The Thrones of Eden 3 (Eden) (7 page)

It was a black silica representation of an upside down Egyptian Ankh, the symbol in this position representing ‘The Key to Life.’ It was approximately ten-feet high with a crossbar that was six feet across. On the vertical and horizontal beams was ancient lettering that resembled the writings on the Ankh they discovered in the Yucatan Peninsula. But the writings discovered on that Ankh were more delicate with hook-like sweeps to their formation. They were alien and familiar to her at the same time, the changes most likely due to time and evolution. But the meaning was the same: ALL LIFE UNDER ONE.

But who’s the One?

Alyssa studied the Ankh closely, tracing her fingertips over the bas-relief carvings of archaic lettering. “John,” she began, “it’s nearly the same as the lettering on the ship in the Yucatan.”

He agreed. “Minor differences maybe. But very close.”

“Evolution of the written word has changed little. But it’s here, John. It’s similar.”

He nodded. “There’s the tie. This Ankh is the connection alluding that the God of the temple may have come from one of the stars in the Orion Belt. But the mystery remains: Who is the One that all these markings make reference to?”

“One ruler. One government. One God.” Hillary speculated. “Perhaps they’re all one and the same. But I do believe that the answer is here . . . somewhere.” He looked around, his light flashing off the walls, the ceiling, the crystal universe sparkling. Then he returned his light back to the upside down Ankh and the lettering upon its posts. “Those markings,” he continued, “I recognize a few to be pre-Sumerian. But most remain unknown to me.”

“Its symbolic meaning is ‘The Key to Life,’” she answered. “And the letters on the vertical beam—” She cut herself short and shined the light against the lettering, deciphering. “It’s another riddle.”

The ministers looked at her, their faces dropping. John Savage’s remained neutral, as did Hillary’s.

Finally, Hillary spoke: “To what?”

“On the wall that led to this amphitheater,” she started. “It said that if we solved the primary riddle, then to the Chamber of the One shall you pass.” She looked at John and then to Hillary, her face suddenly enlightened. “These corridors, this room—I think they lead to something far greater than what we discovered inside the temple of Eden,” she said. She then looked back at the lettering, at the writing, her mind working. “The One,” she whispered, and then she removed her scratchpad and began to copy the symbols and played with the syntax, trying to put together a meaningful message by puzzling the symbols into different arrangements to create an understanding.

She wrote down the symbols on the vertical bar first and reconfigured them until the symbols came to light, the message crystallizing. She nodded in affirmation. “Definitely a riddle,” she said.

“And that would be?” asked Hillary.

She tapped the point of her pencil against the pad. “The turn of the key is the foundation to All Life Under One. Use the key unwisely, then darkness shall you forever see.”

“Well, I see we’re back to the threat of death once again,” commented Hillary.

Then to no one in particular, Alyssa whispered, “The turn of the key is the foundation to All Life Under One. Use the key unwisely, then darkness shall you forever see.” She walked around the Ankh. “The key . . .” Obviously that was the structure itself, the upside-down Ankh. The foundation, she considered. And suddenly it came to her like the bulb of enlightenment going off in her head.
Of course!
she considered
. The
Foundation
to the
Key of Life
!

She immediately got to a bended knee and began to examine the crystal-clear plinth, the foundation of the Ankh, the
foundation
of the Key.

She traced her fingertips against the plinth.

“Alyssa, what are you looking for?” asked John.

“This is the foundation holding the key to life,” she told him. “This plinth holds the answer to the riddle somewhere. Help me find it!”

Hillary and Savage joined in, as did the four ministers, crowding the area until they found themselves in each other’s way. Hands and fingertips grazed the crystal, searching, everyone looking for odd niches or recesses, finding nothing but smoothness.

But one of the ministers found four thimble-sized indentations that were deep enough to place the four fingertips inside them, excluding the thumb. The excited minister shouted in Turkish, drawing immediate attention.

They soon discovered more recesses.

“They’re finger holds,” Alyssa said. “The idea is to allow people purchase points to turn the key at its foundation.”

“But in what direction?” asked John.

“That’s a good question. And one we’ll need to answer before turning the plinth in a certain direction.” She looked at the lettering:
Use the key unwisely, then darkness shall you forever see.
“We cannot afford to make the wrong choice,” she added.

“So what do we do now?” asked Hillary. “Since the choice is fifty-fifty. We either turn the base to the left or to the right.”

The four ministers began to scrutinize the plinth closer, which drew a warning from Alyssa for them to be careful. “There has to be something more,” she said. “The lettering surrounding the eye of the Ankh, that’s the riddle. The problem is I can’t piece enough of it together that makes any sense.”

“You’ve done well so far.”

She studied the lettering along the teardrop-shaped eye of the Ankh—the symbol of the womb. She then scribbled the archaic symbols on the scratchpad, trying to come to a determination as to their meaning.

After translating, she was left with more questions than answers.

John Savage looked down at what she wrote on the pad. “Were you able to figure it out?”

She shrugged, obviously unclear as to the translation. “A lot of this is based on assumptions of what I think the symbols mean. It’s like taking a redacted statement and inserting words to make it whole again. But an incorrect word here” –She tapped the pad with the point of her pencil—“can alter the riddle’s entire meaning. I’m not exactly confident about this, John.”

“What did you come up with?”

She stared at the scratchpad for a brief moment. “Paraphrasing, I think it says: Four Wise Men from the four separate corners of the (Earth) meet at a junction. Since none of the Wise Men can determine who got there first, they all move forward in (unison) without (colliding) into each other. Choosing the possibility of this act will provide you with a half-chance of using the Key wisely. Use the Key poorly, then darkness shall you forever see.”

