SECURE TRANSCRIPT 061–7332/1A
CLASS LEVEL: ALPHA-SUPER
FOR A-1’S EYES ONLY
22-AUG-07
BEGIN SECURE MESSAGE:
Note death of Australian specialist Oakes in Iraq. The power of Tartarus has been nullified. Someone has the other Capstone.
The game is back on.
Now we must find the Stones.
END SECURE MESSAGE.
THE ENTRY CHAMBER
PROLOGUE
WITCH MOUNTAIN
WITCH MOUNTAIN
OFF THE WU GORGE, THREE GORGES REGION
SICHUAN PROVINCE, CENTRAL CHINA
DECEMBER 1, 2007
SITTINGin a sling harness suspended from a long rope and hanging in near-total darkness, Professor Max Epper cracked the top off his flare, illuminating the subterranean chamber around him.
“Oh my…” he breathed. “Ooooh,my …”
The chamber was simply breathtaking.
It was a perfect cube, wide and high, cut out of the living rock, perhaps fifty feet to a side. And every square inch of its walls was covered in carved inscriptions: characters, symbols, images, and figures.
He had to be careful.
The amber light of his flare revealed that the floor directly beneath him contained a well shaft that perfectly matched his opening in the ceiling. It yawned wide, a dark hole of indeterminate depth.
In some circles, Max Epper was known by the call sign “Wizard,” a nickname that was entirely appropriate.
With a flowing white beard and watery blue eyes that glistened with warmth and intelligence, at sixty-seven, he looked like a modern-day Merlin. A professor of archaeology at Trinity College, Dublin, it was said that, among other feats, he had once been part of a secret international team that had located—and reerected—the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Swinging to the floor of the chamber, Wizard unclipped himself and gazed in awe at the text-covered walls.
Some of the symbols he recognized—Chinese characters and even a few Egyptian hieroglyphs. This was not unexpected: long ago, the owner and designer of this tunnel system had been the great Chinese philosopher, Laozi. In addition to being a venerated thinker, Laozi had been a great traveler and was known to have ventured as far as Egypt in the fourth century B.C.
In pride of place in the exact center of the feature wall was a large raised relief that Wizard had seen before:
Known as the Mystery of the Circles, it had not yet been decoded. Casual observers guessed it to be a representation of our solar system, but there was a problem with this analysis: there was one too many planets circling the central Sun.
Wizard had seen the Mystery of the Circles perhaps a dozen times around the world—in Mexico and Egypt, even in Wales and Ireland—and in various forms: from crude scratchings on bare rock walls to artistic carvings over ancient doorways, but none of those renderings was anywhere near as beautifully and elaborately carved as this one.
This specimen was dazzling.
Inlaid with rubies, sapphires, and jade, each of its concentric circles was rimmed with gold. It glittered in the glare of Wizard’s high-powered flashlight.
Directly beneath the Mystery of the Circles was a narrow doorway of sorts: perhaps two feet wide and six feet high, but shallow, recessed a couple of feet into the solid stone wall. It reminded Wizard of a coffin standing vertically, embedded in the wall. Strangely its rear wall wascurved.
Carved above it was a small symbol that made Wizard’s eyes widen with delight:
“The symbol for Laozi’s Stone…” he breathed. “The Philosopher’s Stone.My God. We’ve found it.”
Surrounded by this repository of ancient knowledge and priceless treasure, Wizard pulled out a high-tech Motorola UHF radio and spoke into it: “Tank. You aren’t going to believe this. I’ve found the antechamber, and it’s positively stunning. It also contains a sealed doorway, which I assume gives access to the trap system. We’re close. Very close. I need you to come down here and—”
“Wizard,”came the reply.“We just got a call from our lookout at the docks down on the Yangtze. The Chinese Army is snooping around. Gunboat patrol, nine boats, heading into our gorge. They’re coming this way.”
“It’s Mao. How could he have found us?” Wizard said.
“It may not be him. Could just be a regular patrol,”the voice of Yobu “Tank” Tanaka said.
“Which could actually be worse.” Chinese military patrols were notorious for roughing up archaeological
