Текст книги "Sandstorm"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

He shouted over his shoulder. “I got something here!”

Safia waved back. “We have to dig where the sled is positioned. Three feet down. Open the pocket.”

Omaha checked his watch. “We only have another twenty minutes.”

“We can do it. It’s just packed sand and small rocks. If several people dig at the same time…”

Painter agreed, feeling a surge of excitement. “Do it.”

In less then a minute, a ring of diggers set to work.

Safia stood back, cradling her arm in the sling.

“Are you ready to explain yourself?” Omaha said.

Safia nodded. “I had to be sure. We’ve been thinking about this all wrong. We all know the sinkhole opened under Ubar’s township and destroyed half the town, driving folks away in superstitious fear of God’s wrath. After this disaster, the last queen of Ubar sealed its heart, to protect its secrets.”

“So?” Kara asked, standing beside the hodja.

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the gate was conveniently spared during the devastation here? That as the city folk fled, the queen stayed behind and performed all these secret acts: sealed the gate in such a manner that it has never been discovered, forged and hid keys at sacred sites of that time.”

“I suppose,” Kara said.

Omaha brightened visibly. “I see what you’re getting at.” He glanced to the diggers, back to Safia, grabbing her good arm. “We’ve been looking at this ass-backward.”

“Would someone care to explain it to us layfolk?” Painter asked, irritated at Omaha’s understanding.

Omaha explained. “The chronology has to be wrong. Chicken-and-egg scenario. We’ve believed the sinkhole was the reasonUbar was sealed.”

“Now think about it in a new light,” Safia added. “As if you were the queen. What would such a disaster matter to the royal house anyway? The true wealth of Ubar, the source of its power, lay elsewhere. The queen could’ve simply rebuilt. She had the wealth and the power.”

Omaha chimed in, the pair working as an experienced team. “The town was notimportant. It was only a mask hiding the true Ubar. A facade. A tool.”

“One turned to a new use,” Safia said. “A means of hiding the gate.”

Kara shook her head, clearly as confused as Painter.

Omaha sighed. “Something truly terrified the queen, enough to drive her from the wealth and power of Ubar, force her and her descendants to live a nomadic existence, existing on the fringe of civilization. Do you really think a simple sinkhole like this would’ve done it?”

“I guess not,” Painter said. He noted the excitement growing between Safia and Omaha. They were in their element. He was excluded, on the outside looking in. A flare of jealousy prickled through him.

Safia picked up the thread. “Something terrified the royal family, enough that they wanted Ubar locked from the world. I don’t know what that event was, but the queen did not act rashly. Look at how methodical her preparations were afterward. She prepared keys, hid them in places sacred to the people, wrapped them in riddles. Does this sound like an irrational response? It was calculated, planned, and executed. As was her first step in sealing Ubar.”

Safia glanced to Omaha.

He filled in the final blank. “The queen deliberately caused the sinkhole to collapse.”

A stunned moment of silence followed.

“She destroyed her own town?” Kara finally asked. “Why?”

Safia nodded. “The town was only a means to an end. The queen put it to its final use. To bury Ubar’s gate.”

Omaha glanced all around the rim. “The act also had a psychological purpose. It drove folks away, frightened them from ever approaching. I wager the queen herself spread some of the stories about God’s wrath. What better way to hang a religious ‘Do Not Trespass’ sign on these lands?”

“How did you figure all that out?” Painter asked.

“It was only a conjecture,” Safia said. “I had to test it. If the sinkhole was used to bury something, then there must be something down here. Since the metal detectors discovered nothing, either the object was too deep or it was some type of chamber.”

Painter glanced at the diggers.

Safia continued, “As with the tomb sites, the queen cloaked clues in symbols and mythology. Even the first key. The iron heart. It symbolized the heart of Ubar. And in most towns, the heart of their community is the well. So she hid the Gate of Ubar in the well, buried them in sand, as the iron heart was sealed in sandstone, then dropped the sinkhole on top of them.”

