Burkhan Khaldun, Mongolia
Nina Osseni darted around trees, dove through brush, ducked and ran from cover to cover as she ascended the mountain, following the trail of the white stallion and the fleeing Darkhad woman.
But after about thirty minutes, the trail had gone cold. Too many rocks, boulders and paths overrun with horse prints for her to determine which were new. And the light was fading, the bright blue of the sky leeched out by hungry violets and grays.
“Damn,” she whispered, stopping with her foot it mid-step. Catching her breath, she looked down. In the hazy twilight she had just seen the barest outline of a wire.
She stepped back, following the wire with her eyes, seeing where it ended up a tree on a mechanism controlling a raft of sharp stakes, all pointed down at her. “Diabolically impressive.”
Nina scanned the shadows on the mountainside, seeing all the nooks and crevasses. She put on her night-vision goggles and let the world jump into green and white, but it was still no use. No wonder the Darkhad have been so successful. She backed up slowly, expecting to hear the thwang of an arrow zipping toward her.
She would wait for Colonel Hiltmeyer’s team, his men and his supplies. Flak jackets and automatic weapons. Floodlights and flares. Grenades. But they’d have to be careful, and even then… She glanced at the trap again and imagined what else lay in store on the way up.
Best to send up the grunts first, one at a time. It was the only way they might make it to the top.
Frustrated and growing angrier by the minute, she made her way back down toward the camp.
On the descent, her thoughts turned to Caleb, imagining where he might be right now. Was he remote viewing her this very instant? For a moment she paused, feeling naked, exposed even more than being on this mountain at the mercy of an expert marksman. She narrowed her eyes, then quickened her pace.
Best to get back to Montross, and to the tablet. It had some kind of psychic deterrent built up around it, a kind of cloud that made its presence, and those around it, invisible to scrying eyes. Part of the reason it had gone undetected for so many centuries. And of course, Montross had something else, something like it-a sphere he had stolen from the Smithsonian archives years ago. It had shielded him from any prying eyes while he prepared for this mission. Now, they were doubly protected.
But as she got close to the camp and saw the men suiting up, preparing for the ascent, she found herself wishing their situations were reversed, that she was the one remote viewing Caleb. Seeing his every move, voyeuristically laughing, or cheering at his progress.
#
“We can make the Threshold before dark, if we move now,” Colonel Eric Hiltmeyer said. He was fitting on his vest over his camouflage threads and supervising his team of fifteen soldiers, all loaded with gear and weapons.
Montross was eyeing the mountain in the distance, with its twenty or more square miles of available hiding space just begging him to try. He narrowed his eyes, then turned and headed for the first tent. “Hold on, we need a little more precision before we go blindly tramping up there.”
“I agree,” said Nina, skidding and sliding down the last few yards to their camp. “And I think our friends up there have devised some rather nasty traps for the unwary. This might not be such a good idea in the dark.”
Hiltmeyer coughed in his hand. “Bullshit. We can handle it.”
Nina scoffed. “Doubtful, but you’re welcome to try. I’ll just hang back and watch the carnage from down here. I say we wait until morning.”
“No waiting,” Montross said. “Get ready to move on my return.” And with that, he stormed into the first tent, tossed back the flap, and stepped inside where just a lone candle bathed the white felt material in a pale glow, mixing with the emerald haze from the tablet beside Alexander.
Alexander emerged from his trance slowly, grudgingly. He had been sitting cross-legged on a mat on the hard ground with the Emerald Tablet right in front of him. Its aura had tugged at his consciousness once he was left alone with it, and he had spent several minutes just staring deeply into its oddly angled surfaces, trying to force the images into some sort of cohesive shape. But the edges wouldn’t line up, and the letters appeared to vibrate with a frequency all its own. Pulsing into his mind, tweaking parts of his brain, nudging him down paths of sight that were alien, powerful and terrifying.
But at last he gave in. He had to be brave, had to do this for his dad. For Aunt Phoebe. For Mom. It was up to him. He had to see. Maybe if he found what Xavier Montross was looking for, then all this could end. He could go home, be with Dad and forget all this.
