The Pharos Objective

1

Caleb Crowe hadn’t seen his sister in more than five years. It was Christmas, and he had just finished grading midterms. Now he was off to the Museum of Natural History to wrap up his research into the vanished Alexandrian library; and then he was looking forward to finally sitting down to the book that had been impatiently waiting for him to write.

He had his coat on and he was reaching for the door when Phoebe called. She was at the entrance to his apartment. His heart pounding, a thousand questions in his mind, he rushed out of his room and ran down four flights of stairs, out of breath with excitement, recalling that awful day, that tragic descent around a much longer — and older — staircase three years ago.

He stepped out of the stairwell and there she was in the lobby, two upperclassmen holding the door for her before heading out to a football game in the quad. Phoebe wheeled herself inside, gave Caleb a smile, and then spun her wheelchair in a full circle. “Like the new model?” She adjusted the chair’s controls and sped over to him. She wore a heavy fleece turtleneck and faded khakis, with a plaid blanket over her legs. Her dark hair had grown longer and had been recently colored, with streaks of auburn highlights offsetting her eyes, soft and shining, without a hint of recrimination.

“It suits you.” He looked her over, shaking his head in dismay. She was radiant, excited, just like he remembered her before the fall. “Where’s Mom?”

“Merry Christmas to you too,” she said. “She’s out in the car.”

Caleb glanced out the window to see the silver Lexus at the end of the path. Two shapes inside, the windows open a crack and cigarette smoke filtering out into the air.

“We were in the city, so I made them bring me to see you.” She rolled closer and pulled out a red gift-wrapped package from under her blanket. “I didn’t want another Christmas to pass without seeing my big brother.”

Caleb felt a pang of guilt and had to lower his eyes as he took the gift. “I don’t deserve this.”

“You do.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“Hey, I surprised you by showing up. What can I expect?”

She reached up and touched his hand. “I don’t have long,” she said. “We’re on our way to Philadelphia. George — Mr. Waxman — has some contacts he wants Mom to meet. Some friends in occult studies who might shed light on the symbols you found on that door under Qaitbey’s fortress.”

Waxman.

Caleb’s blood boiled. He thought about Nina and the others — those unfortunate pawns Waxman had brought down into that place to drown. “Still trying to figure out the Pharos code…” he said. “Have they made any progress?”

“Do you care?” Phoebe didn’t wait for Caleb to answer. “Actually, we’ve interviewed two dozen different psychics. Still trying to repopulate the Morpheus Initiative. And George wasted a lot of time trying to locate that other guy who went missing in Alexandria. Xavier-something.”

“Montross?” His skin broke out in a surprising chill. “With all of Waxman’s influence, he can’t find one guy?”

“Yeah, weird. It’s like Xavier just vanished off the face of the planet.”

Caleb thought for a moment, remembering the red hair and the haunted eyes peering at him through the crack in a hotel-room door. “Or, he really doesn’t want to be found.”

“Well, anyway, the search goes on. Some of the candidates are good, some not so much. We brought them in, set them to work, but they’ve found nothing, nothing but unrelated gibberish. Their drawings make no sense, they don’t correlate with anything we know.”

“Maybe you’re not asking them the right questions.”

“Or they’re just bad psychics.”

Caleb smiled. “What about you? What have you seen, assuming you’re helping them?”

“I am. But mostly… I don’t know, I guess I haven’t known what to look for, or what questions to ask, either.”

“How’s college?” he asked, changing the subject.

Her face lit up. “Great. U of R has a nice handicapped-friendly facility. I stay on campus and all my classes are in one building connected to my dorm. I’ve got a head start on my thesis already, and I’m interning with Professor Gillis, helping him translate a collection of cuneiform tablets from Babylon.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Caleb said. He hadn’t realized she had developed such similar interests. Suddenly he regretted the years they’d been apart.

“It’s not bad,” she said. “Except for when Mom basically kidnaps me and makes me help out with her research.” A couple underclassmen walked by, hand in hand with their girlfriends, and Phoebe wistfully watched them go.

“I’d hoped she’d give you a break,” Caleb said, looking out the window again at the figure in the passenger seat.

“She has, mostly, but I’ve asked to be kept in it.”

Caleb opened his mouth to ask a question, but when he saw her eyes, the hard lines around the edges, the lost years in her smile, he knew why she couldn’t let it rest. He urged her toward a seating area, where he pulled up a chair and leaned forward to be at her level. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. I really am. I think about you all the time.”

“Even though you never call?”

“Or write.”

“Or write,” she said. “You’ve read my letters?”

“Of course.” And it was true, he couldn’t set them aside. Even though she was the link to his past, the sole connection to his mother and to a life he desperately wanted to forget, he just couldn’t close himself off to her completely. And she wrote so well, so full of enthusiasm about everything, as if despite her disability she was thrilled to just be alive. She experienced life with the zeal of a heaven-bound spirit sent back to Earth for one last romp.

“So maybe you’ll write back sometime?” she asked hopefully, looking over her shoulder as a horn sounded. “Or visit?”

“I will,” Caleb promised.

She nodded and then backed up, first wrapping her scarf around her neck. Caleb followed her to the door. Outside in the cool wind Waxman stood, wearing a black trench coat. He opened the trunk for Phoebe’s wheelchair.

“Has he moved in?” Caleb asked.

“More or less,” Phoebe said. “I ask Mom about it every once in a while. She seems to really like him.”

“Did you ever…?” Caleb paused, unsure how to phrase the question.

“Remote view him?” She gave a little laugh. “Nah, too creepy. You?”

“Haven’t done it at all in a long time.”

“Too bad. But it’s not one of those ‘use it or lose it’ things. If you want to get back to it, I’m sure it’s waiting for you.”

“No thanks.”

“You sure? I bet you and I could figure this thing out in no time.”

Caleb opened the door for her and felt the suddenly bitter wind whip at his face. “Thanks for the present.”

With a speed that surprised him, Phoebe reached up, took him by the wrists and pulled him down for a big hug. “Take care of yourself, big brother.” She started to wheel away, then stopped. “One more thing, are you dating someone?”

Caleb blushed despite the cold. “Nope. No time. Studies and all.”

“Geek.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“Just curious. I thought of you once, and I went into a quick trance and saw you with a girl, someone with long blond hair and green eyes.”

“Blond? No, no one I know,” Caleb said, truthfully. He hadn’t thought too much about girls since he’d been back to the States. And he only had a few other teachers he could even call friends. He steered clear of parties, and Columbia was such a big campus one could easily escape notice. And he preferred it that way. “But I’ll keep an eye out for this mystery girl.”

“Do that,” Phoebe said. “Because I felt she was bad news. Some kind of threat to you. That’s all.” She rode down the walkway as frosted leaves blew across her path and great elm trees swayed toward her. The morning clouds hung pregnant and low, dark but complacent.

“Merry Christmas!” Caleb called out, and just then his mother’s head appeared from the other side of the car. He saw her face, her lips moving, mouthing an apology or an accusation, Caleb wasn’t sure. But suddenly he saw something he hadn’t seen in three years — a huddled figure, a man trembling in a tattered green coat, long stringy hair over his face. He was standing across the street, by the corner of the brick building. The shadows seemed deeper around him, as if he had enlisted them to his side. He stared at Caleb. With the door open, shivering against a renewed blast of cold air, Caleb stood motionless. He smelled gunpowder, or fireworks, and imagined hearing a band playing a somber dirge on the field. The figure in the green coat raised its hand. At first Caleb thought it was pointing to him, but then he realized the finger was directed toward the car.

Toward Waxman.

Caleb heard mumbled words and realized it was Phoebe saying goodbye. He blinked, opened the door all the way and was about to come out when the light shifted, the shadows scattered, and the man was gone, as if he had been inhaled into the earth.

Caleb retreated into the lobby and stared at the gift in his hands. When he looked up, the car had driven off, and only the swaying trees and the courtyard lawn and the eight guys playing touch football remained.

Back in his room, he peeled open the wrapping paper. He stared inside the box for a long time. Then he cursed them — cursed his mother, cursed Waxman, and even Phoebe, although he didn’t really mean it. She had framed the three photographs he had taken down there. The inside of the Pharos chamber — three panels of the great seal, cropped and edited so the entire wall appeared seamless, along with the symbols and the images that had stymied their advance and killed most of the team.

If Caleb had ever wanted to get back into the hunt, Phoebe had just given him the means to take the first step.

2

Nolan Gregory sat in a wicker chair on his son’s seventh-floor balcony. The apartment, while somewhat light on luxury, had a strategic view from its western side, at least for certain interested people. Nolan had observed this very scene every night for almost two decades, beginning with every move the bulldozers had made below, every truck carrying away the ruined pieces of old warehouses, apartments and abandoned shacks. Now, he gazed with pride at the glass domed rooftop of the massive library, marveling at the crowds, the tourists, the scholars.

“It’s been five hours,” his son said from inside the screen. “Can I at least get you another drink?”

Nolan shook his head as he continued to watch. “No, Robert. I’m fine. I should be going.” In his mind he visualized the layout below the dome, remembering the excavation of the sub-levels, the laying of the foundations, the steel girders. He thought of the precision needed to connect to their sub-level, already in place one hundred feet below. So much to think about, so much to supervise. All from behind the scenes of course. A dozen firms had been brought in, capital from so many organizations, interested benefactors, governments and private donors. Consultants, architects, linguists, sociologists.

Such a project. It had easily consumed the last twenty years of his life. Two decades that had seen his children grow from precocious teenagers to successful adults, each with their own lives — his son here, his daughter overseas.

