The Pharos Objective (2 page)

He looked on, attempting stoicism, even as Barraq’s men set about sawing off his hands at the wrists and his feet at the ankles. Amidst his screams, they cauterized the stumps with flames from an oil-soaked torch and then chained him to the rocks in the water at the base of the lighthouse, facing west, away from Mecca.

At one point during the ensuing days of agony, as the gulls and the ravenous fish came to feast on his flesh, Dakhil recalled the old Greek legend of Prometheus. He had, after all, merely longed to bring light into the world, to present a powerful gift to mankind. Unlike Prometheus, he had failed; but like the Titan, he had nevertheless been ruthlessly punished.

Barraq left him there after retrieving the dead and placing a team of six men at the summit to staff a continually burning pyre. They could not afford to lose any more ships in the treacherous harbor, and their vigilance against Constantinople must not cease. He rode off on the tenth day of Dakhil’s slow death, too soon to see the lone boat steal across the harbor through the moonless night.

A man in a gray cloak stepped out onto the embankment and calmly traversed the rocks until he reached the dying man. “It seems,” he said after a moment of contemplation, “your father chose poorly.”

Dakhil moaned. His chewed-out eye sockets, above the ragged flesh and protruding cheekbones, turned toward the sound. His lungs choked on seawater and congealed blood. “No . . .”

“We are Keepers,” said the stranger. “
Keepers
. A sacred trust we have held for centuries. I cannot forgive what you have done.”

“Believed . . . it was time,” Dakhil muttered as the water crashed over his emaciated body and the cloaked form bent over him.

“It is not for us to decide the time. Only to keep the secret until the world is ready.” The words, spoken deeply, powerfully, came from within the folds of his hood. “In the meantime, the Pharos protects itself. The Pharos has always protected itself.”

Dakhil moaned.

The cloaked stranger moved in closer. “While I cannot forgive, I can be merciful.”

A thin blade cut through Dakhil’s throat with almost no resistance and produced very little blood. A soft gasp wheezed into the surf.

The man stood up. He bowed his head toward the flickering beacon high above in a final sign of respect and a renewed commitment to its protection. Then, with a heavy sigh, he made his way back into his boat and sailed into the shadows.

BOOK ONE

—THE LIGHTHOUSE—

Whoever wants to conquer Egypt has to conquer Alexandria, and whoever wants to conquer Alexandria has to conquer the Harbor.

—
Julius Caesar,
The Alexandrian War

1

Alexandria—December

Sixty feet under the harbor’s churning waves, his blue fins kicking just above the reef’s dangerous uppermost protrusions, Professor Caleb Crowe held the grapefruit-sized marble head in his bare hands, letting the colder currents wash off the sediment and muck. He turned the sculpture around, marveling at the late classical Egyptian artistry—the perfect symmetry, the deep-set, thoughtful eyes.

Isis
.

The headdress and the Sothis star on her forehead placed this artifact in the Ptolemaic Dynasty—just about the right age. He reached for the camera hanging from his neck, considering how he might use this photo in a series of Ancient History lectures he was currently preparing for the spring semester at Columbia.

In the shadowy depths, the reefs and amphorae intermingled with the huge rocks, immense pillars and chunks of masonry thrust between the long-forgotten shipwrecks. Caleb’s breathing quickened, echoing in his ears even as the Mediterranean’s pressure squeezed his head in its grip. The current tugged him sideways into a massive block of moss-coated basalt.

He let go of the camera and reached out to steady himself. And as Isis looked on, the bare skin on his fingers touched the ancient slab—

—and something like an electric jolt ripped through his nervous system, starting at the base of his spine and spearing out in all directions. The water shimmered, the sea bottom shuddered, and a red-hot pain tore open the doors to his mind, barged inside and exploded in a blast of golden light like a swarm of maddened yellow jackets on fire, careening off the insides of his skull.

Caleb hadn’t had a clairvoyant vision in more than four years, and to have it strike now, of all times, at the bottom of Alexandria’s harbor, with his air running out and his dive partner wandering off on his own somewhere beyond the dim shadows, was about as dangerous as it was startling. The vision ripped through him like a teasing jolt of pleasure, then just as quickly left him alone again in the cold water, with Isis’s eyes looking upon him with pity.

There was a brief moment of confusion, then it returned with a vengeance. He doubled over, hyperventilating, burning through his oxygen,
seeing . . .

His mind reeled and his stomach twisted. An armada of bubbles surrounded his head like ravenous fish, nipping at his skin, shouting out alarms. But his eyes, wide open, no longer perceived what lay before him, for they strode with his mind . . .

. . . to the tower . . . the lighthouse . . . the Pharos . . . there it is, rising before him, a three-stage construction, almost four hundred feet high, tapering to a glorious spire that seems to challenge the simmering Egyptian sun itself. The tower’s outer casing glitters on the western side, reflecting the sun with the light of a thousand stars, and all along its ascent hang statues of divinities and mythical guardians, peering down from their lofty perches.

He tears his eyes away and blinks, bringing into focus the man standing on the steps, welcoming him. A man he instinctively knows as the architect of the Pharos
:
Sostratus of Cnidos.

“Welcome, Demetrius,” he says. “Come, I have much to show you.”

