David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

Caleb had never known that about her. In fact, he didn’t know much about her life before they’d met. They had been so caught up in researching ancient history that they’d had no time for investigating the more recent past. Every so often she would question his relationships with his mother or with Phoebe, and she would ask about the Morpheus Initiative. Every once in a while Caleb would get a letter from Phoebe inquiring about the book or just updating him on their fruitless attempts to break the Pharos Code, and Lydia would ask how their search was progressing. Thankfully, she had never asked about his father. And sadly, Caleb rarely thought about him.

At least that part of my past is over.

Caleb took a deep breath as a trio of buzzing gnats flew about his face. Lydia helped him up, and they walked out of the ruins toward the distant tourist area and the two cabs waiting patiently for fares.

“So, if your vision is true,” Lydia began, “then we have an even more tragic picture of what was lost at Alexandria.”

Caleb stopped. For a moment, the sunlight skipped like a dozen flat stones across the Nile and he had a flash of clarity, a moment of understanding, as if he had somehow restored a waking connection to the historical vision. A rush of faces passed before his mind’s eye, a tumultuous crowd of men and women. He had the certainty that they were all involved in a grand legacy, a noble plan, a cosmic secret. Plato’s words echoed in his mind: “… you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times.” Then it vanished as Caleb saw something out of the corner of his eye-a blurry figure in the distance. He squinted. There on the opposite bank stood a man. Out of place, looking like the stump of a diseased palm tree. He was so narrow, so motionless-until he lifted his arm, and pointed at Caleb.

The air shook, an invisible ripple extending out from that finger to Caleb’s heart. He jolted back, spun and Lydia just barely steadied him.

“Do you see him?” Caleb shouted, frantic, pushing away and running toward the river. “There!” But the far bank was empty. Only desolate shrubs and a jumble of rocks. Caleb turned to see Lydia giving him a frightened look.

She came to him, held his hands, kissed his sweaty forehead. “Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

Venice

Whatever had let loose his visions at Sais, whatever jolt had restored the sight, it was responsible for releasing a chain of successive dreams of such realism over the next week that Caleb and Lydia decided against returning to the States until they had sorted them out.

Caleb filled one sketchbook, then another. He tried to force daytime trances to get more clarity, and he again slept with a coffee cup full of sharpened pencils and a pad of paper next to the bed. Lydia would sit quietly by his side, run book errands, and bring him water and food. Watching and biting her nails from the shadows.

Finally, he gave up; the visions were not progressing past the point he had already reached. Lydia coaxed him into talking, and he described what he’d seen, the same rush of images he had been privy to back in the harbor in Alexandria. In an excited, breathless voice, as the song of cicadas drifted on Mediterranean breezes through their window, he said, “It starts on Pharos Island. Alexandria. I believe it’s two hundred and seventy-nine BC. Just before Dedication Day.”

“Dedication of what?” Lydia asked.

Caleb smiled and told her the story of what had come in pieces and jumbled images, like video clips in his mind. The story of Sostratus and Demetrius, the tour of the lighthouse, the cryptic words of its builder… all the way to the point where Sostratus had led his visitor down those stairs. But then it ended. And despite his attempts to go farther, to venture below through the vault door with Demetrius, the visions wouldn’t oblige.

“Maybe you need to give your mind a rest,” Lydia proposed. “A vacation.”

Before returning to Alexandria, where they’d hoped Caleb’s visions would continue and lead them to further answers, they took a month’s vacation on a cruise up the Nile, visiting the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Karnak, Abydos and other amazing sites he had only read about. Caleb’s dreams were filled with enormous pyramids, sprawling pillars, cyclopean roofs, rows of hieroglyphs and painted wall reliefs. Then they spent a week in Cairo, at the museum and in the markets and among the Pyramids. But before embarking on the last leg of the cruise and making their way to Alexandria, they went to Venice.

To get married.

They crossed the Mediterranean, passed within ten miles of Rhodes and then Malta, and continued past the tip of Sicily and up the coast of Italy. Caleb pointed out the Bay of Naples and the Royal Palace, where he could almost see the scholars in white coats still teasing millimeters of carbonized papyrus from the Herculaneum scrolls. They went around the boot of Italy, circled back and continued north past Tuscany until they entered the canals of Venice. While Caleb ordered dinner, Lydia secured a room on the eastern side of the city, overlooking St. Mark’s piazza. And that night, under velvety purple skies, they were married.

Facing each other in a gondola, as the full moon painted them in ghostly auras, they said their vows before a priest, in Latin. They held hands and kissed, and people cheered-people on the bridges, people in their homes looking down, people at the edge of St. Mark’s.

They celebrated with a wonderful seafood dinner unlike anything Caleb could remember. And then there were three bottles of wine, some Chianti to wrap up the night before they stumbled back to their room. Dizzy, Caleb promised Lydia they’d consummate the marriage in the morning, and she giggled and agreed as she pulled up the sheets.

Under the covers, away from the lights from the cathedral, she whispered in his ear, “I have to tell you something.”

Caleb laughed and kissed her fiercely. He felt her nakedness entwining around him completely. He could not have been happier. His only regret was not the suddenness of their decision to marry, but the fact that he hadn’t told Phoebe.

“What is it?” Caleb whispered back, nibbling at his wife’s lips.

“Something about me,” she said. “I need to tell you-”

“Can it wait?” he asked, trying to stop the room from spinning. He wished he had taken some aspirin. Mildly curious about what she had to say, he suddenly imagined that the alcohol had freed some inherent block, and a small window had opened, which he could peer into and learn whatever dark secrets his new bride harbored.

“No,” she said. “It can’t wait. But… I don’t know if I can say.”

“Tell me,” Caleb insisted, barely able to keep his eyes open. But at that moment, his stomach lurched, the room spun even harder, and he ran to the bathroom, which happened to be down the hall, shared by six other guestrooms. Fortunately it was empty, and when he returned to the room, Lydia was snoring. He slid under the covers and fell fast asleep beside her.

In the morning, the phone woke them up.

Lydia got to it first. “Wrong room,” she said, slamming the receiver down. Her hair was a mess, and sheet lines were written over her face. She turned to Caleb. “Ugh. Sorry, I don’t think that was the most romantic of wedding nights.”

“No.” He groaned. “But the ceremony was nice.”

“Sure was.” She sighed and looked out the window, closing her eyes and feeling the cool Venetian winds. “Let’s get something to eat and go see the cathedral.”

Caleb got up, then sat back down, the room still pitching. He put his head between his hands and groaned. “Was there something you were going to tell me last night?”