Caleb licked his lips, glanced back to the clock tower, but couldn’t find that enigmatic figure anymore.
“Caleb, honey…”
Blinking Lydia back into focus, he sighed and said, “The Emerald Tablet.”
“Along with the collection from Sais. Transported and hidden away—”
“—in the Alexandrian library. I already—”
“Didn’t you hear me before?” Lydia moved her face to within inches from his, her full lips lustrous in the sunlight, tempting. “I don’t think the tablet was brought to the library. I’m betting that to find it you have to look to the other architectural wonder of Alexandria.”
Caleb’s mouth opened, and suddenly, everything shifted. The world sparkled and everyone was surrounded by a floating nimbus, but only for a moment, then it was gone, like a flash of insight.
The seal, the great door, the traps. Could it be—?
“What do you think?” Lydia asked. “Worth writing about, at least? It’s a novel theory: the Pharos not only served as a beacon and an architectural wonder, it was a vault.”
Caleb looked at her as if she had just stepped out of a lamp and had offered him three wishes. How could I have not seen it before? The implications were staggering. Everything they had witnessed and perceived had to be viewed again under this chrysalis. “The treasure—”
“—isn’t what you thought.”
“It’s something even more valuable,” Caleb said, and in that instant, a flash from beyond ripped through his core, revealing…
… a dark convoy of camels, covered wagons, dozens of slaves lifting great bronze chests. The three dark pyramids dwindle at the horizon, black against the tapestry of night,…
“A caravan,” he told her, slipping back to the present, “heading away from Giza.” The bright sunlight streamed onto his face as Lydia touched it and brushed back his sweaty hair. He sat on the rim of a fountain, a bubbling, dribbling marble façade. The choking smell of fish and dirty water entered his nostrils. He blinked and saw them…
… carrying a secret cargo under cover of night, tracking the Nile, a man in black robes supervising the operation.
“Do you know what year it was?” asked Lydia.
The flow of the Nile, the passing of hills, trees and great stretches of desert. Then, through a marvelous gate into a sprawling city full of wondrous temples and obelisks, a stadium and so many people, the caravan takes back routes through the darkened alleys and emerges onto a stretch of streets and warehouses in a harbor. And there, across the water, a dark shape rises from an island. Half-assembled, it stands and waits for morning, for the hundreds to resume work on its construction.
“Had to be around 300 BC,” he said, still watching the images flashing through his mind. “The Pharos isn’t completed yet.”
“What else?” Lydia prodded. Her grip on his thigh was fierce.
Caleb shook his head, resisting the onslaught of the present, the pigeons, the tourists, the accordion and singers in the distance, the tolling of the great clock tower all pulling at his consciousness. “They led the caravan past the Palace District, past the Temple of the Muses. Across the Heptastadion, to the Pharos.” He held his head in his hands and took great gulps of air. Another flash and he saw that figure again, the leader of the caravan, dressed in black robes and a deep hooded cloak…
… stop at the first step leading up to the Pharos. All around him are great blocks, ropes, pulleys and workbenches. Discarded tools of the craftsmen. He pauses on the next step while at his back the convoy comes to a halt, and all the slaves look down at their feet.
A man appears above. In flowing white robes he glides to the top of the stairs. “Welcome. You have what was promised?”
The man in black nods. “I do. It is now in your safekeeping, Sostratus.”
“This collection will be but the first of many.”
“It is the oldest, the most important.”
“Then it shall be the safest.”
The man in black surveys the massive, half-finished structure masterfully etched upon the canvass of the heavens. A light mist drifts over the rocks from the sea and cools his face.
“The ancient resting place of Thoth has been emptied. Guard his treasures well.”
Another gulp of air and Caleb was back.
“Wow,” Lydia said with a look of dismay. “No matter how many times I witness that, I still can’t get used to it.”
“Me neither,” he said, wheezing.
“I believe you.” She lifted her head, distracted by something across the plaza. “Listen, I’ll go grab you an Orangina and ice. You need some fluids.”
“Okay.” He watched her go, then reached into the fountain, cupped some water and splashed it on his cheeks and forehead, feeling momentarily blasphemous for disturbing the sacred waters, before slipping on his sunglasses again
A minute passed, then another. Finally, he looked up toward the drink stand. A trio of pigeons swirled over its roof and flew up and away. The stand was empty. Caleb stood and glanced around, feeling a sudden bout of anxiety. But there she was, a short distance away, talking to a man in a gray suit with a beret tilted on his head, over bushy gray eyebrows. Then the recollection struck like a hammer blow and Caleb remembered him.
The hospital! Standing over my bed.
“The Pharos protects itself…”
Before he thought twice about it, Caleb was sprinting. The pigeons scattered at his approach. He bumped into a pair of Asian tourists, and kept running. Lydia turned as he closed in. The man lowered his head and swiftly walked away.
“Honey?” she called as she stepped toward him in a way which seemed to cut him off from following or even getting a better look at the stranger. She caught him around the chest. “Are you okay?”
“That man! Who is he?”
Lydia looked around. “What, that old guy I was just talking to? Don’t know. He asked me how much a gondola to the museum costs, and—”
“No!” Caleb shook his head, pointing after the departing figure, now stepping into a boat. “You knew him. You were talking. What did he want?”
“I told you.” She gripped Caleb’s shoulders, that same fierce grip as before. “Caleb, you’re acting weird. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
“No!”
Lydia took a step back. “Hey, I’m sorry I brought up the lighthouse. I didn’t realize it would make you this crazy.”
He glared at her. “I’m not crazy. I know that man. I’ve seen him before.”
“And that’s not crazy?”
“No! In Alexandria. He… he visited me in the hospital. Gloating that we had failed.”
Lydia looked over her shoulder at the gondola oaring away, joining three others cutting into the canals. “You can’t be serious. You think someone’s following you after all these years?”
He glared at her over the ridge of his sunglasses. “Lydia. Tell me now. Tell me if there’s something else going on here. Believe me, I’ll find out.”
She laughed and gave him a pinch. “Threatening me with your powers? Are you saying I’ll never be able to have an affair, because you’ll be remote viewing my every move?” She pushed back her hair, still grinning. “Guess I should have covered that in our wedding vows. Come on, my love. There’s nothing to hide.”