But his home was gone. Burnt. All his toys, his books. His treasured books.
Anger swirled in his thoughts, but he pushed the emotion aside and trusted the waves of green, throbbing behind his eyelids, prying open his inner sight. And then he saw…
… a camel. One hump, no saddle, but a muzzle and its harness. Led across the snow-covered desert by a lone man wrapped tight in a llama-skin coat and a fur hat. The sun, distant and weak, follows the pair across the wilderness as the moon lights their way at night, enticing them to continue without rest.
Until finally they arrive at a frozen river, its surface like glass, reflecting the cold, distant constellations.
“ Here?” the man asks the camel.
And the beast lowers its head. A female, she makes a whining sound, then half-trots, half-stumbles to the edge of the riverbank. Sniffing deeply.
“ Here?” he asks again, setting down his pack, which he opens. He pulls out an ax. And a shovel.
The camel paws at the ground, then lifts its head in alarm.
Two dark shapes sprint across the landscape, converging from the north and the east.
With bows drawn.
The camel’s owner takes a step back, and is about to cry out when two arrows simultaneously pierce his chest. He slumps to his knees, eyes wide in disbelief. The ax drops. Arms at his side, he remains kneeling as if frozen, while the two forms approach, slower now.
One of them clicks his tongue, calming the beast. The other circles around it, draws a knife, then holds the camel’s head while he slits its throat, spilling hot blood upon the snow and ice.
After the beast stops thrashing on the ground, lying on its side beside her dying master, the two men turn to consider the man.
“ He’s dead,” one says to the other.
“ Too bad. We could have asked him.”
“ But I think we know. This is the camel. The mother of the calf we buried last year.”
“ Then it’s true. Camels have memories like elephants.”
One nodded, looking back at the beast. “A mother’s love is not easily swayed. We should have killed its whole family after burying the child with our master.”
“ No matter. The site is safe. Now, even more so.” He looks out over the frozen expanse of the river, winding around in a huge, silver-coated “S” back to the distant black hills. “Our Khan is safe.”
A flash like a thunderbolt lights up the world…
… and the same river bends in the summer sun. Black flies swarm over a field of men slaving at the land, carving up trenches near the river, carving a path that will give it its S-shape.
“ It is almost time,” one man on horseback says to his uniformed companions. “Ogadai is coming tomorrow to supervise and to formally close the tomb.”
“ And then we will punch through the final barrier and divert the river over the entrance, there.” The general points to a large, dark aperture carved into the bedrock twenty feet below the earth. Men were still down there, moving up and down a wooden ramp, carrying items of great value-food, gold, urns full of jewels. Next, a single young camel is led by its harness into the depths. And in a nearby tent, twenty maidens are being prepared.
“ Tomorrow,” the general says again, swatting a fly from his neck, “we finish this, make the sacrifices, and lead his caravan back to the Sacred Mountain. The secret of Temujin’s tomb shall be safe.”
“ What about these laborers? They know-”
“ I said, the secret shall be safe.”
Alexander’s vision fluttered, wind blew through the tent, the green aura around the edges flickered, and a voice whispered through the sands and the buzzing of flies.
“What have you seen?”
Alexander shook his head, whipping his hair across his face, and finally he pulled himself free. He looked up into the eyes of Xavier Montross, eyes that eerily reflected the color of the Emerald Tablet. Eyes that threatened to send him back into an ancient, inescapable world of dreams and visions, of blood and secrets.
“I-” he started, and then glanced again at the tablet.
And another vision suddenly exploded in a kaleidoscopic rush of intensity, more real than anything he’d ever experienced, except for the burst of fire in the lighthouse vault. It grabbed hold and shook him to his core as if to say: Not yet. You still need to see something more…
The same river weaves through manicured gardens and past cobblestone walkways and under marble bridges scintillating with jewels while fountains spray diamond-like drops high into the air, where flocks of doves fly around golden-tipped minarets, in and out of rose- and hyacinth-covered terraces. The river flows on, right through the center of a palace so breathtakingly beautiful, so bright with its polished white marble walls, its seven golden domes, its pillars of sparkling blue, it makes the rest of the dazzling city pale in comparison.