“Driving people away,” Painter mumbled. He cleared his throat and spoke more clearly. “What about the radiation signature?”

“It would take dynamite to drop this sinkhole,” Omaha answered.

Safia nodded. “Or some form of an antimatter explosion.”

Painter glanced at Lu’lu. The hodjahad remained stoically quiet the entire time. Had her ancestors really utilized such a power?

The old woman seemed to note his attention. She stirred. Her eyes were hidden by goggles. “No. You cast aspersions. The queen, our ancestor, would not kill so many innocent people just to hide Ubar’s secret.”

Safia crossed to her. “No human remains were ever found in or around the sinkhole. She must have found some way to clear the city. A ceremony or something. Then sank the hole. I doubt anyone died here.”

Still, the hodjawas unconvinced, even taking a step back from Safia.

A shout rose from the diggers. “We found something!” Danny yelled.

All their faces turned to him.

“Come see before we dig further.”

Painter and the others all shifted over. Coral and Clay stepped aside for them. Danny pointed his shovel.

In the center of the trenchlike hole, the dark red sand had turned to snow.

“What is that?” Kara asked.

Safia hopped down, dropped to a knee, and ran her hand over the surface. “It’s not sand.” She glanced up. “It’s frankincense.”

“What?” Painter asked.

“Silver frankincense,” Safia elaborated, and stood up. “The same as what was found plugging the iron heart. An expensive form of cement. It’s stoppered the top of the hidden chamber like a cork in a bottle.”

“And below it?” Painter asked.

Safia shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

9:45 A.M.

CASSANDRA CLUTCHEDher laptop as the M4 high-speed tractor mashed over another small dune. The transport vehicle looked like a brown Winnebago balanced on a pair of tank treads, and despite its eighteen-ton weight, it chewed across the landscape with the efficiency of a BMW down the Autobahn.

She kept the pace reasonable, respecting the terrain and weather. Visibility was poor, only yards ahead. Windblown sand flumed all around, whipping off the tops of dunes in vast sails. The sky had darkened, cloudless, the sun no more than a wan moon above. She dared not risk bogging down the tractor. They’d never drag it free. So they proceeded with sensible caution.

Behind her the other five all-terrain trucks traveled in the tracks of the larger tractor as it blazed a trail through the desert. In the rear were the flatbeds with the cradled VTOL copters.

She glanced to the clock in the corner of the laptop’s screen. While it had taken a full fifteen minutes to get the caravan moving, they were now making good time. They’d reach Shisur in another twenty minutes.

Still, she kept an eye on the screen. Two display windows were open on it. One was a real-time feed from an NOAA satellite that tracked the path of the sandstorm. She had no doubt they’d reach the shelter of the oasis before the full storm struck, but just barely. And of even greater concern, the coastal high-pressure system was on the move inland, due to collide with this desert storm in the next few hours. It would be hell out here for a while.

The other screen on the monitor displayed another map of the area, a topographic schematic of this corner of the desert. It diagrammed every building and structure in Shisur, including the ruins. A small blue spinning ring, the size of a pencil eraser, glowed at the center of the ruins.

Dr. Safia al-Maaz.

Cassandra stared at the blue glow. What are you up to?The woman had led her off course, away from the prize. She thought to steal it out from under Cassandra’s nose, using the cover of the storm. Smart girl. But intelligence carried you only so far. Strength of arm was just as important. Sigma had taught her that, pairing brawn and brain. The sum of all men.Sigma’s motto.

Cassandra would teach that lesson to Dr. al-Maaz.

You may be smart, but I have the strength.

She glanced to the side mirror, to the trail of military vehicles. Inside, one hundred men armed with the latest in military and Guild hardware. Directly behind, in the tractor’s transport bed, John Kane sat with his men. Rifles bristled as they performed the deadly sacrament of a final weapons inspection. They were the best of the best, her Praetorian guards.