But each of them Keepers. Valued colleagues.

The screen opened and Robert came out, leaned on the ledge and looked down. His blond hair rippled in the soft breezes. His piercing blue eyes followed his father’s gaze, looking down at the structure with something more like jealousy and impatience. “I’m uncomfortable with your plans for the Key’s retrieval,” he said.

“I know,” Nolan replied, “I know. But it’s the only way. We’ve been lucky so far. Lucky the son has turned his back on his talents, and lucky he’s distanced himself from his family. He’s given us time.”

“Must we move now?” Robert asked. “Waxman is getting nowhere. He’s given up.”

“Wishful thinking. He’s only biding his time, still hoping the other psychics can help him. Fortunately, Helen and Phoebe Crowe haven’t succeeded, but it’s only a matter of time at this point. One of them will find the Key if we don’t get it first.”

Robert lowered his head as the smell of curry and raisins filtered out from the kitchen, where his mother was busy making their evening meal. “So it has to be this way.”

“Yes.”

“And she has agreed?”

Nolan sighed, again gazing at the shimmering reflection of the sun’s setting light off the glass dome, and he told himself that whatever the personal risks, it was worth it. “She’s ready.”

3

The remainder of Caleb’s research, six months before a fury of writing and revisions, passed in a blur of old books, dank library archives, endless hours in museums and the rare book sections of various universities. He needed his own place, needed the isolation and quiet to see the project through. And so he holed up in a Manhattan 72^nd Street studio apartment, one where he just barely met the rent payments by clerking in the Classics section at the New York Library during the summer. But that was all about to change.

Six months ago he had secured an agent, a publisher, and a $50,000 advance on a work entitled The Life and Times of the Alexandrian Library. It was the culmination of reams of notes, anecdotes, theories and research. Advance praise was extraordinary; it was being hailed as “a classic with epic non-fictional characters that seem so lifelike it’s as if Caleb Crowe has actually stepped back in time and observed the places and events in person.”

There was, of course, some truth to the statement. Although he had sworn off using any form of psychic abilities since Nina’s death, sometimes his subconscious, overwhelmed with the intensity of the research and late-night writing, took over with its own agenda. It would yank him into a waking dream to stroll among philosophers in white robes, their voices echoing off the alcoves as they spoke to rapt pupils. He would wander the ten colossal chambers of learning, savoring the breath of ancient truth exuding from the scrolls held therein. He would peer out the windows, looking past the dark silhouette of the Pharos Lighthouse and up into the heavens where his fellow scholars had mapped out the trails of the gods.

He had rubbed shoulders with Euclid, drunk wine with Claudius Ptolemy, dissected corpses with Aristarchus, charted the cycles of Venus with Hipparchus, and tinkered alongside Heron. And all of those experiences — the sights and sounds, the flavor of those revered halls and the luxurious museum grounds — they all made their way into his book as revelations and wonders and theories that modern scholars and critics were fast to admonish; yet something about his forceful style and the strength in his words proved irresistibly satisfying to readers.

Today was his first book signing, at a trendy café in Soho on a late October afternoon. A steady, drizzling rain tapped against the windows, and the cabs squealed out front while shoppers scurried by. The thick aroma of coffee permeated the air. Caleb’s stomach was tangled up in binding knots, and his voice was on the verge of cracking. More than forty people had packed the small room, a host of multicolored umbrellas and rain slickers — and one bright orange shawl beneath a grinning face.

Phoebe was there, in the back of the room, hands folded, a copy of his book in her lap. The lustrous metal handles on the chair glistened with raindrops. Her surprising appearance — the first time Caleb had seen her since Christmas — was all he needed to gather his courage, to relax and let the words flow.

He spoke of the incalculably valuable storehouse of knowledge lost in the library’s destruction. Briefly, he highlighted the acquisition of books from around the world and how the library and the museum served as the world’s first university. He touched on the great names associated with the museum and the scrolls. He spoke of Kallimakhos and his innovative cataloging method that led to the current card catalog system; then he turned to speculation of what major works had been lost forever. According to surviving memoirs, biographies and other histories, among the lost works were plays of Homer, Plato and Virgil; mathematical treatises by Euclid; medical texts that described treatments for what remain today incurable diseases. Then there were metaphysical texts, spiritual guides to awaken the soul and expand one’s consciousness.

Next, so as not to bore them completely, Caleb turned to the major theories about the catastrophic destruction of all this knowledge, delving into the bloodshed and intolerance that had brought all these works to flames. He spoke of Caesar and the later Roman emperors who, in their zeal to crush Alexandrian rebellions, had inadvertently or consciously torched sections of the library. He spoke of Emperor Theodosius’s decrees that had incited the Christian mobs in 391 AD, and even touched on the questionable theory that Arab conquerors had depleted the library’s scrolls as a means to heat the city’s steam baths, citing the famous order of destruction from the caliph of Cairo: “The scrolls either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they agree with it, so they are superfluous.”

About halfway through his presentation, Caleb looked up and saw another bright face watching from the counter beside a gold-plated espresso machine. A blond-haired woman looked across the room through narrow-rimmed glasses. She wore a neat gray suit over a tight yellow blouse. For some reason, despite the enthralled stares of the others, young and old packing the tables and chairs, her attention made Caleb uncomfortable.

But he continued, drawing a welcome smile from Phoebe, who held up his book and made a signing motion. He hurried to wrap up his talk, reading from the last chapter, “… The mob burst into the Serapeum, shattered the meager defenses of the scholars and priestesses inside, then proceeded to tear down statue after statue, demolishing urns, altars and artwork. A trio of young men guarded an arched doorway on the east side.” His voice cracked here as he pictured the scene in his mind. After all, he had witnessed it first-hand…

… as one of the mob. He finds himself urged on with vitriolic hate and burning venom as the Patriarch Theophilus stands behind them, waving his blazing cross and shouting passages from Leviticus. He storms past marble columns, swinging a torch in one hand and a twisted tree branch in the other. He howls as he strikes down one youth, crushes his skull, and falls upon the defenders. The others surge at his back and push him through the door into a large chamber with a rounded ceiling. Across each wall are hollowed-out alcoves overflowing with neatly packed scrolls, trembling like bees in a hive.

With a shout for God and for their Patriarch, twenty of the zealots race across the floor, brandishing torches and crying with delight. The room cowers before their shadows, moving in a twisted parody of an ancient orgiastic dance. Gleefully the men hurl their torches into every corner, igniting anything that will burn.

He barely makes it out, coughing and choking on smoke, trampling on the bodies of men and women, “protectors” of the temple of learning. He takes one last look at a statue of Seshat holding a book to her chest, toppling as four monks run, cheering. Then a burst of flame roars out of the archway, the roof collapses, and a dozen rioters are crushed.

He trips, catches himself, then stumbles over debris and falls at the feet of Theophilus, who holds up a blazing silver cross with both hands and shouts to the heavens, offering up to God their glorious victory.

With stinging eyes, he looks out over Alexandria and witnesses other pyres burning into the huddled night, smoke clouds rising, rising, occluding the stars and blurring the lights of heaven.

Across the harbor, beyond the pall of death and smoke, the lighthouse beacon flickers as if blinking away its tears.

Caleb closed with a brief but chilling postscript on how the early Christians had solidified their hold on the city, vanquishing first by edict and then by violence all record of the early learning. They had forbidden the study of the classics, burning remaining copies of scrolls and assaulting those who still practiced the old beliefs. In many ways, this body of classical work — the robust philosophical ruminations of the past — had shaped and molded and even nurtured Christianity; but now, in the ultimate betrayal, the fledgling religion was stabbing its mentor in the back.

He focused on Hypatia, the familiar classic tragedy of the last great symbol of enlightenment. How this respected scholar-author and teacher had been pulled from her chariot by the incited mob and torn limb from limb, her flesh carved from her bones with stones and shells, then burned and fed to dogs. Only, Caleb added a minor detail he alone knew, having seen it in one of his visions: “… At the end, through a haze of blood and flayed skin, she looked toward the Pharos, and as they beat and clawed and ripped at her body, she seemed to reach for it as a last refuge, or perhaps something more. A necklace was torn from her neck — a chain with a gold charm of the caduceus.”

Maybe it meant nothing, Caleb told myself, or maybe… she had been down there.

He closed the book and took a deep breath. His mouth was dry. He eyed a full glass of water balanced on the edge of the podium. Phoebe stared at him, open-mouthed. Then, the woman at the counter began to clap, and the room erupted into applause.

Caleb spent the next forty minutes signing books and thanking people for braving the nasty weather. He listened to boring stories of the customers’ favorite authors and travels and anything else they wanted to talk about. Finally, the crowd thinned and people made room for Phoebe, who rolled up to his table. She held his book to her chest, hugging it fiercely.

“Oh, Mr. Famous Author,”—her pony tail wagged back and forth as she shook her head—“won’t you sign something clever in my book? Something sweet, and maybe give me your phone number?”

Caleb walked around the table and gave her a crushing hug. In the corner of his eye, the strange but beautiful woman at the counter sipped an espresso and watched him carefully. “I didn’t know you were coming,” Caleb said. “How—?”

“It’s in all the papers back home, big brother. You know how dull the Sodus Gazette can be. They ran out of shore-erosion stories and interviews with the apple farmers, so they had to look elsewhere for news.”

“Great. So Mom knows.”

“Of course. She’s been following your career, while respecting your need for privacy. She and Dad—”

“‘Dad’?”

“Sorry, Mr. Waxman—”

“They got married?”

“Yeah.” She lowered her eyes. “In March.”