Seeing through Demetrius’s eyes, Caleb speaks as if following a well-rehearsed script. His voice cracks and the words spill like gravel off his parched tongue. “Sostratus, engineering wonder this may be, yet it has the imposing grandeur, aura and beauty of the divine. My friend, this lighthouse will be adored for ages.”

Sostratus turns and looks up at his handiwork. “I hope you are right, and humbly, I trust in the gods that I have built it well enough to last.” He helps Demetrius up the final steps into the courtyard, where doves and sparrows coo in transplanted palm trees and fountains pour out fresh reservoir water at each of the cardinal points.

“And it is not yet done.” Sostratus raises his hand to the distant, dwindling spire atop the converging stages; past the mammoth two-hundred-foot rectangular lower section, pierced with three hundred windows; beyond the octagonal second stage, rising a hundred feet more, to the last part ascending the final hundred feet. Tiny forms climb on ropes and chisel at sections on the spire, at the cupola and the pillars around the beacon, working like industrious ants.

“I apologize that the masons have not yet removed the scaffolding. We are still hauling up stone for the outer casing and, of course, the great golden statue of Poseidon has yet to arrive by barge from Memphis. I have invited Euclid to pay me a visit and calculate how best to raise it to the apex.”

Demetrius makes a grunting sound, then reaches over and clasps his friend. “By Jupiter, you have done it.”

“Why so shocked, my friend? Surely you have watched my progress from your precious library across the harbor?”

Demetrius stops and teeters as he cranes his neck and gazes up. “In the scroll rooms, there are few windows. We need to safeguard the world’s most important books, not expose them to the elements.”

Sostratus chuckles. “Well said. And of course, in all your courtyard festivals you never thought to lift your head over the wall and glance westward to admire my creation?”

Demetrius looks down at his sandaled feet, taking strange comfort from such a common sight. “I have, my friend, I have. A remarkable achievement, your lighthouse has become an integral part of the landscape in the mere twelve years it has taken to build. Alexandrians may take it for granted, yet they speak of little else but its completion and the coming festivals Ptolemy has planned for its dedication day. Your lighthouse has, in fact, become synonymous with Alexandria. The thousands of daily visitors to our harbors are awestruck by its magnificence. Indeed, it is the first thing they see, well before the coast even appears.”

Sostratus smiles. “I hear they are already calling it ‘The Pharos,’ after the island itself.”

“True, Homer’s little epilogue in the
Odyssey
granted us fame enough.”

“Even if he had it wrong. Egyptian settlers at Rhakotis told Menelaus the island belonged to Pharaoh, and out of ignorance, the name stuck. Pharos Island.”

Demetrius nods, waving off the same boring discussion he’s endured uncounted times. “Believe me, I know the tale well. We have over ninety copies, translated into fourteen languages, with scholars working on the
Iliad
now.”

“Wonderful ambitions you have,” Sostratus says, intending the complement to be genuine, however eliciting a wounded look from Demetrius. “Or is it our king’s ambition?”

“A little of both. Although, from time to time I have to fuel our benefactor’s interests.” Sostratus nods in empathy. “Now, my friend, do I get the promised tour, or must I wait another twelve years?”

“In just a moment. First I want you to look up, right there.” He points to a low-level scaffold, untended for the moment, above which a lengthy inscription is chiseled in Greek letters large enough to be seen by arriving ships in the Eastern Harbor.

Demetrius squints and reads it aloud:

“SOSTRATUS OF CNIDOS, SON OF DEXIFANOS, DEDICATES THIS TO THE SAVIOR GODS ON BEHALF OF THOSE WHO SAIL THE SEAS.”

He blinks. “All honor to Castor and Pollux aside, I think Ptolemy Philadelphus may have something to say about your name on his monument.”

“Indeed he would,” Sostratus says, his lips curling into a grin, “if this were what he saw. Our king wants his credit, and he shall have it. I am humble and patient. My thoughts are ever in the future, beyond the horizon of mere generations.”

“What are you going to do?” Demetrius asks, genuinely confused.

“Tonight, when the sun’s heat diminishes, my slaves will cement over this inscription and carve into it all the credit due our great king.”

A smile creeps across Demetrius’s face. “Ah, ingenious! Assuming your slaves are mute, or you have them killed, in time, the cement will crumble and erode away, revealing your name.”

Sostratus spreads out his arms and closes his eyes, basking in some private, faraway vision. “I shall be immortal.”

“I had not thought you so vain. Is it so vital that you are remembered?”

“Only for what I have done. It is the same with your books, no? Those authors, their wisdom must endure. Hence the need for your library.”

Demetrius nods. “Of course, but—”

“This tower is important in more ways than are immediately obvious. Beyond safety, beyond practicality, beyond a mere symbol of our grand city and a testament to Alexander’s genius. Beyond all that, I intend it to house something even more precious, something that, like my inscription above, will emerge in time and bring truth to a clouded world.”

“Then by all means, sir.” Demetrius bows. “Now . . . the tour?”

High above, the sun peeks through the open-air cupola between gilded pillars supporting the roof where Poseidon’s feet are destined to stand. A lone hawk circles the mid-section, vainly beating its wings to ascend farther.

Caleb gagged, reached for the fading vision and saw his fingers spear through a cascade of bubbles—bubbles spewing from his own throat. He’d spit his mouthpiece out! The world was darkening, his mouth filling with foul water.