Conrad heard a low hum and could feel a greasy draft against his cheek. He flicked on his halogen flashlight. The beam shot out fifty feet before it struck a towering column and in less than a second ricocheted off three other metallic columns that surrounded them. Each bounce intensified the blinding light. Conrad closed his eyes.
“Shut it off!” Yeats shouted, his voice echoing in the darkness.
Conrad, eyes pressed shut, felt for a switch and turned off the halogen lamp. After a minute he blinked but couldn’t shake the blinding afterglow. “Those columns of light,” Yeats said, still rubbing his eyes. “What are they?”
“They’re not made of light,” Conrad said. “They just reflect and magnify any light that hits them. Hold on.” Conrad reached into his pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter. “This is low wattage. Ready?”
“For you to blind us?”
“It won’t be so bad this time,” Conrad said. “Put your shades on and relax.”
Conrad put on his sunglasses and waited for Yeats to do likewise before Conrad flicked on the lighter. The effect was like a single candle burning in a cavernous cathedral. Surrounding them in the dim light were four glowing, translucent pillars, each about twenty feet in diameter, rising two hundred feet into the darkness above and two hundred feet into the abyss below.
“So here’s your so-called Shrine of the First Sun,” Yeats said, staring straight up.
“It’s like being inside a bronze coffee filter,” Conrad said, looking around and feeling very small. A halo of mist clung to the glowing pillars, which seemed to come together like a funnel at their apex high above. And the air definitely smelled greasy. Conrad looked down and wondered just how deep into the earth this Shrine of the First Sun descended, and how much farther must they go to discover the Secret of First Time. He was in awe of how much there was for him to absorb and painfully aware of the limited time.
“Look at this.” Yeats guided the lighter close to a smooth, shiny pillar. The mirror-like surface not only seemed to magnify the brightness a hundredfold but also seemed to tremble. “I bet this surface has a reflectance of greater than a hundred percent.”
“That’s significant?”
“The best we’ve been able to come up with is eighty-eight percent using aluminum.”
“These columns aren’t made of aluminum.”
“No.” Yeats ran his hand over the surface of the column. “They’re made of something much lighter.”
“Lighter?” Conrad touched the column. The surface was slick, almost liquid. Yet he could sense some kind of indefinable texture to it. “It feels as soft as a cobweb and as strong as steel. Like some sort of lighter-than-air silk.”
“That’s because the fabric is perforated with holes smaller than the wavelength of light.” Yeats sounded almost excited. “I’d say somewhere between one-micron or four hundredths of a mil thick. So what now? Do we go up or down this thing?”
Fabric. That’s just the word he was looking for, Conrad realized. The surprise was that it was Yeats who came up with it. But he was right. These columns were like giant rolls of some thin, lightweight, and mirror-like fabric so shiny they could be mistaken for the light they so brilliantly reflected.
“Up or down, son?” Yeats repeated.
“Up,” Conrad said, surprising himself. Because in reality he didn’t know. He had never come across anything like this shrine in the ancient pyramid texts of the Egyptians or in the tales of Meso-American lore. And he couldn’t recall it from any childhood nightmares or memories. Its sole significance, so far as he could tell, was to serve as a live-scale projection of the obelisk he had taken from P4. But somewhere in this obelisk was the so-called Seat of Osiris, the final resting place of the scepter and the Secret of First Time. The only question was whether he would recognize it when he saw it, much less know what to do. “We’re going up.”
And so they were. The platform they were standing on began to lift like an elevator, carrying them up between the columns of light. Conrad looked up to see the columns funnel toward an apex.
“Hang tight,” he said, tense but determined. He realized he had never been more excited about anything in his life.
They must have passed through several levels of compartments, Conrad figured, when he looked up to see a pinprick of light at the end. A minute later they emerged into a cool chamber. Suddenly the platform locked with a thud. Conrad stumbled backward toward the edge of the platform. Yeats caught his arm with a viselike grip.
“End of the line,” he said.
Conrad paused to get his bearings. It felt cramped up here compared to the soaring spaces below. Their voices had stopped echoing, and the air felt cooler. Conrad removed his sunglasses and switched on his halogen lamp. This time there was no blinding reflection. The beam stabbed out and bathed the nearest wall in light.
A quick survey revealed one corridor on either side of them. Conrad entered the corridor to their right.
“This way,” he said, his impatience hanging thick in the air, pushing them forward.
“Now how would you know?”
“According to you, I’m an Atlantean, remember?”
Conrad led him along the dark tunnel for a minute. At the end was a cryptlike door, about six feet tall. Next to it was a square pad much like the one at the outside entrance. Conrad focused his light on the door. Carved into its metallic surface were unusual engravings that at first defied comprehension. Only when Conrad ran his fingers across them did their meaning register.
“It’s a constellation,” he said flatly.
Yeats nodded. “That star right there is Sirius.”
“The goddess Isis in her astral form.” Conrad placed his hand on the cold metallic door, overcome with awe. His throat constricted and his heart beat faster. He could barely manage a whisper. “We found the queen’s crypt.”
“I was looking for the king’s.” Yeats sounded detached, businesslike. “How much you want to bet we’ll find that bastard Osiris down the opposite corridor?”
And the Seat of Osiris and the Secret of First Time, Conrad thought, when he saw a red dot on the back of his hand and spun around. Yeats was pointing his AK-47 at the door, the laser-sighting on.
Conrad jumped back. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You’re going to open this door so we can see if the bitch is still in there.”
Conrad, his pulse pounding, put his hand on the square pad, and he could feel a surge of energy. He pulled his hand back and the door slid open. A cool mist escaped from the chamber.
“You didn’t even need the obelisk for that,” Yeats said, almost in awe.
“Maybe once you use it, the system remembers,” Conrad said.
“Or maybe your ID is already in the system.”
They stepped through the cloud and into the small chamber. The red beam from Yeats’s laser sight crisscrossed the cell and locked onto an intricate alcove of some kind. It was contoured for a human being no taller than two meters. Based on the shape, it was clearly a woman. She had two arms, two legs, ten fingers and ten toes, and an hourglass figure.
“Mama.” Conrad looked at the display and let out a whistle. “Are you happy now, Yeats? You’ve met the enemy and she looks like us. Maybe it’s not just me. Maybe we’re all Atlanteans.”
“Let’s hope not. Not unless you want us to suffer the same fate. Now let’s check out Papa.”
Down the hall, the door to the Osiris crypt bore the markings of the Orion constellation on its surface. And this time Conrad didn’t hesitate. He put his hand on the door and it split open. Again, a fine cool mist escaped. Yeats climbed through with his AK-47 with Conrad close behind. Conrad shined his light up on the far wall and caught his breath.
“Say hello to Daddy, Conrad,” said Yeats.
This crypt was clearly contoured for a vertically standing creature that stood much taller than a human. Inside was an impressive harness or exoskeleton that appeared as mysteriously complex as the being it was designed for. A translucent bandolier crisscrossed the center ring and boasted an awesome array of instruments, gear, and, perhaps, weapons.
“Holy God,” Conrad murmured.
“Not so holy if Mother Earth is right,” Yeats said. “This one’s about three meters high.”
Conrad flicked on the Zippo and held it close to the edge of the harness. Whatever it was made of was fireproof and perhaps even indestructible for all intents and purposes. But it clearly supplied its bearer with only