Caleb groaned.

Phoebe looked down at her hands. “I know you hate him, but really, he has been good to Mom. He’s supported her, and kept the house going. They’ve published articles together, worked on some other special projects. It was like they were living together anyway, so—”

“So she just gave up on Dad. Went with this loser.”

“Caleb.” Phoebe sighed. “Don’t bring up Dad again. You know he’s gone. You said so yourself.”

He turned his back, walked around the four remaining copies of his book and slumped in the chair. The smell of espresso, jasmine and cinnamon hung in the air, blown about by the door opening briefly.

“Caleb,”—she leaned forward on her elbows—“listen to me. They bought advance copies and found in your book some stuff they think might help with the Pharos.”

“I don’t care,” he whispered.

“You do care,” Phoebe insisted, holding up his book. “You still see it. It’s stuck in your mind, if only in your subconscious. And you’ve seen things the rest of us haven’t. Gone places we never thought to go.”

Caleb shrugged. “It was for a different purpose. The library is what matters to me.”

“Just like the lighthouse mattered for Dad.”

He shook his head. “What could be more important than the search for lost knowledge?” Caleb placed his hand on the cover of his book, feeling the smooth, velvety texture around a picture of a magnificently arched building atop a hill. “The entirety of human knowledge was contained at one point in Alexandria, and… and I’ve seen glimpses of it. That should be — should’ve been our focus. That’s all I care about.”

Phoebe straightened and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She spoke through pursed lips. “Earth, fire, air, water. The four elements, each represented by a planet — Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter.” She spoke slowly, carefully, watching Caleb’s reaction. “Then, Mercury, the Moon, the Sun. Those are the seven symbols around the caduceus. They’re set in grooves that allow you to turn each symbol.”

“Phoebe—”

“Mom thinks maybe if you spin them in the correct order, the seal will open.”

Caleb laughed out loud. “Really? She thinks it’s that easy? That the grand tower designed to last forever and guarded by ingeniously deadly traps would have only a simple combination lock on the door?” Caleb started to laugh again, but then noticed that woman at the counter looking down her glasses at him. Patiently waiting, it seemed, for him to finish.

Phoebe sighed. “Anyway, we don’t know what the symbols really represent. So there’s no way we’ll get in.”

“And that’s why Mom and ‘Dad’ want my help.”

Phoebe nodded.

“I suppose you’ve tried more trances, remote viewing?” He took a sip of water.

“No luck,” she said. “Couldn’t see anything else about that door, besides another glimpse of Caesar, as you had seen him. We’re stumped. We tried focusing on that scroll again, over and over. And, once we got a hit on something strange; I saw a castle atop a sheer cliff, and a man in a red cloak being led up to it in shackles. But we couldn’t make sense of that.”

Caleb frowned. “You never saw Naples or the Herculaneum library again?”

Phoebe shook her head. “I told you, we’re stuck. But you know Mom, she’ll never let this rest. And now, with Waxman around full time, it’s like there are two of her.”

“Sorry to hear that. Hopefully they aren’t always asking you for help. Do they still have the Morpheus Initiative?”

“No. Disbanded earlier in the year. Although, that Victor guy still hangs around.” Phoebe tried to smile. “It’s hard to attract new volunteers once they’ve learned what happened in Alexandria. The prospect of violent death kind of dampens the volunteer spirit.”

“Yeah. So, what about you?”

Phoebe nodded. “Keeping busy. Still translating a steady supply of museum pieces — tablets and medieval parchments, that sort of thing.” She gave Caleb a weary look. “Most of the time I go to bed with a raging headache.”

“And how’s the…”

“Disability? I get by. I’m used to it.” She raised her arms and pretended to flex. “Getting huge biceps. Handicapped bathrooms have always been a real treat, and it’s just a blast taking an hour to get my pants on in the morning.” She shrugged. “Same ol’ same ol’.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop it,” she scolded. “Listen, if you’re not going to come back with me and help us out, can you at least sign my book?”

Caleb reached for it, opened the inside cover, thought for a second, then wrote something he imagined he might regret. In the end, he felt he had to reward her effort, at least in some little way. He wrote: To my little sister. To my Sun and my Moon. The other elements — the other planets — are mere shadows, diminishing before your light.” It was just a guess on his part, but if the seal was a combination lock, the order should have some relationship to the orientation of the planets, maybe their distance from the Sun.

After a kiss on the cheek, Caleb walked Phoebe to the door, opened her umbrella, and hailed a cab. He helped get her inside and then packed her chair into the trunk. He leaned in before he closed the door. “My email address is on the back cover,” he said. “Write me more often, and we’ll talk. I promise. And I do miss you.”

She blinked and chewed her lower lip. “Miss you too, big brother.”

Caleb walked back into the café, smiled at a few lingering patrons, and made a beeline to the counter where the woman was still sitting, smiling. As he came closer she set down her cup and extended her hand.

“Great job,” she said. Her eyes glittered like jade stones. Sharp bangs fell over her face and tickled her lips, which were a shade of crimson that seemed too striking for her smooth face.

“Thanks.” Caleb took her hand, and she gently moved her fingers against his, surprising — and intriguing — him by this sudden seductiveness. She wouldn’t let go.

“Sorry I was late,” she said. “Doubleday has a habit of telling its publicists last minute where they’re supposed to be. But now that we’ve met, you and I can work out the schedule, and I won’t leave you hanging again.”

“Excuse me. You’re…”

“Oh, I thought you knew. I’m Lydia Jones.” She squeezed his hand a little tighter. Caleb felt his eyes drawn to the flash of skin just above the open buttons on her blouse. Instead of looking lower into the tempting shadows, he focused on the glittering charm — an Egyptian ankh, a cross with a loop over its arms.

“Again,” she said, pulling her hand away at last, “sorry I was late, but I’m glad to see you handled yourself brilliantly. Great reading style, although we may want to shorten your intro in the future. Some people walked out early.”

“Understood,” he said, still staring at her charm.

“Ahem.” She touched his chin and lifted his eyes to hers. “See something you like?”

“Sorry,” Caleb stammered, blushing fiercely. “Your charm, the ankh. It’s just, you know, Egyptian mythology…”

“Oh.” She touched it. “Yeah, I’m kind of the specialist on ancient history authors. I get stuck with all of you dusty guys. This thing was a present from an old client, a one-book-wonder on Egyptian culture and symbolism. Anyway, let’s grab something to eat and map out your next readings. Hope you’re hungry.”

“Famished,” he said, following her to a table.

From somewhere in the cramped storerooms of his memory, Phoebe’s warning came whispering back. A blond with green eyes. But Caleb felt drawn into destiny, and as he sat beside Lydia and breathed in her jasmine essence, exotic like a drifting evening breeze over the Nile, he couldn’t explain his reaction, feelings of desire, unlike anything he’d experienced since Nina.

They ate and talked, and Caleb stole glances at her whenever he could, thrilled at this new partnership.

4

Across the street from the Soho bookstore, the rain slammed against a three-story brownstone and fell in torrents around a green awning that covered the man in the long raincoat from all but the wind-driven sleet.

George Waxman tried again to light his cigarette and finally succeeded. He took a deep breath of the menthol-flavored smoke and waited for his associate to cross the street. Yellow cabs raced by, pounding into rainwater-filled potholes, and Waxman winced with each splash, imagining an old woman hurling insults at him and screaming: Your fault! Yours…

Waxman clenched his teeth, nearly biting through the cigarette, and his tongue. “Go away, Mother.”

Listen to me, boy!

Across the street, the man with a folded newspaper over his head waited for another series of cars and buses to drive past.

“Shut up.”

Sorry, boy. I’m waiting for you.

“Leave me alone.”

Like you left me? In pieces? After you caused the accident? You, crying, always wailing in the back seat. Your no-good father took one look at you and ran off with some whore, left me with your shrieking and whining, every waking moment.

“Mother, not now—”

Yes, now. The intersection, the bus… I know you remember it, I know you do.

“Please. I have work to do.”

Oh yes, your precious work. You think it will ease your conscience?

“No, mother. It’s too late for that. I was only four years old the day you died—

The day you murdered me.

“But I can still save others.”

The rain hissed off the sidewalk and guzzled into the drains.

He put his hands to his temples, then covered his ears and pressed as hard as he could. The image burned into the back of his eyelids: his mother’s head, severed as a jagged piece of that bus tore through the driver’s-side window, her eyes locked on his, lips still moving,

Victor Kowalski ran across the street, dodging a silver Honda. His pants were soaked and his shirt sleeves drenched. He had a leather case strapped over his shoulder.

The rain continued to pound out words on the canvass awning: You won’t be rid of me, Georgie. Even if you get past your precious lighthouse door. Even if you get the treasure.

Waxman froze. His mother had never talked about that before. For years her voice had haunted him, but she had never taken her comments beyond direct, guilt-provoking insults.

“What did you say?” He held out a hand to stop Victor from speaking.

A sound like laughter dripped from the brownstone walls and fell from the overflowing gutters. I see your future Georgie. Oh yes. Soon, we’ll have something in common. What comes around goes around, boy. Oh yes.

Again, the laughter.

“Mother!” Waxman hissed, then all at once the rain stopped, and the whispered voice with it.

“Sir?”

Waxman cursed, fuming at the dripping rainwater, the puddles, the filling drains. Then he glared at Victor. “What?”

“It’s her. Lydia.”

Waxman looked over his associate’s shoulder, back to the bookstore, where Caleb Crowe sat with his publicist at the coffee counter. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Using a different last name, but still her.” Victor’s eyes held that cold metallic glint common to people like him. Killers. Loyalists. As long as Nina was still out of commission, Victor was the best Waxman had to work with.

