found one, recognized it as something special, and Artemesia had it entombed with him in his mausoleum.”
“It fits,” Caleb said, “with the tenet of alchemy which maintains that secrets are best hidden ‘in plain sight.’ The Mausoleum was a huge, ostentatious structure. Alexander the Great would have been well aware of it, as Mausolus was a contemporary, and Alexander went on to conquer Halicarnassus a decade later. My guess is wherever the key was, Alexander couldn’t find it. But he posted guards to keep the mausoleum safe from trespassers before putting his best philosophers to work at analyzing its construction to find potential secret compartments.”
Renée rubbed her eyes. “So what about the other locations?”
Caleb sighed. “I didn’t know about Mausolus until now, but I believe one of the keys may have been at the tomb of another charismatic and powerful leader. Cyrus the Great, the first great conqueror. He was a Persian in the sixth century BCE who created the largest empire the world had ever seen, a feat unrivaled until Alexander came along. And what’s more, we know that two centuries after Cyrus’s death, Alexander invaded Persia, and in what is now modern-day Iran he found and entered Cyrus’s tomb, looking for something in particular.”
“Did he find it?” Renée asked.
“Well, we’re not entirely sure what he found.” Caleb took a sip of tea, blowing at the smoke first. “We tried to RV the event and got a lot of jumbled images, but nothing definitive came out of those sessions.” He thought back to the candle-lit room at home, the ten people madly scribbling on their pads, day after day, trying to see. What had become of Cyrus’s possessions? People had drawn things ranging from snow-capped peaks to marvelous palaces to a remote desert landscape and a cavern underground, but nothing consistent.
Phoebe leaned in. “We’ve been going on the theory that Alexander the Great found Cyrus’s key, and that maybe he himself discovered, or was handed, another key in the desert at Sais, at the Egyptian oracle where he was heralded as king, given the mandate of Heaven, and promised a marvelous destiny.”
Caleb continued. “So Alexander had two of the three keys, at least, and was likely searching for the third. We believe he died before finding it and achieving that destiny, although history still reveres him as one of the greatest rulers of the world, and responsible for the spread of democracy and knowledge. He was most likely buried with those two keys, and we may need to focus our efforts to find his body to verify that, but more likely we weren’t asking the right questions to define our search. I’m starting to think that maybe someone took the keys from his tomb before it was hidden.”
“But we doubt anyone has managed to collect all three,” Phoebe said, “since we’re pretty sure the lockbox is still unopened.”
Caleb put down his cup. “It’s more likely that someone else, someone very powerful, must have found and dug up Alexander. And now those keys are hidden somewhere else. But as for the third key, we’ve tried remote viewing it before, but only came up with vague, unreferenced and uncorrelated images — which made us go all the way back and try to view the creation of the Emerald Tablet again. Who actually created it and where.”
“And what did you see at those sessions?” Renée asked.
“Not much.”
“Except for the head,” Orlando pointed out. “The damn head.”
“The what?” Renée asked.
Caleb stretched out his legs. “It was just something else we’d been drawing a lot, the only consistent image our members came up with in connection to questions about the origin and meaning of the Emerald Tablet. Don’t know what it means yet, but because of a spy in our group, Montross knew about it, and used it to get us as far away as possible so he could steal the Emerald Tablet.”
“But now,” said Renée, “you think one of these keys is at the Mausoleum, or this castle now in Bodrum?”
“Almost sure of it,” Caleb said. “If for no other reason than that Montross is heading there.”
The plane lurched, then started on a descent.
“Well,” said Renée, “I guess we’re about to find out.”
10
Caleb and Renée entered Bodrum Castle through the museum’s main entrance, pushing past a line of caution tape.
“Police and museum officials are cooperating,” Renée said. “Giving us two hours. They’re telling the tourists and workers that the site is undergoing a minor repair and will reopen shortly. So we’ve got to get in and out quickly.”
Caleb considered the massive medieval architecture, the conglomeration of turrets and courtyards, crenellated walls, the statues and heraldry marking the approach.
He whistled, touching a few eroded birdlike figurines as they passed under the gate and into the main courtyard. Here and there he saw larger granite blocks, some tinted green, denoting their volcanic origin. “Stones from the Mausoleum,” he whispered, then stopped before the main hallway. “Okay, I go in alone from here.”
“But there’s no one inside,” Renée said. “Turkish police have searched the whole place, and we’ve got agents on boats in the harbor, snipers where we talked—”
“Alone,” he said again. “I think you’re right. He’s not here, but he could still be watching. Seeing if I disobey orders. I don’t want to risk anything happening to Alexander.” It had occurred to him, of course, that this could be a trap, another chance to kill him after failing in Antarctica. Maybe that was all this was. Xavier and Nina wanted him dead the Morpheus Initiative gone.
But why? Just so they wouldn’t stand in Xavier’s way? See his plans, cut him off and recapture the tablet? Caleb held his head. It was too much, like trying to understand a time travel paradox. It was impossible to outsmart someone who could see the future, someone who could change the rules during the middle of the game.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said to Renée, patting his cell phone. “We’re just a phone call away.”
“Be careful,” she said, touching his arm for just a moment before pulling back, and then he was gone, heading off into the darkness toward the first gallery.
The castle had been converted to a museum for maritime archaeology, showcasing some of the region’s magnificent relics recovered from a number of major shipwrecks and dredged from the sea floor. Byzantine artifacts, earthen jars, jewelry, and in one room-sized glass case, a reconstructed merchant ship from the twelfth century BCE. Caleb lingered in the first dimly lit gallery, marveling at the treasures plucked from Neptune’s grasp and stored here for years, at a site partially built from the stones of the greatest tomb in the ancient world.