In their ancient verbal legends, the Dogons also state that stars are in fact suns, an astounding thing for a primitive tribe to know.
Exactly how the Dogon people know what they know is one of Africa’s great mysteries. The thing is, they are not the only African tribe to possess unusual and ancient secrets.
In the middle of the vast and dark landmass of Africa is the tiny country known as Rwanda.
Hilly and jungle-ridden, it is barely 125 miles wide and would fit easily inside the state of Connecticut, one of America’s smallest states.
Of course, the world now knows of the 800,000 Tutsis massacred by ethnic Hutus in the space of a month in 1994—an orgy of obscenely violent killing in which the murderers used machetes and nail-studded clubs called masus. In one month, 10 percent of Rwanda’s 7.5 million people were wiped off the face of the Earth.
Less well-known however is the plight of the survivors of the genocide: the many Tutsis who were not killed had their arms cut off by the machete-wielding Hutus. Today it is not uncommon to see half-armed or one-armed locals quietly going about their daily farmwork.
Desperately poor, decimated by an unprecedented bloodletting, and with nothing to sell that the world wants, Rwanda has been cast aside as an ugly example of the worst of human nature.
In an already dark continent, it is a black hole.
That night the Freelander stood parked behind an abandoned church in the south of Kibuye Province, covered in branches and a filthy tarp.
The church near it was a frightening sight.
Bullet holes and dried blood covered its walls. In the decade since 1994, no one had even bothered to clean it.
Zoe stood at the back of the building, peering out into the darkness, gripping an MP-5. Wizard and the kids sat inside the church.
“During the genocide, the Tutsis fled to churches like this,” Wizard explained. “But often the local priests were in league with the Hutus and their churches became cages into which the villagers willingly ran. The priests would keep the Tutsis inside with promises of safety, while at the same time notifying the dreaded Hutu patrols. A patrol would show up and kill all the Tutsis.”
The kids stared at the bloody bullet holes in the walls around them, imagining the horrors that had happened in this very room.
“I don’t like this place,” Lily said, shivering.
“So, Wizard,” Zoe said from the doorway, deliberately changing the subject. “Tell me something. What does all this really mean? When all the Pillars and sacred stones and underground vertices are stripped away, what’s this mission about?”
“What’s it all about?” Wizard said. “The Apocalypse, Judgment Day, the end of the world. Every religion has an apocalypse myth. Whether it’s the coming of the four horsemen or a great day on which everyone is judged, ever since humans have walked this planet, they have had the idea that one day it will all end badly.
“And yet—somehow—we have been provided with this test, this test of tests, this system of vertices built by some advanced civilization in the distant past that will allow us to avert this terrible end,if we are up to the challenge. Which reminds me: Lily, can you have a look at this, please?”
Wizard grabbed Zoe’s digital camera and clicked through to a photograph she’d taken at the First Vertex, one of the golden plaque they’d seen on the main wall there:
“Can you translate those lines?” he asked Lily.
“Sure,” Lily said. “Looks like a list, a list of…do you have a pen and paper?”
Scanning the image of the plaque, she quickly jotted down a translation. When she was done, it read:
1st Vertex
The Great Viewing Hall
2nd Vertex
The City of Bridges
3rd Vertex
The Fire Maze
4th Vertex
The City of Waterfalls
5th Vertex
The Realm of the Sealords
6th Vertex
The Greatest Shrine of All
“It’s a description of all six vertices…” Zoe said.
Wizard said, “And thus perhaps the clearest description of the immense challenge we face.”
“A city of bridges? A fire maze?” Alby whispered.” What’s a fire maze? Geez…”
It got Wizard thinking, too. “Lily, can you grab the Pillar, please, the one that was charged at Abu Simbel?”