“Get me a report by eight p.m., and a transcript of what she said to him before you left.”

“Sure,” Victor said, wiping his dripping forehead. “Sorry I couldn’t stay longer. It looked like she was getting suspicious, and I didn’t want to risk Caleb recognizing me.”

Idiot. Who couldn’t blend in at a bookstore? “Fine,” Waxman said. “But begin surveillance; I want to know everything they say. Everywhere they go. Her, especially.”

As Victor walked away, Waxman lingered a moment, wishing he could trust him more, wishing he had confidence in the man’s abilities the way he had trusted Nina. She was sorely missed, in many ways.

He lingered on, until the rain came again and the whispers returned. They grew louder, more malicious, and Waxman felt a renewed chill down his spine that spread through his legs, numbing his feet and tingling his toes. He moved forward, stamping his feet. The whispers followed, and in every puddle he walked past he thought he saw his mother’s scowling face.

“Wait,” Waxman called, jogging after Victor. “We’ll share a cab.”

5

Six months later, with Lydia now his research assistant as well as publicity agent, they began work on a sequel, a comparative study of libraries in the ancient world. The plan was to chronicle such storehouses of knowledge as King Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh and the Greek Pergamum, which Marc Antony had diminished to replenish Alexandria’s library for his queen. It was at the Temple of Isis in the ancient city of Sais that Herodotus and Plato had claimed the god Thoth had relocated the entirety of the world’s wisdom, all the ancient tablets and scrolls from before the flood. Some psychics, including Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky, had even claimed that the refugees from sunken Atlantis had brought their advanced knowledge with them to civilize Egypt, and that Thoth had been one of their representatives, later revered as a god.

This new book touched on the legends that the Great Pyramid also had been built as an impregnable storehouse, a library to withstand time, natural disasters and the elements. Of course, Lydia would have liked first-hand evidence, and after learning of Caleb’s talents, she had pressured him into trying to gain psychic validation of these claims. He had given half-hearted efforts to please her, but nothing substantial had come of it, and they went on in their normal course of research.

On the back cover of the new book they were going to put Lydia’s favorite quote from Plato’s Timaeus—a quote that signified their book’s theme on the true essence and function of libraries: Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times.

It was their central thesis that these ancient libraries, filled with scrolls, clay tablets and other writings, had arisen out of the urgent necessity of preservation. With advanced knowledge of the heavens and the earth, knowledge even of man’s gross depravity, there must have been great trepidation — a sort of cosmic paranoia — about the loss of all that accumulated wisdom of humanity. Libraries, Caleb and Lydia postulated, had been originally built as magnificently constructed, earthquake- and flood-resistant structures, so that after any such upheavals, through cosmic or man-made actions, the history of human advances could be regained, and civilization could progress, rather than devolve.

To research this encyclopedic work, Lydia and Caleb set out together across Europe and the Middle East, ending up in Egypt, doing book signings for his previous book along the way. It was fairly typical for a publicist to accompany an author for part of such tours, but with Lydia it was different. Everyone knew it was different. For the past few months, they had been living together, writing and researching all day, making love at night. They enjoyed elegant dinners on the publisher’s tab and took in the occasional show or concert. But mostly, they stayed in and worked.

And fell in love.

For Caleb, the past year had been a whirlwind of twin passions: Lydia and history. Both had become entwined about him like hungry snakes, alternately pulling and squeezing back in an exotic tug of war. Neither side lost, but neither won. He shared them and matured with them both.

The book was a huge hit, translated into ten languages, and the rush of travel felt so invigorating, unlike those frustrating trips with his mother, during which he had sat brooding on the sidelines, angry at the disturbance in his life, as if he had known that other factions were waiting for his attention.

Time hurtled by, and somehow, from the depths of his dislocation and melancholy, he now found himself fulfilled. He was standing upon the ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple, hand in hand with the woman he loved. They had just wrapped up the research tour, appropriately closing with the most ancient site referenced in their new book: the crumbling town of Sa el-Hagar, the dynastic city of Sais.

Located on a branch of the Nile that flowed through the Delta, like at Alexandria, Sais was once a proud, bustling city that boasted its own share of philosophers, historians and priests, and a connection to an ancient source of secret wisdom handed down by the priests of Thoth and stored here in the temple.

The winds blew reverently through the half-collapsed columns, and sand skittered about Caleb’s feet with the scarabs and lizards. The buzzing of gnats had grown past annoying. He and Lydia both wore white scarves and khaki pants, heavy boots and wide-brimmed hats. Lydia’s face was tanned evenly, and she seemed tirelessly radiant, even with those thick oval sunglasses that reminded Caleb a bit too much of his mother when he was young.

“So what about now?” she urged, poking him in the ribs as the sun ducked behind the hills. A lonely motorboat made its way up the murky Nile, and a white-robed passenger waved to them.

“Are you serious?” He looked around. “Can’t you wait? Our hotel is—”

“No, silly.” Lydia took off her glasses and her deep green eyes sent a chill down his spine despite the heat. “I meant, what about trying your remote viewing here? Now that there’s no pressure. The book is written, our research done. You can relax and just, I don’t know, see what there is to see.”

He tried to smile. “Doesn’t work that way. It’s something that just happens, whether I want it to or not. And actually, in my family’s experience, psychic abilities seem to manifest more intensely after traumatic experiences. Stress encourages the power. My mother only started seeing visions after her father died. And Phoebe’s powers seem to have gotten stronger after her injury.”

Lydia pouted and kicked at the sand. She leaned against a pillar decorated with faded hieroglyphs.

“Besides,” Caleb added, “I gave up actively pursuing those visions. That was a part of my childhood, a piece of my former life that only brought misery.”

“Just try,” Lydia pleaded, tugging at his sleeve. “For me? We’re at the site of Isis’s temple. You may never get this opportunity again!”

He looked into her eyes for a long time, then finally nodded. “Nothing’s going to happen, though.”

“Not with that attitude.”

He shrugged, stepped around Lydia and leaned on a pillar, touching its rounded limestone surface and tracing the glyphs. Focusing on the chiseled grooves, he started to translate, picking up a portion of a hymn to Isis, praising her for begetting the sun, and suddenly he smelled smoke…

… and burning oil. Thick, oppressive. In the light of the braziers and torches, men with shaved heads and long blue robes are kneeling on a marble floor and inscribing letters onto long strips of papyri. A great arched roof spans overhead, brilliantly painted with a scene from the Book of the Dead in which Thoth judges the souls of the departed and greets a royal couple.

“Manetho,” someone calls. And he finds himself looking up, shocked to hear the Egyptian language spoken as it was over two thousand years ago. “We are almost finished,” says Vutan, one of the Hermopolis priests coordinating the translations.

“Good. Ptolemy Philadelphus will be pleased. These must go to Alexandria in all haste.”

He takes a moment to look around. They are deep under the earth, several levels below the main temple. Thick pillars support the roof, and strong walls, ancient walls built thousands of years ago, seal in this chamber. Two narrow air shafts lead up to the surface and serve to recycle the air. The materials here below are safe from the erosion of time that affects papyrus scrolls. And there are other earlier texts stored here, some inscribed on clay, others hammered into copper sheets and rolled.

And there ahead — two enormous, squat pillars. One of them plated with gold, the other with emerald. Deep, perfectly chiseled symbols carved over every inch.

Manetho has spent two decades studying these, the most ancient histories. He has used them to chronicle the kings of Egypt from the dawn of time until now. He has written treatises on magic, on philosophy and science; he has learned the ways of the heavenly bodies and the motion of the earth. But still, there are passages on these two pillars, lines of inscrutable text he cannot translate. And the priests will not reveal those secrets. Not yet, they say. Even though his name, Manetho, means ‘beloved of Thoth,’ they feel he is unworthy to know this most sacred wisdom.

There are dozens of translators at work, each copying partial sections only, undertaking the difficult tasks of translating the symbols into Greek, striving to keep even the phonetic elements the same. Later, these fragments will be integrated by a master craftsman and magician on ten tablets to be named The Books of Thoth. The wisdom from these pillars, Manetho knows, was translated from the one great artifact he has never been allowed to see — a tablet of pure emerald, what the priests claim is a miraculous, multi-layered book containing the most sacred wisdom.

Manetho has promised to collect both this tablet and the translation, and transport them to the Ptolemy’s new library. Even then, he will be accompanied by priests to prevent even a glimpse of the ancient words on the Emerald Tablet.

“Thank you,” he says again and clasps his hands together. “I will be outside, taking my supper. Call for me when you are finished.” He makes his way up the winding stairs, thinking upon all he has learned, questioning this legacy of learning.

For some time, he has sensed that plans were underway to move this knowledge, for the library’s safety has become compromised. The common people know of its existence, and while protected from the elements, the library can not be safeguarded from ignorant and malicious men who seek power.

Once outside, standing under the host of heaven with the great temple at his back, he looks up at the stunning constellations, at Osiris standing proud above the mighty Milky Way, at Sirius blazing at his feet. Manetho turns, and in the starlight he reads the inscription on the temple entrance: Isis am I, I am all that was, that is, and that shall be and no one of mortals has ever lifted my veil. And below this: Only the Golden Ones may enter and see the truth of the world. And then, a familiar but powerful symbol:

He thinks about the priests below, furiously translating and preparing the most ancient of books for the new library, hammering all that has been recorded into tablets. And Manetho suppresses a chill, knowing that despite all his learning, all his understanding, he is still considered impure, unworthy to pass beyond the veil and see the truth—

Caleb snapped back into the present, trembling in Lydia’s arms. After he had related his vision, she exclaimed, “But that would have been amazing to include, assuming you accurately saw through Manetho’s eyes.”

