Jack’s eyes glowed as he spoke. “I imagine if we go to Abu Simbel and carefully calibrate the eye lines from the third eye of each set of statues—of Rameses and of Nefertari—the meeting point of those eye lines will be the location of the first temple-shrine.”
THE KILLING STONE OF THE MAYA
THE GROUP MOVED on to Lab 2, to where the Killing Stone of the Maya sat on its workbench. They all filed in to the observation room that looked into the lab.
Leading the way, Wizard said, “In addition to the locations of the temple-shrines, we need to know thedates by which the Pillars must be placed in them.
“Now, in Laozi’s entry chamber in China, Tank and I discovered this reference to the laying of the first Pillar:
THE 1ST PILLAR MUST BE INLAID
EXACTLY 100 DAYS BEFORE THE RETURN.
THE PRIZE SHALL BE KNOWLEDGE.
“We had previously calculated the Return—being the full return of the Dark Sun, when its orbit brings it to the outer reaches of our solar system—to be the day of next year’s vernal equinox, March 20, 2008. Working backward then, we deduced that the first Pillar—duly cleansed—must be set in place by December 10, this year, by the light of the Dark Sun, which means during a Titanic Rising.”
“December 10,” Stretch said drily. “Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”
Wizard shrugged as he headed for the door. “When ancient knowledge is lost, sometimes it is never found in time. We’ve been very lucky so far. Tank and I were aware of the 2008 deadline, so we thought we had more time than this. We were surprised that the laying of the first two Pillars was required so soon, and so far in advance of the latter four. Jack? Do you have the Firestone?”
Jack produced the Firestone from its pack, handed it to Wizard.
The old professor then stepped out of the observation room and into an air-lock-type doorway, emerging inside Lab 2, now alone with the Killing Stone.
Everyone watched intently through the two-way mirror as Wizard brought the little golden pyramid over to the Killing Stone. Two HDV video cameras whirred in the silence, recording the scene through the glass. Four more were inside the lab with Wizard, filming the Killing Stone from every angle.
The two stones could not have been more different—the Firestone was ultrasmooth, gold, and glittering; the Killing Stone rough and scratched, with dry maroon stains all over it.
And yet somehow they seemed connected. Fashioned by the same maker.
One of the two flat sections on the upper surface of the Killing Stone bore a shallow square-shaped recess that perfectly matched the base of the Firestone.
“OK,”Wizard’s voice said over the speakers in the observation room,“I am now going to set the Firestone atop the Killing Stone…”
Slowly and with great reverence, he held the Firestone above the recess in the Killing Stone…
…and then he lowered the pyramidion onto it.
As he gazed through the two-way window, Jack found himself holding his breath.
The Firestone slotted into the recess perfectly, now married to the Killing Stone.
Wizard stepped back.
Nothing happened.
And then the crystal on the Firestone’s peak began to glimmer.
An ominous humming began to thrum from the paired stones.
Wizard’s eyes went wide.
Then, abruptly, the humming stopped.
Silence.
No one moved.
But then, in beautiful silence, some symbols on the Killing Stone—individual symbols mixed among the dozens of others carved into it—began to glow dazzling white, one after the other.
One symbol would glow brightly—in total silence—before it went dull again and another shone to life, and another, and another.
A sequence of some kind.
As it played out, the twins jotted down each symbol as it glowed.
“Numbers and Mayan epochs,”Wizard said over the intercom.“Only the numerical symbols for dates are glowing. Crucial dates.”
The sequence went for about forty seconds, before the glowing subsided and both ancient stones resumed their normal appearance once again.
Half an hour later, after Wizard, Tank, and the twins had watched and re-watched the video footage of the event and crunched the numbers, Wizard announced, “The date from Laozi’s chamber is correct. The first Pillar