Cassandra stared ahead as the tractor ground its way inevitably forward. She attempted to pierce the gloom and windswept landscape.

Dr. al-Maaz might discover the treasure out there.

But in the end, Cassandra would take it.

She glanced back to the laptop’s screen. The storm ate away the map of the region, consuming all in its path. On the other display window, the schematic of the town and ruins glowed in the dim cabin.

Cassandra suddenly tensed. The blue ring had vanished from the map.

Dr. al-Maaz was gone.

9:53 A.M.

SAFIA HUNGfrom the caving ladder. She stared up at Painter above. His flashlight blinded her. She flashed on the moment in the museum when she hung from the glass roof and he was below her, encouraging her to wait for security. Only now their roles were reversed. He was on top; she was below. Yet once again, she was the one hanging above a drop.

“Just a few more steps,” he said, his scarf whipping about his neck.

She glanced to Omaha below. He held the ladder steady. “I got you.”

Bits of crumbling frankincense cascaded around her. Boulders of it lay around Omaha’s feet, and the air in the subterranean chamber was redolent with its aroma. It had taken only a few minutes with pickaxes to perforate into the conical-shaped cave.

Once they had broken through, Omaha had lowered a candle into the cave, both to check for bad air and to light the interior. He then went down the collapsible ladder, inspecting the chamber himself. Only when he was satisfied did he let Safia climb down. With her injured shoulder, she had to loosen her left arm from her sling and carry most of her weight with her right.

She struggled the rest of the way down. Omaha’s hand found her waist, and she leaned into his grip gratefully. He helped her to the floor.

“I’m all right,” she said when he kept a hand on her elbow.

He lowered his hand.

It was much quieter out of the wind, making her feel slightly deaf.

Already Painter had mounted the ladder, coming down, moving swiftly. Soon three flashlights shone across the walls.

“It’s like being inside a pyramid,” Painter said.

Safia nodded. Three rough walls tilted up to the hole at the top.

Omaha knelt on the floor, running his fingers across the ground.

“Sandstone,” Safia said. “All three walls and floor.”

“Is that significant?” Painter asked.

“This is not natural. The walls and floor are hewn slabs of sandstone. This is a man-made structure. Built atop bedrock of limestone, I imagine. Then sand was poured around the outside. Once it was covered, they plugged the hole at the top and covered it with more loose sand.”

Omaha stared up. “And to make sure no one found it by accident, they dropped the sinkhole atop it, frightening everyone away with ghost stories.”

“But why do all that?” Painter asked. “What’s this supposed to be?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Omaha grinned at him, looking suddenly striking to Safia. His goggles lay draped under his chin, his scarf and hood thrown back. He had not shaved in a couple of days, leaving a bronzed stubble over cheek and chin, his hair stuck up in odd places. She had forgotten how he looked in the field. Half wild, untamed. He was in his natural element, a lion on the veldt.

All that came to her with only the flash of his grin.

He loved all this-and once, she had, too. She had been as wild and uninhibited, his companion, lover, friend, colleague. Then Tel Aviv…

“What’s obvious?” Painter asked.

Omaha flung an arm. “This structure. You saw one of these today.”

Painter frowned.

Safia knew Omaha was teasing this out, not from malice, but simply from pure enjoyment and awe.

“We banged into one of these-a much smaller one-as we descended out of the mountains.”

Painter’s eyes widened, his gaze swept the space. “Those prayer stones.”

“A trilith,” Omaha said. “We’re standing insidea giant trilith.”

Safia suspected Omaha wanted to jump up and down, and truth be told, his excitement was contagious. She could not stand still herself. “We need to bring the keys down here.”

“What about the storm?” Painter cautioned.

“Screw the storm,” Omaha said. “You and the others can go and hide out in town. I’m staying here.” His eyes fell on Safia.