“Right, but that’s just it. I can never be sure of the accuracy of what I see.” He was still shell-shocked, slow in getting to his feet. “And even if it is true, how could we have footnoted it, Psychic vision, Caleb Crowe?”

“You’re right.” Her smile broadened, then she frowned. “So, the ‘Golden Ones…’” She eyed the columns, picturing how the roof and the inscription would have appeared. “What do you think that means?”

Caleb sat and leaned against a pillar. He pictured the symbol again, remembered seeing it with a similar warning under the Pharos. He recalled what he had told Waxman four years earlier: “In the alchemist tradition, handed down from the surviving Hermetic writings, gold is the purest form of matter. So if you were to pass beyond the veil of Isis here, or beyond the doorway with a similar warning under the Pharos, I assume that you would have to first be somehow tested — purified and deemed worthy.”

Lydia laughed. “Oh, then we’re definitely not getting in, not after what we did last night.”

“Seriously, there are many early religions that expressed the world around us as a veil, a thin covering over the real world, which only initiates of the hidden mysteries could part.”

“What initiates?”

Caleb shrugged. “Egyptian mystery schools trained students in certain ways that elevated their spiritual essences, made them question the nature of the world and learn truths about reality.”

“Didn’t I read somewhere that Jesus might have spent time in Egypt?”

“That’s a theory,” Caleb said. “The Gospels are silent about the period of his life after the ‘kid in the temple’ incident and until he returns to Jerusalem and starts his ministry. Some occult sources claim he learned the backdrop of his teachings in the temples of Isis and Osiris, from the high priests of Delphi, that he had access to occult wisdom, and that he—”

“—passed beyond the veil,” Lydia finished.

Caleb slowly got to his feet. “Many of the Gospel verses are word-for-word translations of much earlier Egyptian sources. The first line of John is nearly verbatim from one of the Pyramid Texts, a hymn to Amun-Ra found in a two-thousand BC tomb. The Sermon on the Mount reads almost like a carbon copy of a speech Horus gave to his followers. And images inscribed on a temple wall in Luxor show Horus’s birth, surrounded by three solar deities who followed the star Sirius, with a previous panel depicting Thoth announcing the news to the virgin Isis.”

Lydia held up her hands and he stopped, unsure whether he should continue. She said, “Hey, don’t worry. I won’t hit you with charges of heresy. I haven’t been to Church in ten years.”

Caleb had never known that about her. In fact, he didn’t know much about her life before they’d met. They had been so caught up in researching ancient history that they’d had no time for investigating the more recent past. Every so often she would question his relationships with his mother or with Phoebe, and she would ask about the Morpheus Initiative. Every once in a while Caleb would get a letter from Phoebe inquiring about the book or just updating him on their fruitless attempts to break the Pharos Code, and Lydia would ask how their search was progressing. Thankfully, she had never asked about his father. And sadly, Caleb rarely thought about him.

At least that part of my past is over.

Caleb took a deep breath as a trio of buzzing gnats flew about his face. Lydia helped him up, and they walked out of the ruins toward the distant tourist area and the two cabs waiting patiently for fares.

“So, if your vision is true,” Lydia began, “then we have an even more tragic picture of what was lost at Alexandria.”

Caleb stopped. For a moment, the sunlight skipped like a dozen flat stones across the Nile and he had a flash of clarity, a moment of understanding, as if he had somehow restored a waking connection to the historical vision. A rush of faces passed before his mind’s eye, a tumultuous crowd of men and women. He had the certainty that they were all involved in a grand legacy, a noble plan, a cosmic secret. Plato’s words echoed in his mind: “… you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times.” Then it vanished as Caleb saw something out of the corner of his eye — a blurry figure in the distance. He squinted. There on the opposite bank stood a man. Out of place, looking like the stump of a diseased palm tree. He was so narrow, so motionless — until he lifted his arm, and pointed at Caleb.

The air shook, an invisible ripple extending out from that finger to Caleb’s heart. He jolted back, spun and Lydia just barely steadied him.

“Do you see him?” Caleb shouted, frantic, pushing away and running toward the river. “There!” But the far bank was empty. Only desolate shrubs and a jumble of rocks. Caleb turned to see Lydia giving him a frightened look.

She came to him, held his hands, kissed his sweaty forehead. “Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

6

Whatever had let loose his visions at Sais, whatever jolt had restored the sight, it was responsible for releasing a chain of successive dreams of such realism over the next week that Caleb and Lydia decided against returning to the States until they had sorted them out.

Caleb filled one sketchbook, then another. He tried to force daytime trances to get more clarity, and he again slept with a coffee cup full of sharpened pencils and a pad of paper next to the bed. Lydia would sit quietly by his side, run book errands, and bring him water and food. Watching and biting her nails from the shadows.

Finally, he gave up; the visions were not progressing past the point he had already reached. Lydia coaxed him into talking, and he described what he’d seen, the same rush of images he had been privy to back in the harbor in Alexandria. In an excited, breathless voice, as the song of cicadas drifted on Mediterranean breezes through their window, he said, “It starts on Pharos Island. Alexandria. I believe it’s two hundred and seventy-nine BC. Just before Dedication Day.”

“Dedication of what?” Lydia asked.

Caleb smiled and told her the story of what had come in pieces and jumbled images, like video clips in his mind. The story of Sostratus and Demetrius, the tour of the lighthouse, the cryptic words of its builder… all the way to the point where Sostratus had led his visitor down those stairs. But then it ended. And despite his attempts to go farther, to venture below through the vault door with Demetrius, the visions wouldn’t oblige.

“Maybe you need to give your mind a rest,” Lydia proposed. “A vacation.”

Before returning to Alexandria, where they’d hoped Caleb’s visions would continue and lead them to further answers, they took a month’s vacation on a cruise up the Nile, visiting the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Karnak, Abydos and other amazing sites he had only read about. Caleb’s dreams were filled with enormous pyramids, sprawling pillars, cyclopean roofs, rows of hieroglyphs and painted wall reliefs. Then they spent a week in Cairo, at the museum and in the markets and among the Pyramids. But before embarking on the last leg of the cruise and making their way to Alexandria, they went to Venice.

To get married.

They crossed the Mediterranean, passed within ten miles of Rhodes and then Malta, and continued past the tip of Sicily and up the coast of Italy. Caleb pointed out the Bay of Naples and the Royal Palace, where he could almost see the scholars in white coats still teasing millimeters of carbonized papyrus from the Herculaneum scrolls. They went around the boot of Italy, circled back and continued north past Tuscany until they entered the canals of Venice. While Caleb ordered dinner, Lydia secured a room on the eastern side of the city, overlooking St. Mark’s piazza. And that night, under velvety purple skies, they were married.

Facing each other in a gondola, as the full moon painted them in ghostly auras, they said their vows before a priest, in Latin. They held hands and kissed, and people cheered — people on the bridges, people in their homes looking down, people at the edge of St. Mark’s.

They celebrated with a wonderful seafood dinner unlike anything Caleb could remember. And then there were three bottles of wine, some Chianti to wrap up the night before they stumbled back to their room. Dizzy, Caleb promised Lydia they’d consummate the marriage in the morning, and she giggled and agreed as she pulled up the sheets.

Under the covers, away from the lights from the cathedral, she whispered in his ear, “I have to tell you something.”

Caleb laughed and kissed her fiercely. He felt her nakedness entwining around him completely. He could not have been happier. His only regret was not the suddenness of their decision to marry, but the fact that he hadn’t told Phoebe.

“What is it?” Caleb whispered back, nibbling at his wife’s lips.

“Something about me,” she said. “I need to tell you—”

“Can it wait?” he asked, trying to stop the room from spinning. He wished he had taken some aspirin. Mildly curious about what she had to say, he suddenly imagined that the alcohol had freed some inherent block, and a small window had opened, which he could peer into and learn whatever dark secrets his new bride harbored.

“No,” she said. “It can’t wait. But… I don’t know if I can say.”

“Tell me,” Caleb insisted, barely able to keep his eyes open. But at that moment, his stomach lurched, the room spun even harder, and he ran to the bathroom, which happened to be down the hall, shared by six other guestrooms. Fortunately it was empty, and when he returned to the room, Lydia was snoring. He slid under the covers and fell fast asleep beside her.

In the morning, the phone woke them up.

Lydia got to it first. “Wrong room,” she said, slamming the receiver down. Her hair was a mess, and sheet lines were written over her face. She turned to Caleb. “Ugh. Sorry, I don’t think that was the most romantic of wedding nights.”

“No.” He groaned. “But the ceremony was nice.”

“Sure was.” She sighed and looked out the window, closing her eyes and feeling the cool Venetian winds. “Let’s get something to eat and go see the cathedral.”

Caleb got up, then sat back down, the room still pitching. He put his head between his hands and groaned. “Was there something you were going to tell me last night?”

She shot him a glance of surprise. “I don’t… I don’t think so.”

“You’re not already married, are you?”

She walked over, bent down and gave him a long, lingering kiss. “Yes, that’s it. I’m actually married to the prince of Monaco, and when his royal soldiers find out what you’ve done, your death will be unspeakably cruel.” She smiled and tousled his hair. “Of course I’m not married. You know I’ve been waiting for you.” Her eyes, like emerald pebbles, searched his face, his eyes, his tangled hair. “I don’t remember what I said last night, honey. But I do remember you saying something about consummating our marriage?”

