Dourado

CHAPTER 27

Before Dane had time to contemplate being cut off from his friends, shouts and footsteps reverberated down the corridor to his right. Not waiting to see who was coming, he turned and sprinted back the way he had come. How was he going to get out of here?

He reached the corner and the stairs they had just descended. More voices came from his left. Cut off from either avenue on the first floor, he dashed back up the stairs. As he climbed, he considered his options. They were few. He supposed he could try to work his way back up the river, but the current was so strong, he would likely be swept away. It might be worth a try. He could always try going down one of the sacrificial wells. He had not seen any handholds or tunnels coming off them when he had examined them before, but he could have easily missed them in his haste.

He reached the top of the stairs to hear even more voices and footsteps that seemed to come from all around. Whoever these men were, they were converging on his position. His luck had run out. Taking a chance, he dashed to the north room, the one with the angel on the sarcophagus. Just as he ducked through the doorway, he caught a glimpse of several brown and white clad men rounding the corner. Their attention was on a black clad man whom they held at gunpoint.

Dane hurried to the edge of the well. Knowing that he did not have much time, he scanned the interior for handholds. Seeing none, he took one long look at the faint glimmer of the water far below. It was much too far to jump.

The voices were closer now. He turned and looked at the giant stone coffin. He had no other choice. Giving the lid a hard shove, he slid the end to the side, creating just enough room to squeeze through. He clambered in headfirst. Flipping over onto his back, awkward with the sword still strapped over his shoulder, he reached up and scooted the lid back into place.

The voices drew near. Dane realized, to his chagrin, that the men were coming into the room where he was hiding. He strained to hear what they were saying. Someone was speaking in Arabic.

“I don’t speak your language, primitive,” a deep voice, brimming with arrogance, replied.

“Very well,” a strange, almost musical voice said. “Tell us, please, who you are and why you come armed into the temple.”

“I won’t answer any of your questions.” A heavy grunt told Dane that the man had been punched in the stomach.

“Answer my questions truthfully, and you will be released.” The odd voice spoke again. “I caution you: God will tell me if you lie, and it will go badly with you.”

“We are the agents of God,” the deep voice snapped, “the Order of the Blades has been sent to stamp out the heresy of the sword.”

“The sword has been gone from this place for many years. In any case, there is no heresy in this place, only a celebration of God’s creation.”

The prisoner laughed, a sharp, nasal sound. “Don’t you know? Someone has brought the sword into this very place. That is why we are here: to stop them and take the sword.”

“Are you certain?” The speaker did not try to hide his surprise. “How do you know this thing?”

“A man confessed to his priest that he had found the key to finding the sword.”

Maxwell, Dane thought.

”Knowing the damage it could do if the sword came to light, the church neutralized the man, but he had passed the clues along to his daughter. We tracked her to this place.”

“You have done an evil thing.”

“Protecting the faith from this alien relic is not evil,” the man said. “Rienzi spouted his heresies about God being a spaceman, and alien creatures populating the earth. Had he been able to support his claims, the church might have been destroyed.”

The man with the lilting voice laughed long and hard. “The sword is not an alien relic. True, its origins are not of this earth, but neither are they detrimental to the truth of God.”

“The church believes that they are,” the man hissed.

“Where does your loyalty lie: To your God, or to your church? They are not necessarily one and the same.”

“Heretic!” the man shouted. Dane heard sounds of a struggle. “What are you doing? You said you’d release me!” the man cried, his voice strident.

“The well will be your release, my son. You will be released from the bondage in which your church holds you. Make your peace with God, whatever the name by which you know him.”

The prisoner’s angry cries were suddenly squelched by a gurgling sound. Dane had heard that sound before: a knife across the throat. They had killed the man and dropped him into the well. He had to get away.

He waited, listening, as the men conversed in Arabic. A few forceful words from the man with the strange voice, and then footsteps running from the room. He waited. What if they were not all gone? What if they came back? He started to count backward from three hundred, struggling to count slowly. A new thought came to him. How much air was in this coffin? He had noticed cracks around the edge of the lid, and hoped that some of them were allowing air inside.