Thousands of people wander around the city, talking, reading, dancing. Wearing loose and colorful robes, they sit in the gardens and drink from golden cups while strings and flutes play on the breeze.
“ Was this wise?” says a man on an arched bridge, dressed all in black robes, with a dark hat shading his face. He speaks to an older man, dressed the same.
Shaking his head, the elder says, “Kublai believes in the old philosophy, the adage: Whatever you wish to hide, keep it in plain sight and none will think to look there.”
“ Nowhere plainer, or more obvious,” the younger man notes, pointing to the sparkling water in the river’s bend below their feet. He can almost discern the outline of a slight mound, just off-color, distinct from its surroundings.
“ It will be safe,” the elder assures his son. “We will see to that. And when Shang-du falls, as all great cities must, and when Kublai goes to join his grandfather in the Blue Heaven, we will make sure this place, and all its towers and golden domes, its wealth and power, are demolished and then spread across the empire, until the ruin of this city is thought of no more.”
“A palace!”
Montross dropped to a knee, studying the boy’s face. “You saw a palace? What was it like? How big?”
Alexander blinked, willing his eyes to focus. Suddenly Montross had his hands on the boy’s shoulders, hauling him up and away from the direct sight of the Emerald Tablet. “Where is it?”
“It was huge,” Alexander said, squirming. “Seven domes. Lots of pillars. And a river.”
Montross dropped the boy and took a step back. Remain calm. Work with him, let him speak. “Okay, what else? What did you ask to be shown?”
Alexander shrugged. “Nothing. I just knelt down, stared at that the tablet, and I started seeing stuff.”
“Okay, think carefully, kid. Tell me everything you saw.”
Frowning, Alexander raised a finger. Took a deep breath. “What’s in it for me?”
Montross smiled. “Your life, for starts.”
“And my dad’s? Aunt Phoebe’s? The Morpheus Initiative? I really like that Orlando guy, he’s cool. I don’t want any of them hurt.”
“Help me and I’ll do what I can.”
“Same goes for that Nina lady. Keep her away. She doesn’t play nice.”
Montross laughed. “She most certainly does not. But come on, scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
Alexander made a face.
“Just an expression. Get me to Genghis Khan’s tomb, and I’m done with you, with all the Crowes. And the Morpheus Initiative too.”
Alexander raised an eyebrow like he saw Spock do all the time in the old Trek episodes. “What do you want?”
“The location. You know that.”
“No, what do you want from the grave? How much treasure do you need? And why can’t you see it on your own?”
“I don’t know why I can’t see it. I’m close. I did see them lower a coffin into the mountainside, but I can’t tell where. In eight hundred years the scenery has changed. I saw them trample the area with horses, then plant it over with trees. It’s probably in the forest, covered with roots, and we don’t have the time or the resources to get out the sonar and all the technology. There has to be an easier way.”
Alexander crossed his arms and gave a stern look. “I asked you what’s in the grave.”
Montross sighed, then reached down the front of his shirt. “Fine, I’ll tell you. See this?”
“Nice necklace.”
“Yeah, well our friend Genghis has two just like it, buried with him. I want to complete this set of three. Is that enough for you?”
“They kind of look like the Emerald Tablet.”
Very observant. “How about that?”
“What do those necklace pieces do?” Alexander asked. “Let me guess-make you live forever?”
“Apparently not. Didn’t work for Genghis, or the other guy who left me this one.”
“Well, you said he didn’t have all three, right?”
Definitely observant. Montross smiled. “Enough chit-chat. I told you I’d let you go if you help me. What I didn’t tell you was that if you don’t, I’ll find it anyway, and then I will let Nina and her friends out there finish making you an orphan. Now, what did you see?”
Alexander lowered his eyes. His shoulders sagged. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you won’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Because what I saw… it wasn’t on this mountain.”