He grinned and pulled her back onto the bed.

Inside St. Mark’s Cathedral they jostled in and out of crowds, shuffling from the gorgeous statues of one saint to another, from one sprawling mosaic to the next, only to find themselves standing before a wall-length image depicting, of all things, a lighthouse.

“Didn’t you know about this?” Lydia asked, and for a moment Caleb had the suspicion that she had directed him to this spot on purpose, maybe to get him thinking about the past again.

“I did, but I forgot. I remember something in my father’s research about one of the earliest surviving depictions of the Pharos being found here.” Caleb traced the tiny facets making up the image. “Not quite to scale, and smaller than I’ve seen, but that’s it.”

“Why is it here?” she asked.

“St. Mark was thought to be martyred in Alexandria. And later, in 829 AD, Christians made a daring raid into Alexandria, stole his body out from under the Arabs and buried him here, under the main altar. Along with his body may have come the legacy of the Pharos, and one of few surviving pictures of what it really looked like.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. She poked Caleb in the side and hugged his arm. “Sorry for bringing it up, but I just thought… well, I had an idea about our next book.”

“No.” He looked her in the eyes, and his smile faded. “I’m not digging up those memories. I’m not going to—”

“—continue your father’s work?”

That was it. She had a knack for knowing how to hit him where it counted. He pulled her aside and they made their way through a tour group snapping pictures. They walked past somber statues of the saints and elaborate woodcarvings, up a flight of stairs and finally exited back at the piazza. The pigeons whirled and flitted around the crowds, the picture-takers, the musicians, the souvenir peddlers. The flapping of their wings seemed to create a breeze that stung at Caleb’s eyes.

“Sorry,” he said. “But, even despite my recent visions of Sostratus and the lighthouse… I’m just not ready for this discussion.”

“But we’re married,” Lydia said, smiling devilishly. “Good times and bad and all that. Don’t you want to keep your wife happy? I need a new project. And in case you didn’t read your contract, Doubleday needs another book out of you within two years.”

“Doubleday can wait,” he said, putting on a cheap pair of black sunglasses he had bought in Cairo. “They can wait forever if it means going back to my mother’s obsession.”

“It doesn’t have to involve her,” she said. “You have your own notes, we have all the research we need. We can go to Alexandria next week and start.”

Caleb kicked at a pigeon that came too close, missing by several feet. “Why the lighthouse, Lydia?”

“Because,” she said, barely above a whisper, “you’re dreaming about it. And not just that, I think it fits with our research. And I think you know this.”

“What do you mean?” His throat tightened up. His heart started pounding.

“You know…” she whispered. “You haven’t admitted it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

His vision was getting blurry. Across the plaza, something tugged at his vision, the only clear image in the tide of activity. Beneath the Campanile clock tower, standing just at its base, was that man, the figure in green khakis with long hair over his face.

“Caleb?” A blurry Lydia tugged at his sleeve. She was still talking, trying to convince him of something. He heard her speaking about impregnable strongholds, great seals, and something else.

He blinked and wrenched his attention away from the figure, the first time he was ever able to do so, and stared at Lydia. “What did you say?”

“Aren’t you listening? I was talking about what you saw through Manetho’s eyes. The legendary writings of Thoth, said to contain the mysteries of creation, power over life and death, and knowledge of heaven and earth. Fragments of its message may have found their way into alchemy and the Arcanum, and formed the backbone of the Rosicrucian and Freemason movements.”

Caleb licked his lips, glanced back to the clock tower, but couldn’t find that enigmatic figure anymore.

“Caleb, honey…”

Blinking Lydia back into focus, he sighed and said, “The Emerald Tablet.”

“Along with the collection from Sais. Transported and hidden away—”

“—in the Alexandrian library. I already—”

“Didn’t you hear me before?” Lydia moved her face to within inches from his, her full lips lustrous in the sunlight, tempting. “I don’t think the tablet was brought to the library. I’m betting that to find it you have to look to the other architectural wonder of Alexandria.”

Caleb’s mouth opened, and suddenly, everything shifted. The world sparkled and everyone was surrounded by a floating nimbus, but only for a moment, then it was gone, like a flash of insight.

The seal, the great door, the traps. Could it be—?

“What do you think?” Lydia asked. “Worth writing about, at least? It’s a novel theory: the Pharos not only served as a beacon and an architectural wonder, it was a vault.”

Caleb looked at her as if she had just stepped out of a lamp and had offered him three wishes. How could I have not seen it before? The implications were staggering. Everything they had witnessed and perceived had to be viewed again under this chrysalis. “The treasure—”

“—isn’t what you thought.”

“It’s something even more valuable,” Caleb said, and in that instant, a flash from beyond ripped through his core, revealing…

… a dark convoy of camels, covered wagons, dozens of slaves lifting great bronze chests. The three dark pyramids dwindle at the horizon, black against the tapestry of night,…

“A caravan,” he told her, slipping back to the present, “heading away from Giza.” The bright sunlight streamed onto his face as Lydia touched it and brushed back his sweaty hair. He sat on the rim of a fountain, a bubbling, dribbling marble façade. The choking smell of fish and dirty water entered his nostrils. He blinked and saw them…

… carrying a secret cargo under cover of night, tracking the Nile, a man in black robes supervising the operation.

“Do you know what year it was?” asked Lydia.

The flow of the Nile, the passing of hills, trees and great stretches of desert. Then, through a marvelous gate into a sprawling city full of wondrous temples and obelisks, a stadium and so many people, the caravan takes back routes through the darkened alleys and emerges onto a stretch of streets and warehouses in a harbor. And there, across the water, a dark shape rises from an island. Half-assembled, it stands and waits for morning, for the hundreds to resume work on its construction.

“Had to be around 300 BC,” he said, still watching the images flashing through his mind. “The Pharos isn’t completed yet.”

“What else?” Lydia prodded. Her grip on his thigh was fierce.

Caleb shook his head, resisting the onslaught of the present, the pigeons, the tourists, the accordion and singers in the distance, the tolling of the great clock tower all pulling at his consciousness. “They led the caravan past the Palace District, past the Temple of the Muses. Across the Heptastadion, to the Pharos.” He held his head in his hands and took great gulps of air. Another flash and he saw that figure again, the leader of the caravan, dressed in black robes and a deep hooded cloak…

… stop at the first step leading up to the Pharos. All around him are great blocks, ropes, pulleys and workbenches. Discarded tools of the craftsmen. He pauses on the next step while at his back the convoy comes to a halt, and all the slaves look down at their feet.

A man appears above. In flowing white robes he glides to the top of the stairs. “Welcome. You have what was promised?”

The man in black nods. “I do. It is now in your safekeeping, Sostratus.”

“This collection will be but the first of many.”

“It is the oldest, the most important.”

“Then it shall be the safest.”

The man in black surveys the massive, half-finished structure masterfully etched upon the canvass of the heavens. A light mist drifts over the rocks from the sea and cools his face.

“The ancient resting place of Thoth has been emptied. Guard his treasures well.”

Another gulp of air and Caleb was back.

“Wow,” Lydia said with a look of dismay. “No matter how many times I witness that, I still can’t get used to it.”

“Me neither,” he said, wheezing.

“I believe you.” She lifted her head, distracted by something across the plaza. “Listen, I’ll go grab you an Orangina and ice. You need some fluids.”

“Okay.” He watched her go, then reached into the fountain, cupped some water and splashed it on his cheeks and forehead, feeling momentarily blasphemous for disturbing the sacred waters, before slipping on his sunglasses again

A minute passed, then another. Finally, he looked up toward the drink stand. A trio of pigeons swirled over its roof and flew up and away. The stand was empty. Caleb stood and glanced around, feeling a sudden bout of anxiety. But there she was, a short distance away, talking to a man in a gray suit with a beret tilted on his head, over bushy gray eyebrows. Then the recollection struck like a hammer blow and Caleb remembered him.

The hospital! Standing over my bed.

“The Pharos protects itself…”

Before he thought twice about it, Caleb was sprinting. The pigeons scattered at his approach. He bumped into a pair of Asian tourists, and kept running. Lydia turned as he closed in. The man lowered his head and swiftly walked away.

“Honey?” she called as she stepped toward him in a way which seemed to cut him off from following or even getting a better look at the stranger. She caught him around the chest. “Are you okay?”

“That man! Who is he?”

Lydia looked around. “What, that old guy I was just talking to? Don’t know. He asked me how much a gondola to the museum costs, and—”

“No!” Caleb shook his head, pointing after the departing figure, now stepping into a boat. “You knew him. You were talking. What did he want?”

“I told you.” She gripped Caleb’s shoulders, that same fierce grip as before. “Caleb, you’re acting weird. Let’s get back to the hotel.”

“No!”

Lydia took a step back. “Hey, I’m sorry I brought up the lighthouse. I didn’t realize it would make you this crazy.”

He glared at her. “I’m not crazy. I know that man. I’ve seen him before.”

“And that’s not crazy?”

“No! In Alexandria. He… he visited me in the hospital. Gloating that we had failed.”

Lydia looked over her shoulder at the gondola oaring away, joining three others cutting into the canals. “You can’t be serious. You think someone’s following you after all these years?”

He glared at her over the ridge of his sunglasses. “Lydia. Tell me now. Tell me if there’s something else going on here. Believe me, I’ll find out.”

She laughed and gave him a pinch. “Threatening me with your powers? Are you saying I’ll never be able to have an affair, because you’ll be remote viewing my every move?” She pushed back her hair, still grinning. “Guess I should have covered that in our wedding vows. Come on, my love. There’s nothing to hide.”

