“Defense mechanism?” he asked as his eyes readjusted, and he looked up in wonder.
“Something like that. Can’t get close, although, come. See there—?”
He pointed around the next bend in the path to a metallic, bridge-like extension toward the tree — which ended abruptly, unfinished. “Tried to get to it up here. Lost four architects and two workers. Incinerated.”
“I see.”
“They call it the Sword of Fire.” He sighed. “I’m sure you know the reference.”
Caleb blinked, calling up again the image of a renaissance painting. Adam and Eve cowering before an elegant tree (hiding a serpent), and a blazing sword barring their path.
“After the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, after Adam’s betrayal — seeking the illicit promise of knowledge offered by the Snake — god put a flaming sword before the gates to Paradise, and barred entrance forever.”
“There ya go,” Raiden said, pointing to him without looking. “And here we are. Unlikeliest of places, I’m sure you’d agree. Everyone thinks Syria, or Jordan. Palestine maybe even or somewhere in Africa.”
“As the theory of evolution grew more popular, it made sense that our origins began there, so…”
“Yeah. No.” Raiden met his eyes for a moment before Caleb looked back to the tree, and then again, over the edge, longingly wishing to get to the bottom and explore. Thoughts of anything else were distant pursuers at this moment, as this astounding revelation took hold.
“Pole shifts. Continental drift…” He whistled. “Our race is old. So much older than any conventional archaeologists would dare to admit. But not beyond some theories. Vedic beliefs, Atlantis and other lost civilizations, even those hinting at much older remnants…”
“Want to know for sure?” Raiden asked as he began walking again, descending. They passed a mural depicting great aviary beasts like dragon-dinosaur hybrids, and women on their backs, soaring above cities of alien architecture and bizarre landscapes. Beasts and plants of unfamiliar size and even colors gave way to maps and diagrams. Formulae and scripts interspersed with the etchings and murals; diagrams of the heavens, charts of constellations no longer familiar…
They passed statues with heads of hideous yet beautiful beasts, and the sights stirred something in Caleb’s memories. And it was almost as if he was being struck with a cattle prod, right to his heart. He groaned, staggered. So unfamiliar, and yet…
“I know these things,” he whispered, rubbing his chest as he approached one humanoid statue with a head the cross between a crocodile and a praying mantis. “And this!” He stopped before the dimly-lit fresco depicting a colossal, dome-like building and an army of men and women in purple robes, all gracefully transporting cylinders toward some futuristic-looking block-shaped storage facility.
“Thought you might,” Raiden said. “I know you, and who you may have been, through the ages.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. The Apple…” Raiden smiled and set a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “…doesn’t fall far from the tree, in any life.”
Caleb blinked at him, and then back to the tree.
A flash in his mind, and he was there, before that massive, cubed structure. It was full of thousands of circular slots, each one full or ready to accept a cylinder scroll from one of the purple-clad scholars. In his hands, reverently offered, one such scroll — its alien script dazzling in the sun and his eyes. And he knew every word, every sacred phrase, every shred of knowledge it sought to preserve and protect.
And he was back, frowning in confusion at Raiden’s questioning look. But then his guide turned and continued walking. “Not much farther now — to that walkway we attempted.”
“What? Why there? Can’t we get to the bottom? I want to see… where the Garden had been. What is it like, why was the pyramid built around it?”
“Protection,” he said. “Partially, but mainly — to hide it and preserve it. The world had done its part in that direction, by the way. After the comet and the pole shift so many years ago, when most of life on the planet had been eradicated, the earth essentially shifted all this trouble and temptation to the most inaccessible point on its surface.”
He sighed, crimson cloak whisking behind him as he picked up the pace. Caleb moved faster to catch up, reluctantly foregoing study of the walls, the statues and other artifacts glinting like the holiest of treasures as they passed.
“It was here all along, waiting for us. For when we were ready, skilled enough to traverse the deadly oceans, to navigate by the stars…”
Caleb continued: “To recover ancient knowledge, find old maps…”
“Or maybe, to glimpse things through other eyes.” Raiden turned to him as they neared the broken bridge. “Once the questions got more precise, of course.”
“But this was blocked. The veil of Blue, covering areas even the best remote viewers weren’t allowed to see.”
“But that only made you more curious, didn’t it? Or was that, just maybe, the whole damn purpose of blocking certain areas?”
Caleb slowed, then thought about it. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am. You know it’s true. You have a child. Tell him not to go looking in the basement, what’s he going to do?”
“Go looking there.”
“Or at the very least, wonder about it. Research it, ask around, try to go at the problem from other ways.”
“Like go outside and peek through the dirty windows.”
“Exactly. They forbade it so you wouldn’t figure it out too quickly, not before you were older. Before we were older, as a species, maybe. After we’d grown and expanded and hopefully come together in some sort of peaceful civilization to handle what’s truly being offered here.”
“Which is?” Caleb asked, but he knew. Knew what it was, just not what form it would take.
Raiden continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “Only problem was, we didn’t get the itch to go exploring — or the means to do so, or the motives — until the height of World War Two. Until we were at each other’s throats, literally at the point of blowing the whole thing to hell. And that’s when…”
“Admiral Byrd came calling,” Caleb said. “And found this.”
“Yes. But he wasn’t the first.”
“No, but he prevailed. Somewhat. And created all this secrecy, but which led the joint ventures, to study, and maybe…” He looked at the tree, at the branches. He thought about the sword, the defense mechanism, and…
And he was back, bursting through the cracks in the blue sphere, shattering a whole section and glimpsing beyond:
To this place, lit up with hundreds of standing lights. Generators all over. The base… a wide-open floor of ice and basalt and obsidian. Two giant sentinel statues flanking the trunk of the fossilized tree. Giant roots had upheaved the floor in the ancient past, and sickly petrified vines hung like strands of unwashed hair, draped onto the ground.
Dozens of men in parkas, white and black, set up drilling equipment besides banks of computers, servers and memory tapes. Cameras roll as a large drill extends something in a robotic arm toward the tree’s trunk. A diamond needle, with tubing and cannisters…
Back…
“I saw it.” He swallowed hard as they paused, and in the darkness ahead, in a section that spread out toward the unfinished bridge, he thought he could make out other forms. Tables, glowing monitors, two hulking statues, and more tables arranged almost like in a hospital triage room.
“Saw what?” Raiden asked, mild curiosity in his voice. “I’m sure you’re seeing a lot of things now. Peeking into past experiences, all without asking to be shown anything.”