John took the scratchpad and studied it. “From the four separate corners of the Earth,” he said more to himself.

Hillary knew immediately. “I believe its mention is about the four major points of the compass: North, South, East and West, where the points finally converge to a single point at the junction, or at the crossroads.”

Savage agreed.

“Should the Four Wise Men continue on without stopping,” added Hillary, “then they would eventually collide into one another. But they don’t, each Wise Man choosing a method so that this does not happen. So the question is: how do they do this?”

“It’s a direction riddle,” said Alyssa. “Since the Wise Men move forward simultaneously, they eventually have to change direction in order to avert a collision, yes?”

Savage nodded. “And that leaves only two directions,” he said. “They either have to turn left or right, in unison. That means that the base of the Ankh has to move in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion.”

“But why give four directions in the riddle if the Ankh can only move in two, and not four?” asked Alyssa.

“There
are
four directions,” Hillary confirmed. “Think about it. Perhaps in the riddle’s meaning the structure can move upward as well, to the North. And perhaps it can be lowered into the floor just the same, to the South. If this is true, then that means that a clockwise motion, the Wise Men moving to their left, represents East, whereas the counter-clockwise motion, moving to their right, represents West. So if the Wise Men are forced to move to their left or right to avoid collisions, to their East or West, it obviously means that they must move in either one of the two clockwise rotations. But which way do you turn the screw?” 

John examined Alyssa’s translation further.
Choosing the possibility of this act will provide you with a half-chance of using the Key wisely.
Half-chance? And suddenly it came to him. Half-chance was a fifty-fifty scenario. “There has to be something else,” he finally said. “There has to be a definite direction, left or right. It can’t be a fifty-fifty deal.”

Alyssa knew what he was talking about. “It specifically says half-chance.”

John knew she was right.
There was no other alternative.
Use the Key poorly, then darkness shall you forever see.
It didn’t say use the Key wisely, it said ‘poorly.’ A poor decision, or wrong decision, meant obvious death:
darkness shall you forever see.
“I don’t like the odds,” he finally stated.

Alyssa concurred. “Neither do I.”

“Are you talking about aborting?” asked Hillary.

“I think it would be prudent,” said Alyssa.

“That’s out of the question.”

Savage took a step forward, confronting Hillary until they were nearly toe to toe, their faces inches apart. “This isn’t a game,” he told him. “These hallways can come alive like you wouldn’t believe. And they’re not built to be user friendly. In this particular case there’s no concrete answer here—just a decision that gives us a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. If we choose incorrectly, then we die. It’s that simple.”

“Getting a little over dramatic, aren’t you, Mr. Savage?”

“Over dramatic? Are you serious?”

“This structure is more than 14,000 years old,” he said. “Whatever weights and balances created by the original architects to move these walls have certainly diminished over time, becoming useless.”

“They worked quite well inside the temple of Eden.”

“We’re not aborting anything,” he told him firmly. “We’re going to make a decision and stick with it.”

“Then you do it without Alyssa and me.” When he grabbed Alyssa’s elbow to escort her from the amphitheater, Hillary raised a fisted hand, a predetermined signal to Demir, who joined the circle from one of the lower tiers and lifted a halting hand with his palm held forward, disallowing Savage and Alyssa to move another step.

“Please, Mr. Savage. No one leaves alone,” he said.

“You can’t detain us.”

“Sure I can.” Demir didn’t even flinch.

Then to Hillary: “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Savage.

“I cannot do this without your help. I need you both. The Turkish government and the Ministry need you as well.”

“Yeah, maybe. But we don’t need them.” When they tried to sidestep Hillary, Demir raised a hand and placed it on Savage’s chest, stopping him.

“Mr. Savage, please.”

“You Hillary’s lackey now? Whenever he raises a hand you come to his beck and call.”

Demir lowered his hand. “Mr. Savage, it’s not our intent to use force against you or against Ms. Moore. But without the two of you our mortality rate would undoubtedly grow exponentially without your skills to get us through. We need you. We need Ms. Moore. The government and Turkish Ministry would greatly be indebted to you for your services.”

“And if we don’t want the government and Turkish Ministry to be indebted to us?”

“The discovery of Eden inside of Turkey’s borders is bringing worldwide attention to our nation. The world expects much from all of us.”

“Even if it comes with the cost of us dying?”

“The price of progress has always been destruction,” he told him. “My men understand the nature and importance of this mission . . . If you choose to leave, Mr. Savage, then we will go on without you. But if we press forward without your skills to aid us, and we must, then many of my men will probably die.” He let the statement hang for a long moment. “And as a former soldier, Mr. Savage, you of all people should understand the importance and value of the men who serve under your command.”

Savage suddenly bit down, causing his muscles to work the back of his jaw. He felt as if he had just been kicked in his soft spot, at the point of his absolute weakness. He had commandeered his SEAL Team to the Philippines on a rescue mission while mentally and emotionally compromised, his lack of awareness ultimately costing him the lives of half his team as well as the primary targets of rescue. There was no doubt in his mind that Demir read his dossier, and was now using it effectively against him in a one-two punch.

He turned to Alyssa and rubbed her shoulder. “I have to go on,” he told her softly, almost apologetically. “But if you want to go, I’m sure that Demir will have someone—”

She cut him off by placing the fore- and middle fingers against his lips. “I’m not going anywhere without you,” she said. Her lips curled slightly at the edges, and her eyes were alight with endearment.