She offered the bottle of Orangina and led him out of the plaza. Her fingers caressed his, but he did not return the gesture. He was thinking of Phoebe’s warning, years ago.

A girl with green eyes…

But by the time they arrived back at the hotel, he had cast the incident in a different light. He’d been hallucinating, imagining the worst. He’d been miserable all his life, and now that he had found a shred of happiness, his subconscious had to dredge up reasons for the dream to fail, to engineer his fall. He wouldn’t let it succeed.

He had a renewed purpose. As it happened, that purpose now brought him back on the same path as his mother’s. But he planned not to tell her. Not yet.

This time, the quest is mine, and I have a new partner.

Victor Kowalski sat on a bench beside the fountain and pressed send on his cell phone. Careful not to look back at the departing newlyweds, he held the phone to his ear, fixed his sunglasses and pretended to stare up at the church’s extravagant architecture. He was dressed in a light blue blazer and gray sweatpants, and wore a Yankees cap. Two cameras hung around his neck, and he was chewing three sticks of strawberry gum. Typical tourist.

The ringing stopped and he heard Waxman’s voice. “Yes?”

“She’s made contact.”

“In person?”

“Yes.”

“Then things are getting serious. They must be close.”

“I was positioned near enough to overhear.” Kowalski snapped his gum. “She told our old friend it wouldn’t be long.”

“So they’re headed there next?”

“Yes, although the kid doesn’t know it yet. They’ll be in Alexandria by next week.”

“Good work. Tail Mr. Gregory, but don’t get spotted. I prefer to have them think we’ve given up.”

“So, no action against him until…?”

“Until Caleb gets us in.”

Victor flipped the phone closed. He stood and made his way to the pier, where he hailed a gondola.

He might as well follow in style.

7

“Our meeting in Venice was stupid. Too dangerous,” Lydia said when the man emerged from the shadows in the nightclub alley. Caleb was back at the hotel, a block away, finally resting after nearly two sleepless days of research and work on the codes. They had settled in at Alexandria a month ago, and had started to work immediately.

“I hadn’t expected him to be so paranoid,” Nolan Gregory said.

“He has a right to be,” said Lydia, “after your dramatic appearance in the hospital. Was that necessary?”

“We will see, in time, what was necessary.”

“That’s not something he’ll ever forget.”

“All I know is that we need to keep Caleb on the path. Continue to steer his thoughts and dreams back to the Pharos. Otherwise—”

“Yes, yes I know. Otherwise, we’ll never succeed,” Lydia said impatiently. Then, quietly, with urgency, she added, “But he’s making progress. He’s seen them — the founders! Sostratus and Demetrius. And much more.”

“Good, good. You must now make him see the rest.”

“Why not tell him to the truth about who he is?”

“No. When he finds that out for himself, he’ll understand, and then he’ll lead us to the Key. Any other way could invite a disaster.” Gregory pulled his face back into the shadows. “And another millennium of darkness.”

A cab’s horn blared into the street, and a trio of laughing young women went running out of the club to their ride.

She sighed. “I fear I may have to do something drastic.”

“You have my confidence. I trust you will know the time.”

Turning, Lydia walked slowly east toward the hotel. Cars rumbled past, and the warm air played with her blouse and tickled her neck. Out in the harbor a few lights twinkled. Dim flickering beams cut through the night over Qaitbey’s fortress.

Lydia took her time, walking and thinking. And fighting back her emotions.

She put a hand to her stomach, and began to cry.

8

The advance from Doubleday paid for Caleb and Lydia’s hotel suite for the next month. The first book was still selling well across Europe, but only to limited success in the States, probably because they hadn’t had a chance to do any further promotions there.

Their room overlooked the harbor. And outside, across the Boulevard de la Rosette, they could reach the causeway and walk to Qaitbey’s fortress within an hour. The museum was a short distance away, as were the Municipal Palace and the Zinzania Theater. Near the harbor, where most archaeologists believed the old library once stood, now proudly stood the Bibliotheca Alexandrina — the modern version of the historic library. With construction finishing in 2006, it comprised ten levels, four of which were built underground to further protect the contents from environmental forces. Adjacent to the library was a science museum and planetarium.

But as exciting as all these attractions were, Caleb and Lydia had little time for sightseeing. Caleb had enlarged the photos of the great seal Phoebe had given him for Christmas years ago. He posted them on a wall and tacked up a bed sheet to cover them when he and Lydia went out. They spent hours each day analyzing every inch of the image, studying every carving, every symbol.

He sent Lydia out repeatedly, sometimes several times a day, for journal articles or books they couldn’t access online. Most of these she had to order from contacts at the UK Doubleday offices. They acquired some rare seventeenth-century texts on alchemy — Paracelsus, Geber, Hollandus and Kircher. They consulted works by Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, Madame Blavatsky’s three-volume compendium, and so many other books of arcane knowledge. The trick, as always, was to focus on the truly inspired, those derived from the most ancient writings.

Their hotel suite quickly began to look like Caleb’s boyhood room back in Sodus. Dog-eared copies of books were scattered about, and stacks upon stacks of heavy tomes covered the floor.

One day late in September, while Lydia was taking a nap, face-down on the couch as several fruit flies buzzed around a plate of dates and prunes on the coffee table, Caleb sat cross-legged before the wall, considering the enlarged photographs. He imagined he was there again, before the grand staff and the entwined serpents surrounded by seven symbols.

Those symbols were all familiar now, old friends, after fine-tuning his knowledge of alchemy, immersing himself in the subject for the better part of a year. The first four were Water, Fire, Air and Earth and their corresponding planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Venus. These were the principles of the denser matter, what the alchemists called the elements of the Below; while the realm of the Above hosted the intangible essences of soul and spirit. The remaining three symbols were the Moon, Mercury and, finally, the Sun, often represented as salt, quicksilver and sulfur, signifying the coming together of Above and Below into a new, immortal form of pure essence. The Gold of the soul, the Philosopher’s Stone. Quintessence.

It took Caleb a long time to finally accept the obvious: that the sequence might be the key. But no matter which way around the staff he read the symbols, they were not in the right order.

When Lydia awoke she found him staring at the sign in the lower left corner.

“It’s a combination lock after all,” he said.

“Great.” She yawned, then perked up. “So what’s the combination?”

Caleb’s eyes were out of focus, and in his mind he pictured a cosmic scene of…

… the planets of our solar system whirling about the sun in their elliptical orbits. He spoke slowly, dreamily. “Working backward from the most distant planet they could see with the naked eye, Saturn came first.”

“Why backward?” Lydia interrupted.

“The sun was the center of everything. The light they all aspired to.”

She nodded, as if the truth had been obvious all along. “So then, Jupiter’s next?”

“Yes. Then Mars. Then Venus, which is also the symbol for the material of Earth. Then Mercury, the Moon and finally the Sun.”

“Wait, why not the Moon before Venus? It’s between Mars and Venus, right?”

Caleb shook his head. “I’m guessing that would stump, or kill, most people who thought they’d figured it out and dared to try. No, in the tradition of alchemy, the Moon occupies an elevated station. It’s the second largest object in the sky, dwarfed only by the Sun. Its influence, while subtle, is just as indispensible to life on our planet. And, as if we needed more confirmation, in the alchemical process of turning something into gold, the Moon represents Silver, the stage just before achieving perfection.”

Lydia smiled thoughtfully. “Okay, so if we spin the seven symbols in the proper order, we can open the door without releasing the water?”

Caleb considered that for a while, but it still didn’t make sense. He thought about the alchemist’s instructions, the order for transmuting imperfect material into perfection. And finally something clicked into place.

“That’s the wrong question.”

“What?”

“Trying to avoid the water trap — avoiding any of the traps — seems like the wrong way to look at this.”

“How do you mean?”

“Bear with me a moment. First, let’s consider how the water trap was sprung. Waxman set it off when he turned the Water symbol.” Caleb focused on the symbol for.

“He started with Water,” Lydia whispered, “but that’s wrong.”

Caleb nodded. “Saturn is farther away from the Sun than Jupiter.”

“So it needs to be Saturn first, or Fire, then Water.”

“Calcination, then dissolution.” His scalp broke out in a sweat. Could it be that simple? As long as you know the right sequence of the visible planets? “The problem,” he said, “is that we know that when the door opens, a devastating flood is released. For that much water to emerge so quickly, the opposite chamber has to be already filled up, waiting for the doors to open.”

“What chance does that give us, then?”

“Maybe we’ve overlooked something.” Caleb scanned the photos again and came back to something he had puzzled over earlier. “There,” he said, pointing, “all by itself above the left edge of the seal. It looks like a ring set in the limestone about eight feet above the ground, with a crescent moon symbol above it.”

“So?” Lydia reached for the bowl of fruit on the table and popped a fig into her mouth.

Caleb stroked the ragged stubble on his chin. “So why is it there? And is there another one somewhere? I can’t see the other side of the door, but maybe I didn’t photograph far enough. The crescent moon, it’s a symbol for Seshat, Thoth’s wife.”

Lydia nodded. “She’s the goddess of libraries and writing, I know that. But—”

“She was also the mapmaker and the designer of the king’s cities, his temples, and so on. One of her symbols is the rope, and in certain Egyptian hymns she was praised for ‘stretching the cord,’ or measuring out distances in the king’s temples and palaces.”

Lydia looked from Caleb to the photo. “So we get a rope?”

He nodded.

“But why? What do we do with it?”

“The first task of the true alchemist is to purify himself, to burn away and dissolve his ego. To blast away the imperfections.”