She nodded. “We’ve good shelter here. If someone could lower the iron artifacts, water, a few supplies, let Omaha and me figure out what to do with them. We might have the riddle solved by the time the worst of the storm blows itself out. Otherwise, we’ll lose a whole day.”

Painter sighed. “I should stay here, too.”

Omaha waved him off. “Crowe, you’re not much use to us. To use your own words from earlier, this is myarea of expertise. Guns, military ops…that’s you.Here, you’re simply taking up space.”

Storm clouds built behind Painter’s blue eyes.

Safia placed a conciliatory hand on the man’s arm. “Omaha’s right. We’ve got radios if we need anything. Someone has to make sure everyone stays safe when the storm hits.”

With clear reluctance, Painter stepped to the ladder. His eyes lingered on her, glanced to Omaha, then away. He climbed up and called back. “Radio what you’ll need.” He then shooed everyone away, herding them back to the shelter of the cinder-block homes.

Safia suddenly became acutely aware of how alone she was with Omaha. What had seemed so natural a moment ago now seemed strange and uncomfortable, as if the air had suddenly soured in here. The chamber felt too cramped, claustrophobic. Maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea.

“Where do we start?” Omaha asked, his back to her.

Safia lifted her arm back into her sling. “We look for clues.”

She stepped away and shone her light up and down each wall. Each appeared to be the identical size and shape. The only mark was a small square hole cut halfway up one wall, perhaps a place to rest an oil lamp.

Omaha lifted a metal detector from the floor.

Safia waved him to put it down. “I doubt that’s going to-”

As soon as he flipped on its power, the detector pinged. Omaha’s eyebrows rose. “Talk about beginner’s luck.”

But as he swept the device over more of the floor, the detector continued its pinging, as if the metal lay everywhere. He lifted it to the sandstone walls. More pinging.

“Okay,” Omaha conceded, dropping the detector, getting nowhere. “I’m beginning to really hate that old queen.”

“She’s hidden a needle in a haystack.”

“All this must have been too deep for the surface detectors. Time to go low-tech.” Omaha pulled free a notepad and pencil. With compass in hand, he began mapping out the trilith. “So what about those keys?”

“What about them?”

“If they’re from the time of Ubar’s downfall, how did they end up in a statue from 200B.C? Or at Job’s tomb? Ubar fell inA.D 300.”

“Look around you,” Safia said. “They were skilled artisans in sandstone. They must have found those holy sites, balanced whatever energy source lies within these keys. Antimatter or whatever. And burrowed the artifacts into elements already at the tombs: the statue in Salalah, the prayer wall at Job’s tomb. Then they sealed them over again with sandstone with a skill that left their handiwork undetectable.”

Omaha nodded, continuing his sketching.

The bark of the radio startled them both. It was Painter. “Safia, I have the artifacts. I’ll be returning with water and a couple MRE rations. Anything else you need? The winds are becoming fierce.”

She considered, staring at the walls around her, then realized something that might come in handy. She told him.

“Roger that. I’ll bring it.”

As she signed off, she found Omaha’s eyes on her. He glanced too quickly to his notepad.

“Here’s the best I could sketch,” he mumbled, and showed her his diagram.

“Any thoughts?” she asked.

“Well, traditionally the three stones of the trilith represent the celestial trinity. Sada, Hird,and Haba.”

“The moon, the sun, and the morning star,” Safia said, naming them as they were known today. “A trinity revered by the early religions of the region. Again the queen was showing no preferential treatment between the faiths.”

“But which stone slab represents which celestial body?” Omaha asked.

She nodded. “Where to begin?”

“In the morning, I’d say? The morning star appears at dawn in the southeast sky.” Omaha patted the appropriate wall. “So that seems obvious enough.”

“Which leaves us two other walls,” Safia said, taking over. “Now the northern wall is aligned along the east-west axis, straight as an arrow.”

“The path the sun takes across the sky.”

