Gene of Isis

to complete our quest before your husband arrives.

Good cheer departed and my fear returned. ‘His brotherhood?’ I ventured to guess, although I desperately wanted the answer to be in the negative.

Albray nodded.

‘The man who threatened my Lord Hereford?’ I almost choked on my words.

The very one.

‘Your personal power will only be realised upon her pleasure…And, with any luck, you’ll have many, many adept offspring.’ The man’s words, from the memory I accessed in Devere’s mind, came back to me forcefully.

What if the secret brotherhood had discovered that I had fled Devere and had now come in pursuit of me personally? What if they knew I was with child? What did they have planned for me and my family? And worst of all, what if the brotherhood sought the vials in my possession for their own purposes?

Questions and doubts cured any homesickness I might have felt for either England or Devere. ‘Do you think my suspicions of Devere’s brotherhood are justified? After all, you belonged to a brotherhood, not so very different.’

Such brotherhoods exist for your protection, he reasoned. But their agenda does not always accord with the individual initiate’s.

‘And what was your brotherhood’s agenda?’ I wondered what my dear friend had ultimately died for.

To preserve the greater mysteries, and the bloodline of Isis, until such time as mankind is ready to dispense with religious doctrine altogether and think for himself…or herself. Then the wisdom of the ancients can be released into safe hands and be used for the higher good of creation.

‘Do you think that time is now, Albray?’

That would be nice. The knight obviously cherished the thought. And that would make my vow pretty much redundant. Still, he did not look too hopeful, do you really think that all those godfearing folk you left behind in England are ready to know all that you have learned?

I winced when I considered the uproar such an account would cause in merry old England. ‘I think they would bring back witch burning, just for me.’

I think you might be right. Albray clearly felt he was in for a wait. However, I am sure that the outcome of today might have a bearing on the advancement of that time that has been hailed as ‘the end of days’.

This comment shed a whole new light on the dogma of the Book of Revelation that had been feared by all of Christendom for so long. It seemed that this time of reckoning was an event to look forward to and not to be dreaded.

Our party came to a stop below the incline that led up to a rocky peak and Lord Hamilton’s excavation site, which had almost entirely been swallowed by the desert sand once more. Ahead lay the large round metal gateway, encircled by a ring of mysterious black stone embossed with ancient hieroglyphs.

I had expected that we would have to excavate the gateway, and we had brought shovels and picks with us for the chore. Considering the amount of time since the gate had been opened, I had thought it would have been buried by the sandy dirt churned up by the sirocco winds. And yet, here it was, glistening in the sun as if it had just been exposed and polished for our use. The entrance was just as Lord Hamilton had described it.

Our entire party stood in awe of our discovery, until the Bedouins spied several wild camels wandering around the ruins further up the mount, and with a mighty cheer, they ran off to round the beasts up.

‘Where the hell did they come from?’ Cingar was immediately suspicious, although the beasts were not saddled. ‘I shall investigate. There are places enough amongst these boulders for bandits to hide.’ The gypsy borrowed my pistol and whistled to the Bedouins to advise them to exercise more caution.

Whilst the rest of my party were preoccupied with searching around the rocky mount and excavation site above me, Albray had me scale the rock face alongside the strange metal gateway until I came to stand on top of it. ‘Well, that was fun.’ I wiped the sweat from my brow and neck. ‘What now?’ I looked to Albray for further instruction.

Take the stopper from the Star vial and pour the contents over the door.

‘But surely, even all the contents won’t be nearly enough to cover the doorway?’ I knew the vial was self-filling, but would that still be the case if every last grain of the substance was spent?

It will be all right, Albray assured me, knowing my fears. I’ve done this myself.

I pulled the vial from its usual resting place in my cleavage—the Fire vial I still kept in its velvet case in a shoulder bag that I wore underneath my cloak. I removed the stopper and, kneeling down to get close to my target, I began to pour the Highward Fire-Stone down over the door. It flowed in a steady stream from the tiny vial and, as there was not a breath of wind, the glittering particles were attracted to the metal. I was amazed at the amount of the substance that gushed down over the gateway, and when I had at last coated the entire barrier, I turned the vial upright to find it still full. ‘That’s incredible,’ I uttered, amazed. An ear-splitting sound of buckling metal urged me to get off the gateway and down to ground level.

I backed away from the gateway, unable to peel my eyes from the sight of the tiny light-filled specks that seemed to be eating through the barrier. Then, in a final burst of blinding light, a void was exposed inside the dark ring of hieroglyphs.

‘Dear goddess.’ I was so stunned by the spectacle that I couldn’t move. The moment of truth had arrived. ‘It looks dark in there.’ I could have used the Star vial to light my way in, but how would I get out?

I moved to our pack-camel as it carried the long-stemmed torches that the Arabs used to light the camp at night. The top of the torch was wrapped in fabric that had been doused in a flammable substance and with one whiff I immediately recognised it. It was the same foul-smelling stuff contained in the bottle inside the hollow journal Lord Hereford had given me—which I had also left with Devere. The Bedouins held a thick rounded piece of glass some distance from the fabric, allowing the sun to burn into the cloth. Where the ray of light was focused, the