David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

“Wait,” said Orlando. “Was Marduk ram-headed by any chance?”

Caleb nodded. “As Amun-Ra in Egypt, he was ram-headed during the Zodiacal age of the Ram. Why?”

“Oh, just because Renee’s boyfriend-lover in my dream wore a ram’s mask.”

Caleb scratched his chin. “Qara? You’ve been rather silent. Does any of this make sense?”

She was silent for a long time, merely staring ahead at the dusty road and the glimmering, hazy horizon. “It seems,” she said, turning her eyes on Caleb in the mirror, “there are two ancient forces contending for that tablet and the keys to unlock its power. Which side are you on?”

One hundred fifty miles to the northeast, Montross stretched his legs and stared at the road ahead. He sucked in a deep breath of air so pure and crisp it was as though his lungs were bared to the outside, directly absorbing every molecule.

While Colonel Hiltmeyer called in their location on his secure satellite phone, Nina stood by the back of their jeep, cleaning her guns and checking their equipment. Montross noticed she still kept a motherly eye on Alexander, off in the nearest set of bushes, busy relieving himself.

It was time. He opened his pack, reached down and touched the tablet. Caressed its impossibly smooth angles, felt its power as his index finger lingered over symbols that seemed to react to his touch. His heart rate increased, his eyes grew heavy, his legs weak. He reluctantly closed the flap, stumbled back to the jeep, then slid into the back seat.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nina asked, gliding over at once and ducking her head inside.

Montross held up a hand. “Nothing I didn’t ask for.”

“What, are you trying for a vision? Now?”

“Need to snoop on our friends. See how far they’ve gotten.”

“Okay fine. But do you”-she reached over, touched his face seductively, turned his chin toward her as she leaned in, placing her lips inches from his-“need any help?”

“Ordinarily, I might say yes. But now that I’ve got the tablet, I have what I need. And you, my dear, ought to keep an eye on our guest.”

“The boy’s not going anywhere. He’s just… Oh shit!” She stared out the window, incredulous. “The little brat’s actually making a break for it.”

“For what? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Just go get him.”

Montross knew she was still speaking, but there was no sound in the jeep. It was as if the world had fallen away, dissolving around him into an absence of color, pure white like a blank canvas, one that he longed to fill. He moaned, then opened his eyes and pushed his face forward, through what felt like a thick, gelatinous curtain, to pry this vision free-except it did more than that. Just as once before, down in Caleb’s lighthouse vault, it plucked his very psyche from his body and hurtled it across time and space, until…

… in a field of stones, weeds and grass. Broken pillars, moss-eaten stones that once ran in some kind of pattern.

Ruins.

Xanadu.

Shimmering, the landscape, the dying sun, the sickly grouping of nearby oak trees, oddly translucent, the bark glistening in the twilight, reflecting the dim glow of approaching headlights.

Headlights brighten, the engine coughs and the lights go out. A Hummer stops near the main archway, the only significant standing feature left of Xanadu. Without making any physical effort, Montross is closer, with just a directed thought.

Doors open. Two women get out. Two men.

One of them… Caleb!

In that instant, Caleb looks around, and Montross pulls back, trying to disappear, to reel himself back. The sudden fear of discovery leads to the panic of being non-corporeal, of being unable to make it back. Could he be trapped like this? Far from his body, so distant, slumped in the back seat of a jeep? Vulnerable.

Caleb turns toward him, mouth open.

He knows! He can see!

Frowning, Caleb takes a step toward him, then another, reaching out. Now he is running.

Montross tries to get away as Caleb’s image flutters, breaks into pieces and scatters like a million multicolored leaves blowing all around him, spinning, circling, then reforming into the interior of a jeep.

Nina’s face…

… bent over his, Alexander thrust into the seat beside him, Nina’s hand still clutching his hair. “You, sit still!” Then to Montross, “You okay? I thought we’d lost you.”

Montross, taking deep gulps of air, wiped the sweat from under his tangled red hair, turned to Nina and smiled at Alexander.

“Just saw your dad. He’s waiting for us at Xanadu.”

Hiltmeyer let Private Harris drive while he sat in the front passenger seat and reviewed the site. “Remote, no tourist centers, guards or anything. Sounds like the annual visitors are pretty much nil, a bunch of backpackers maybe, but that’s it.”

“So much for their national treasure,” Nina said.

“Just the way the Darkhad wants it,” Montross added. “They couldn’t have been too happy with Kublai Khan’s decision to build his summer palace right over the secret mausoleum.”

Alexander stirred, squeezing his shoulders free. “But I get why he did it, don’t you?”

“What?” Nina asked.

“A palace and a city, right over the underground caverns. And then another city.” Alexander beamed. “As Above, so Below!”

Montross shrugged, then let a smile form. “Still, the Darkhad didn’t like it and were happy to let the place go to hell after Kublai died. They probably helped to scatter the remnants and encourage the focus to shift to Beijing.”

“So,” said Hiltmeyer, “the top, the ‘Above’ as the kid puts it, is a piece of cake. Assuming Crowe and his team find the entrance for us, what can we expect in the ‘Below’?”

Montross sighed. “To answer that question, I’ll need some peace and quiet.” He looked back to Alexander. “And maybe a little help from our guest.”

He lifted up the satchel with the tablet, feeling it hum, vibrate through the leather. Waiting, impatient. “We’re going to check it out. I can only imagine, though, what old Genghis has in store. But I bet,” he said to Alexander, “it’ll make your dad’s defenses down in your old lighthouse look like a walk in the park.”

“Oh great,” said Alexander, trying to sound confident, but Montross could feel the boy tremble.

Good, he thought. Fear will sharpen his senses, attune his visions.

“Help us, kid. And you help your father too. Because this time he doesn’t have years to ponder and study and prepare for this descent, not like the Pharos. This time, he’s only got a few hours. And unless he’s asking the right questions, and seeing the right visions, he and your aunt won’t last a minute down there.”

“I saw him!” Caleb yelled, spinning around, waving his arms through the dimming light. “Montross. He was here.”

Twenty yards from the main archway and the jeep, he had run chasing the phantom. Around him the stones and broken pillars of once-mighty Xanadu lay in their eight hundred-year-old positions, fodder for weeds and moss, dismissed by the centuries.

“I might have seen something,” Orlando said, his voice uncertain. He still trained the gun on Qara, who seemed to be edging a little too close. He waved it at her. “Back away, I’m watching you.”

Phoebe scanned the area, looking into the distance, over the hills, the wide spaces. The only cover being a few trees in the distance. “I don’t know, I don’t see anything. It’s been a long drive. A long trip, no sleep.”

“I saw him,” Caleb countered. “But it was different. It was like when I saw Dad.”

“What?”

“Years ago, in Alexandria, and back in Sodus at Mom’s deathbed. Like he was there, but he wasn’t.”