Safia brightened. “Even that little hollow square in the north wall could represent a window, to let sunlight inside.”

“Then that leaves this last wall to be the moon.” Omaha stepped to the southwest wall. “I don’t know why this one represents the moon, but Sada was the predominant deity to the desert tribes of Arabia. So it must be significant.”

Safia nodded. In most cultures, the sun was the major divinity, paramount, life-giving, warming. But in the searing deserts, it was deadly, merciless, unforgiving. So instead, the moon, Sada, was most worshiped for its cooling touch. The moon was the bringer of rain, represented by the bull with its crescent-shaped horns. Each quarter phase of the moon was named Ilor Ilah,which over the years came to be known as a term for God. In Hebrew, Elor Elohim.In Arabic, Allah.

The moon was paramount.

“Still, the wall appears blank,” Omaha said.

Safia neared him. “There must be something.” She joined the search. The surface was rough, pocked in places.

A crunch of sand announced Painter’s arrival.

Omaha climbed halfway up the ladder and passed supplies to Safia below.

“How’re things going in there?” Painter called as he lowered a plastic gallon of water.

“Slow,” Safia said.

“But we’re making progress,” Omaha interjected.

Painter leaned into the wind. Unburdened as he was, it looked like the next strong gust might kite him away. Omaha climbed back down. Skitters of windblown sand followed him.

“You’d better get back to the shelter,” Safia called up, worried for Painter’s safety.

He gave her a salute and pushed away into the sandy gale.

“Now where were we?” Omaha asked.

10:18 A.M.

OUT OFthe sinkhole, Painter fought through the storm. An eerie night had fallen. Dust covered the sun, casting the world in crimson. Visibility shut down to mere feet in front of his face. He had his night-vision goggles fixed in place, but even they gained only another yard of sightline. He barely saw the gates as he hunched through them.

Among the village buildings, sand flowed underfoot with the winds, as if he were walking along a streambed. His clothes spat with static electricity. He tasted it in the air. His mouth felt chalky, his lips brittle and dry.

Finally, he ducked around into the lee of their shelter. Out of the direct teeth of the storm, he felt capable of taking full breaths. Sand flumed in wild eddies, streaming over the roofline. He walked with one hand along the cinder-block wall.

Feet in front of him, a figure folded out of the swirls of darkness, a ghost taking form. A ghost with a rifle. It was one of the Rahim scouts, on guard. He hadn’t seen her until he was on top of her. He nodded to her as he passed. No acknowledgment. He marched by her to the doorway.

Stopping, he glanced back. She was gone again, vanished.

Was it just the storm, or was it a part of her ability to blend into the background, to cloud perception? Painter stood in front of the door. He had heard the story from Safia, but it seemed too wild to believe. As a demonstration of their mental abilities, the hodjahad placed a pale green scorpion on the floor and made it do figure eights in the dust, over and over again, seeming to control it. Was it some trick? Like snake charming?

As he reached to the knob, the winds took a slightly different keen. The roar had grown so constant that he barely heard it anymore. But for a moment, a deeper rumble arose, a sound carried on the wind, rather than the wind itself. He remained still, listening for it again, trying to pierce the veil of sweeping sand. The storm continued its steady growl. The grumble was not repeated.

Was it just the storm? He stared out to the east. He was certain the sound had come from that direction. He yanked open the door and twisted inside, half pushed by the winds.

The room was crowded with bodies. He heard a child crying upstairs. He had no trouble picking Coral out from among the women, an iceberg in a dark sea. She rose from a cross-legged position. She had been cleaning one of her pistols.

Recognizing his worry, she met him in quick strides. “What’s wrong?”

10:22 A.M.

ALL THEtrucks gathered in the lee of a dune, lined up as if awaiting the beginning of a parade. Men hunched in the relative shelter of the vehicles, but details were murky in the gloom. They were a quarter mile outside of Shisur.

