David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

“iPad,” Phoebe said after a minute of intense focus. She held her hand out to Orlando, who quickly passed it over. “I think I’ve got the next leg of this map.”

She leaned in to Caleb and whispered, “Just keep faking it, big brother. I’ve got you covered.”

“You’re the best,” he replied. “I’m trying but…”

“Nothing?”

“I keep seeing her. Lydia. But it’s not like our visions. They’re just memories.”

“Ah. Worse, then.”

Caleb nodded. But maybe just as important. A catharsis, perhaps. A flood of images played against the back of his eyelids every time they closed. Meeting her for the first time at the book signing in SoHo; their growing connection on the book tour, working together on research trips to exotic ancient locations, the steamy nights under the stars, or under the cool sheets in five-star hotels; the reunion after he had thought her dead, the moment her emotions cracked through and she revealed he had a son.

All these memories swam in his thoughts, clouding the psychic pathways like arterial blocks, suffocating the power he kept trying to access.

He couldn’t fight it any longer, and didn’t want to. She was there, in his mind, living in the only place left for her. Part of him hoped that he was seeing all this because she was trying to show him one more thing, to force him to understand some vital aspect of himself he needed to learn.

Or else, it was only his guilt.

He had killed her. As surely as if he’d pushed her off a cliff. By his silence and distrust. By his arrogance in thinking he alone could own and protect the Emerald Tablet. It was a guilt he needed to accept and overcome if he was to move on.

It’s up to you now. Her last thought, he was sure of it, was about their son. But how could he save Alexander when his hands were tied? He could only stand by, watching and hoping the others could do what he couldn’t.

Someone coughed. He heard the soldiers’ raspy breathing over his own. Every sound was amplified in the cavern, the slightest movement roaring in his ears, explosions rattling in his head. The splashing of the oars echoed off the walls, and it was easy to imagine the flashlight beams scraping the ceiling or the sides, and eliciting sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

Phoebe sighed, the sound grinding in her ears as well. She took a deep breath of hot air and began drawing, expanding the previous sketch, filling in the right side of the diagram. Renee moved closer, stepping around the men rowing so she could watch.

“What’s that?” She pointed to the bottom of the screen where Phoebe had drawn the terminus of this river passageway that ended at the boundary opening up into a larger section: broad at the far end, but peppered with dots. Phoebe kept jabbing at the screen, creating the dots in a haphazard pattern until it began to look like an actual formation.

“Don’t know,” Phoebe replied. “I saw faces. White faces. Hundreds of eyes. Thousands, maybe.”

Qara made a snickering noise.

“What?” asked Renee, turning in the boat, then peering ahead. The flashlight’s glow had bounced off her mask, amplifying a mix of fear and excitement beyond the plastic. “What’s up ahead?”

“Death,” Qara said. “And I don’t need to be psychic to see that. We’re all-”

“Shut her up,” Renee snapped. “Phoebe, elaborate on what you saw.”

A gasp, and Phoebe dropped the stylus pen, causing Orlando to jump for it, and scramble at the bottom of the boat before they lost it. She shook her head, blinked and stood up. Ahead, the flashlight beams speared around, barely penetrating the thick gloom hanging over the silvery river.

She squinted, rubbed her faceplate, and tried to peer through the unresolved shadows. “Wait! There’s something before we reach the shore, something-”

But that’s when an iron sphere as large as a refrigerator came swinging down from the cavern’s roof on a steel chain, crashing into the first boat.

Soldiers scattered like bowling pins, two of them taking direct hits, bones shattering, bodies crumpling. The hull cracked and the boat capsized, spinning to the left and upturning the whole team.

“Duck!” Chang yelled as the sphere swung all the way back up, just missing the prow of the second boat. Everyone ducked low and his men paddled sideways, moving the boat out of the reach of the sphere’s downswing.

One member of the first craft wasn’t so lucky. A soldier had scrambled back into the boat after flipping it, and just stood, dripping and coughing, when the ball swung back and caught him in the chest, bringing him along for the ascending trip. A hideous crunching sound echoed off the ceiling, and his body splashed down in the darkness.

Men were screaming, splashing, scrambling. Flashlights spun around and dimmed as they went underwater. Chang and the two soldiers in Caleb’s boat kept their lights trained on the first boat, keeping it illuminated for the capsized men to get back on.

The sphere came back for another swing, but this time both boats were out of its range, off to the side.

“Shit!” Renee grumbled. “What else do we have to contend with?”

“You have no idea,” Qara said.

“I do,” said Phoebe. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking close enough. But that’s it. Just that iron ball, a little pre-welcoming gift from Genghis.”

“You’d better be right,” Renee said, ruefully counting the soldiers ahead as they climbed back into the battered boat.

“We lost three,” Chang said, shining his light on the three floating, battered bodies.

Renee nodded. “Acceptable. Keep going. And you”-she glared at Phoebe-“had better be right about this.”

Phoebe nodded, but Orlando stepped up between them. “Listen, you want our help, you better start asking nicely.”

“Orlando,” Caleb cautioned.

“Fine,” Renee said, raising her gun in front of Orlando’s face. “Please just do what I tell you, or I’ll shoot your girlfriend and toss her over the side.”

“Hey,” Phoebe said. “I’m nobody’s-”

“Save it. Kid, help her out. And Caleb, maybe you should actually start contributing. I don’t recall your being of any use so far, except for prattling your academic bullshit.”

“Which,” Caleb said, “if I recall, helped to get us this far.”

Renee looked around the gloom, past the dead bodies. “Which is where, exactly?”

Caleb glared at her through his fogging facemask. Then he peered over her shoulder, to where the lights of the first boat were striking something a hundred feet ahead. A rough shoreline. “Here,” he said, moving to the head of the boat.

Chang barked a command to the lead boat, and a soldier pulled out a gun, aimed ahead as the boat approached the sandy shore, and fired.

The crimson flare left a sparkling smoke trail on its ascent. It rose at a slight angle, and kept ascending, illuminating odd shadows, glinting off impossibly white structures.

Caleb’s boat pulled up alongside the other, and all eyes were on the still-ascending flare. Chang whispered something, and three more flares fired out into the darkness. The first one dipped over a tall minaret and was lost over a skyline of domes, walls and turrets. The other, rising at a steeper angle, hit the roof of the immense cavern and stuck, sparking and smoking.

“More,” Renee said.

The flare guns fired again, four of them lighting up the darkness, dispelling shadows that had ruled undisturbed for eight centuries.

“Holy crap,” Orlando whispered, as they all gazed at the flickering red outlines of the city visible over the walls: palaces of polished white marble, temples of golden tiles and blue mosaic domes; winding walkways and soaring bridges, fountains and ponds; pillared temples and massive halls.