He completed his countdown, five minutes, as close as he could guess, and took a deep breath. He had not heard a sound since the men left the room. He could not remain here forever. He had to take a chance. Pushing the lid aside as gently as possible, he squeezed out. As his feet hit the ground, he heard a voice behind him.

“Welcome.”

Dane whirled about, rifle at the ready. The man who stood before him was old-very old. He wore a loose-fitting brown robe, cinched around the waist with a thick length of rope, over off-white, homespun pants and shirt. Short, snowy hair peeked out from under a brown head cloth. He had a closely-cropped white beard and mustache. Shining against his leathery face, heavily lined with age, his alert, gray eyes looked past Dane, his gaze settling on the hilt of the sword.

“You did return the sword,” he said in amazement. Dane recognized the musical voice instantly. This was the apparent leader of the group-the one who had ordered a man sacrificed. “It seemed too much to hope.”

“Who are you?” Dane barked. The man was not physically imposing, but Dane kept the rifle trained on him.

“I am Atiq Yomin. In your language, the “Ancient of Days.”

“You’re God?” Dane asked, trying to convey in his voice all of the scorn that he felt.

“No,” the man laughed, “it is but a title. You may call me Atiq.”

“All right, Atiq,” Dane said. “Are you planning on calling your cronies back?”

“Very rude. You have not yet identified yourself,” the strange man said. “In any case, as you are an intruder in my domain, you should permit me to ask the questions. But to answer your question, no, I do not expect my men to return to this place anytime soon. They are scouring the temple.”

Dane knew that he had few cards to play, and Atiq was likely his only way out of here. “The name’s Dane Maddock.”

“Do you plan to shoot me, Mr. Maddock?”

Dane was caught off guard, not only by the directness of the question, but also by the calm way in which the question was asked. “I guess that depends on how things go,” he said.

“You are an honest man. May I know why you are returning the sword, Mr. Maddock?”

Dane wanted to lie to the man, but something about Atiq compelled him to tell the truth. The man had a hypnotic air about him, almost holy. “An old friend of mine learned that the sword had been found and then lost almost two hundred years ago by a man named Rienzi. My friend was killed for what he knew. We found the sword, which led us here.” Even as he spoke, he could not believe that he was telling this man his story.

Atiq turned and paced back and forth. He looked up at the ceiling. Each time he passed the stone sarcophagus, he let his fingertips trail across the edge of the stone lid. “So many came to Petra,” he whispered, “that we did not know who had taken the sword. We were inattentive to our duties.” He stopped pacing, shook his head, and then turned to face Dane. “On behalf of the Protectors, I must thank you for returning the sword, and alleviating our shame.”

“Well,” Dane said, “we weren’t trying to return the sword. We just wanted some answers.”

“We?” Atiq appeared calm, but his eyes retained their intense stare.

“The daughter of the man who was killed came with us, along with two of my friends. They got away. At least, two of them did.” Inside, Dane still seethed when he thought of Meriwether.

“And have you found the answers you seek?” Atiq sounded as if he were toying with Dane.

“Not all of them,” Dane admitted. “Obviously, it was this ‘Order of the Blades’ that was following us. They killed my friend. But…”

“But you have other questions yet to be answered.”

“Yeah, like who built this place? What is it? What does it have to do with Goliath?” All the confusion he had felt, further clouded by adrenalin and grief came spilling over. “This place isn’t anything! It’s like you made it just to trap people and kill them. But what are you protecting here?”

“To answer your first question, God built this place,” Atiq said, matter-of-factly.

“God,” Dane replied flatly.

“Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, whatever you wish to call the supreme deity,” Atiq said. “But I can tell by your tone of voice that you will not accept that answer. Consequently, I cannot answer your other questions, as you will not believe those answers either.”

“There is no God,” Dane muttered. He looked Atiq directly in the eye. “If there’s a God who loves us out there, why do people die?”

“We all die, Mr. Maddock,” the old man said with casual indifference. “That is a reality of our mortal existence.”