Cassandra strode with Kane down the ranks. She wore night-vision goggles, khaki fatigues, and a hooded sand poncho, belted at the waist.

Kane marched with one hand covering the earpiece of his radio, listening to a report. A company of twenty soldiers had left ten minutes ago. “Roger that. Hold for further orders.” He lowered his hand and leaned toward Cassandra. “The team reached the town’s outskirts.”

“Have them circle the area. Both town and ruins. Pick vantages from which to snipe. I don’t want anything or anyone leaving that place.”

“Aye, Captain.” He returned to speaking into the throat mike, relaying orders.

They continued to the rear of the line, to where six flatbed trucks carried the VTOL copter sleds. The helicopters were covered in tarps and lashed to their transport cradles. They continued to the last two trucks. Men tugged free the ropes securing the copters. A tarp went flying into the wind, billowing high.

Cassandra frowned at this.

“These are your best two pilots?” Cassandra asked Kane as he finished with the radio.

“The bastards had better be.” Kane’s eyes were on the storm.

Both Cassandra and Kane’s lives were now staked on the success of this mission. The screwup at the tomb had cast both of them in a bad light. They needed to prove themselves to the Guild command. But more than that, Cassandra noted an idiosyncratic quality in the man, a new savageness, less humor, more deep-seated fury. He had been bested, maimed, scarred. No one did that to John Kane and lived to tell about it.

They reached the group of flatbed trucks.

Cassandra found the two pilots waiting. She strode toward them. They had helmets tucked under one arm, trailing electronic cords that would feed radar data. To fly in this weather would be to fly by instruments only. There was no visibility.

They straightened once they recognized her, difficult with everyone muffled up and bundled in ponchos.

Cassandra eyed them up and down. “Gordon. Fowler. You two think you can get these birds in the air. In this storm?”

“Yes, sir,” Gordon acknowledged. Fowler nodded. “We’ve attached electrostatic sand filters over the engine intakes and uploaded sandstorm software into our radar array. We’re ready.”

Cassandra saw no fear in their faces, even as the winds howled. In fact, they both looked flushed, excited, two surfers ready to tackle big waves.

“You’re to keep in constant contact with me personally,” Cassandra said. “You have my com channel.”

Nods.

“One will scout the town, the other the ruins. Kane has a software patch to load into your onboard computers. It will let you pick up the signal of the primary target. The target is not-and let me repeat not-to be harmed.”

“Understood,” Gordon mumbled.

“Any other hostiles,” Cassandra finished, “are to be shot on sight.”

Nods again.

Cassandra swung away. “Then let’s get these birds in the air.”

10:25 A.M.

OMAHA WATCHEDSafia crawl on her knees, sweeping sand off the floor with one hand. He found it hard to concentrate. He had forgotten how wonderful it was to work alongside her. He noted the tiny beads of perspiration on her brow, the way her left eye crinkled when she was intrigued, the dab of dirt on her cheek. This was the Safia he had always known…before Tel Aviv.

Safia continued sweeping.

Was there any hope for them?

She glanced up to him, noting that he’d stopped.

He stirred and cleared his throat. “What are you doing?” he asked, and motioned to her sweeping of the floor. “The maid comes tomorrow.”

She sat back and patted the wall tilted above her head. “This is the southeast side. The slab of the trilith that represents the morning star, rising each day in the southeastern skies.”

“Right, I told you that. So?”

Safia had been working in silence for the past ten minutes, laying out the supplies Painter had lugged here, very methodically, her usual way of doing things. She had spent most of this time examining the keys. Whenever he tried to interject a question, she would hold up a palm.

Safia went back to her sweeping. “We’ve already determined which wall corresponds to which celestial body-moon, sun, or morning star-but now we have to figure out which keysmatch those celestial bodies.”

Omaha nodded. “Okay, and what are you figuring?”

“We have to think in a context of ancient times. Something Cassandra failed to do, accepting modern miles for Roman ones. The answer lies in that fact.” Safia glanced back to him, testing him.

He stared at the wall, determined to solve this riddle. “The morning star is actually not a star. It’s a planet.Venus to be specific.”

“Identified and named by the Romans.”

Omaha straightened, then twisted to look at the artifacts. “Venus was the Roman god of love and beauty.” He knelt and touched the iron spear with the bust of the Queen of Sheba atop it. “And here’s a definite beauty.”

“That’s what I figured. So like at Job’s tomb, there must be a place to insert it. A hole in the ground.” She continued her search.

He joined her-but searched elsewhere. “You have it wrong,” he said. “It’s the wallthat’s significant. Not the floor.” He ran his palm over the surface and continued his reasoning, enjoying the match of wits in solving this riddle. “It’s the slab that represents the morning star, so it is in the slab you’ll find-”

His words died as his fingers discovered a deep pock in the wall. Waist-high up the slab. It looked natural, easy to miss in the shadowy darkness. His index finger sank fully into it. He crouched there like the Dutch boy at the dike.

Safia rose up beside him. “You found it.”

“Get the artifact.”

Safia stepped over, grabbed the iron spear. Omaha pulled his finger free and helped her insert its end in the hole. It was an ungainly process with the wall angled. But they wiggled it into place. It kept sinking farther and farther. The entire haft of the spear was swallowed away, until only the bust was left, now hanging on the wall like some human trophy.

Safia manipulated it further. “Look how the wall is indented along this side. It matches her cheekbone.” She turned the bust and pushed it flush.

“A perfect fit.”

She stepped back. “Like a key in a lock.”

“And look where our iron queen is staring now.”

Safia followed her gaze. “The moon wall.”

“Now the heart,” Omaha said. “Does it belong to the sun wall or the moon?”

“I would guess the sun wall. The moon was the predominant god of the region. Its soft light brought cooling winds and the morning dew. I think whatever we’re looking for next, the final key or clue, will be associated with that wall.”

Omaha stepped to the north wall. “So the heart belongs to this wall. The sun. The harsh mistress.”

Safia glanced to the artifact. “A goddess with an iron heart.”

Omaha lifted the artifact up. There was only one place to rest it. In the small window cut into the northern slab face. But before settling it in place, he ran his fingers along the sill, having to stretch on his toes to feel the floor of the niche. “There are vague indentations in here. Like on the wall.” “A cradle for the heart.”

“A lock and key.”

It took a bit of rolling around to find the match between the iron heart’s surface and the indentations in the sandstone. He finally settled it in place. It rested upright. The end plugged with frankincense pointed at the moon wall.

“Okay, I’d say that’s an important slab,” Omaha said. “What now?”

Safia ran her hands along the last wall. “Nothing’s here.”

Omaha slowly turned in a circle. “Nothing that we can see in the dark.”

Safia glanced back at him. “Light. All the celestial bodies illuminate. The sun shines. The morning star shines.”

Omaha squinted. “But upon whatdo they shine?”

Safia backed up. She noted again the abnormally rough surface of the wall, its pocked moonscape. “Flashlights,” she mumbled.

They each retrieved one from the floor. Safia took a post by the mounted bust. Omaha moved to the heart in the window.

“Let there be light.” Holding the flashlight over his head, he positioned its beam as if it were sunlight pouring through the window, angled to match the position of the plugged end. “The sun shines through a high window.”

“And the morning star shines low on the horizon,” Safia said, kneeling by the bust, aiming her beam in the direction of the bust’s gaze.

Omaha stared at the moon wall, lit askance by their two light sources from two different angles. The imperfections of the wall created shadows and crevices. A form took shape on the wall, painted with these shadows.

Omaha squinted. “It looks like a camel’s head. Or maybe a cow’s.”

“It’s a bull!” Safia stared at Omaha, her eyes bright embers. “Sada, the moon god, is depicted as a bull, because of the beast’s crescent-shaped horns.”