“I’m not talking about ninety year-olds who die in their beds. I mean young people who have their whole lives ahead of them. A God who loves us wouldn’t let that happen.” He had no idea why he was unloading years of pent-up anger on this strange old man. Atiq, for his part, took it calmly.

“You are obviously a military man. Odd that a man who has been trained to kill has such high expectations for his God in terms of saving lives. When you shoot a man, do you expect your loving God to come down and heal him, so that you may shoot him again and again?”

Dane did not answer. The man was talking nonsense.

“Do your parents love you, Mr. Maddock?” Atiq asked, folding his arms across his chest and sitting down upon the stone coffin.

“My parents were killed in an auto accident. So was my wife,” Dane said bitterly. “But yes, my parents loved me.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Atiq said simply. For some reason, Dane actually believed that the old man meant it. There was an air of simple sincerity about him that suggested he did not say things he did not mean. “Did these loving parents approve of your choice to take up arms for your nation?”

Dane nodded. “My Dad was career Navy. So, yeah, they were proud of me.” What was the old man getting at?

“But surely, loving parents would not permit their child to do something dangerous. Does a loving parent permit his child to go to school, where the child could contract illness, or possibly be harmed by another child, or even an adult?”

Dane stared at the ground. He did not have an answer for the old man.

“Free will, Mr. Maddock. Your loved ones exercised their free will to operate a motor vehicle, statistically a dangerous undertaking. Just as you made a choice to enlist in the armed forces. Just as you have, no doubt, exercised your free will to take a life, or perhaps more than one in your time.

“Sometimes we use our free will in ways that harm others. That is regrettable. But without free will we are little more than robots.”

“But what about babies who die? What about cancer? Natural disasters?” Dane pressed. “Why is everything so arbitrary?”

Atiq chuckled. His eyes took on a faraway stare. “I once had a discussion with a friend of mine from China.” The man caught the surprised look in Dane’s eye. “I do live in the world. Being a Protector is my calling, but I live and love just as you do.” He paused as this sank in. “At any rate, my friend and I were discussing the ending of a Chinese movie. The character did something that flew in the face of all reason. Even with my friend’s attempts at explanation, I could find neither practical nor symbolic meaning in that character’s choice. He finally grew frustrated, threw up his hands, and said, ‘You simply do not understand the Eastern mind.’” He turned and looked at Dane. “It occurs to me that if I cannot understand the mind of my fellow human being, how can I ever presume to know the mind of God?”

Dane stood in silent contemplation of the old man’s argument. In his bitterness over losing Melissa, he had been so confident in his belief that there was no God. What Atiq said was far from satisfying, but perhaps it could be true.

“God is real,” Atiq said, standing and moving to stand face-to-face with Dane. “This place is the proof. If you have the courage to return the sword to its resting place, you will see that for yourself.” As the old man spoke, another tremor shook the room. Dane staggered back before regaining his balance.

“There were three tunnels coming off of that well shaft. Two of them are blocked. Show me where the third one is before this place comes down on our heads.”

Atiq stared at the gun, his face void of all emotion. “Do you think I am afraid to die?” he asked. “For I am not.” He fixed Dane with an appraising look. “Here are my conditions: put down your weapons, and return the sword to its proper place. Only then will I show you the way out.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Dane said. “These tremors are getting stronger. Take me out of here.” The last, he said slowly, pronouncing each syllable.

“This place has seen worse,” the old man replied. “You have heard my conditions.”

“Why do I have to leave my weapons?” Dane asked, suddenly suspicious. “Your goons waiting outside for me?”

“As long as you are in my company, no harm will come to you. You need to understand faith, Mr. Maddock. Leaving your defenses behind will be the first step.”

Dane looked long and hard at the old man, and read the resolve in his face. He considered shooting the man down on the spot, but quickly dismissed the idea. Atiq had not threatened him. Furthermore, he was the key to getting out of this place. Slowly, he laid the automatic rifle on the floor at his feet. Next, he drew the Walther, popped the magazine out, and removed the unspent bullets. “I’ve had this for a long time,” he explained, holding the pistol up. “I can’t leave it behind.”

Atiq nodded his acceptance, and silently led the way out of the chamber.