“You mean…” Lydia drew in a sharp breath and beamed. “We’re not supposed to avoid the traps.”

“Like I said.”

Caleb stood and started pacing. “Think about it … the water trap is an effective defense because of its sheer violence. A million gallons of water rush through the door at once and batter around everything that’s not weighted down. The room fills with water, but drains quickly. My guess is, if you’re secured well enough you can withstand it — hold your breath until it drains, and then you’re fine.”

“But why?” Lydia asked. “Why build the trap that way? Surely there has to be an easier way past the seal?”

“Yes, but you have to think like they did. Egyptian mystery schools had a different way of teaching — through intuition and experience, symbolism and reason. Imagine an initiate going through this ordeal. Surviving such a watery onslaught would be a transformative, cleansing experience. It would prepare him for the next stage in the process of enlightenment. Think of people who survive a tsunami, clinging to trees, watching their lives, their whole history, wash away. They can’t help but to be transformed by it.”

Lydia licked her lips. “Only the worthy,” she murmured. “So what comes first?”

“I hate to say this, but I bet there’s a fire-oriented trap we need to prepare for. Remember the legend about the Muslims who were tricked into almost destroying the lighthouse? The Arab treasure hunters released the tide of seawater and were swept into the harbor, but the few survivors described other horrors: fire, the floor falling away…” He thought about it. “I’m sure they didn’t even try the symbols; they just attempted to break down the door.”

“And maybe that sets off all the traps in sequence?” She walked up behind Caleb and slid her hands around his waist. She pressed her lips to his neck and he smelled figs, along with a hint of her ever-present jasmine perfume. His skin danced with excitement, both from this new revelation and from Lydia’s touch. “Can’t you try to RV the chamber? See the fire defense?”

Caleb’s throat tightened as if choking on a thick crust of bread. “No, I don’t think so.” It was one thing for visions to visit directly, but quite another to actually invite them in. It wasn’t a step he wanted to take just yet.

“So we’ll just chance it?” Lydia asked. “Get a rope, or a bungee or something, a harness. And then just pray we’re worthy enough?”

“I’d rather do this by myself,” Caleb said. “I don’t know if two of us can make it through, and…”

“And,” Lydia gave him a gentle squeeze, “you haven’t forgiven yourself yet for Phoebe.”

Or Nina.

Or any of the others.

Caleb tried to pull away but she held him close. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “And now’s your chance to make it up to her. We’ll get through that door, you and I. But you’ll need my help. I’ll bring cameras and flashlights, and you’ll have another set of eyes to catch anything you might miss, and—”

“And it will be twice the danger,” Caleb said, relenting. “But I know you won’t give up. Besides, I don’t really want to go alone.”

She smiled with him. “So what are we waiting for?”

“Nightfall.” From his occasional visits after a walk about the city, he knew Qaitbey had become a major tourist site of late, and guards patrolled regularly during the day. At night it was lit up from all angles to provide a visible backdrop of its imposing strength, but Caleb figured they could still slip into the courtyard, hug the shadows and get in to the mosque if they were careful. But they had no special connections this time, so they would have to use bolt cutters on the padlock.

“Good,” Lydia said. “Then we have time.” She pulled him away from the wall, toward the bed.

It was a moonless night, the air still thick with humidity, resisting the Mediterranean breezes. The stars shone fiercely above the waves, and as Caleb and Lydia crept through the arch in the sandstone wall, Caleb glanced up at the constellations, imagining for a moment he was a Roman soldier storming the great lighthouse, marveling at its flaming beacon thirty stories overhead. He could picture dozens of statues and winged creatures perched on ledges and atop windows punctured into the face of the great tower. And the simple, cunning dedication greeting visitors: Sostratus of Cnidos dedicates this lighthouse to the Savior Gods.

As silently as possible, he and Lydia stayed in the shadows and ran along the wall to the inner citadel. Four silent cannons observed their approach, and Caleb could almost hear their muffled explosions, subdued echoes from the conflicts of a bygone age. At the back gate, he rummaged through his bag for the bolt cutters, but paused as Lydia knelt by the padlock and told him to give her some light. “We don’t want them posting a guard in case we need to get back down there in the future.” A few twists and gentle stabs with two pins held in her nimble fingers, and the lock clicked open.

“Where did you learn that?” Caleb asked.

She merely smiled and winked.

He heard a noise — a soft, padded footfall — and his heart lurched. Pausing at the threshold, he looked back but saw nothing moving in the starlight-speckled courtyard.

“Come on,” Lydia said, and glided through the sandstone halls with a purpose, like this was all second nature. Caleb’s sense of unease returned. First, the incident in St. Mark’s Square, then the lock-picking, and now this feeling that somehow she’d been here before.

“Are you seeing someone? A girl with green eyes…?”

He put his imagination behind him and followed Lydia’s flashlight beam, which steadily led the way. She climbed to the second floor, and when he joined her he peered out the arched, barred window to see the sparkling lights of the city and the brilliant floodlights around the new library. After a moment’s reflection, they made their way to the great mosque. The heavy waterproof backpack, stocked with all their supplies weighed him down, and when he switched shoulders, he saw something white fluttering above, against the red brick dome.

Ahead, in the darkness before a bend in the corridor, he heard his name. It sounded so much like Nina’s voice. Suddenly Caleb was overwhelmed with the sense of foreboding he’d felt before, the same dread that far below his feet the secrets of the Pharos slumbered without a care, secure behind its defenses.

Again, that lone dove flew around and around the dome overhead, flirting with the trembling beam of light. Caleb’s mouth hung open and it happened again. A shift in perspective, a jaunt into a different medium where everything was a little more real, a touch colder, his senses sharper. He saw a man…

… in flowing white robes. “Come, Demetrius. It is time for you to see.” Two great Egyptian statues flank the entrance to a grand chamber lit by a half-dozen torches inside glass lamps set high on the walls. A pair of long chains rest on the floor, one hooked to the wall above the inscribed door, the other clamped to the feminine statue’s moon-shaped headdress. Four slaves are securing the chains and preparing a large, circular harness that could hold several men. “This is why you have come.”

Demetrius, out of breath, holding his side, moves past the enormous onyx statues. “What is that?” he asks Sostratus, pointing to a pit in the floor.

“Drainage vent.”

“And that?” He faces the great wall ahead, observing the pair of winged snakes coiled three times around the staff with an inscribed sun symbol above their heads. Six other arcane symbols surround the staff.

“The great seal.” Sostratus turns and points to a spot on the ground. “Stand there.”

In the flickering torchlight, Demetrius only now notices the symbols on the floor. One following the other, seven symbols painted and carved on seven large granite blocks leading to the sealed door. He steps onto the first block and reads the sign. “Lead?”

“We both will stand here,” Sostratus says as he joins him. “Then we shall move forward, block by block. At the next stone we will be secured by these chains.”

Demetrius looks to the next sign, two feet closer to the seal. “Tin?”

Sostratus lowers his head. “You will understand.”

“Hey!” Lydia shook him. Her face loomed over his, her soft hair tickling his skin. “Tell me you just saw something.”

Caleb leaned on her shoulder. The room was stuffy, oppressive. The dove had stopped its flying and perched somewhere overhead. “I think I’ve just been shown the way. Or at least, past the first two stages.”

Caleb’s legs were weak from descending the cascade of stairs, and as he stepped on each one he imagined they sighed with audible reminders of his guilt, mocking echoes of Phoebe’s pain, and their separation. Then he thought of Nina, and here he was, attempting the same feat that had killed her, with another woman he loved.

I hope I’m better prepared this time.

For someone experiencing firsthand what she had only previously imagined, Lydia remained quite calm. As they stood before the great seal, she shrugged when Caleb asked how she felt. “Just like the pictures in our room,” she said, shining the flashlight back and forth, then up the vertical crack in the door, aligned with the caduceus. “So this is it.”

She walked up to the wall and then shined the light back across her tracks, and Caleb saw for the first time the alchemical symbols for the metals, each about two yards square, taking up seven mammoth limestone blocks. Starting at the door, Caleb recognized them: Sulfur, Silver, Mercury, Copper, Iron, Tin and Lead.

“There they are,” Lydia said, shaking her head in wonder. “Guess none of you thought to look down.”

“No, we’d have seen them. The flood must’ve washed away the dust covering them.” Caleb aimed the light now at the wall, at the symbols around the staff. “Anyway, I think I understand. Each element corresponds to a planet and a stage in the seven steps of transformation. But this adds a new wrinkle. I believe we’ll need to turn the symbols on the door in the right order to get this started; then we’ll need to come back and stand on the first block, wait for whatever happens, and then move forward accordingly.”

Lydia stood before the seal, careful not to touch anything. “The symbols… protruding from… Wait, I see where you can grasp them by their edges and turn each one.”

“Not yet,” Caleb said, digging into his knapsack for the ropes, harness and carabiners. “Let’s get set for the water trap.”

When they had secured the first clip to the ring on the wall and the second to Seshat’s statue, they clipped the other ends to their harnesses, so all they had to do after passing the first test was to step forward, slip on the harness, tighten it and wait for the water to come.

They stood together at the door, shining both lights on the caduceus. Caleb saw that one symbol at the end of the upper inscription, the symbol assigned to the Golden Ones. It seemed to pull at his consciousness, to hang there as a marker of denial, a guardian that expressly denied him passage. And now, more fully versed in alchemy and familiar with the symbols, he was even more certain that this was a mistake.

“That sign,” he said, pointing, “I know it now.”

“What is it?”

“Exalted Mercury.” He stared at it and his breath quickened. “An upward-pointing triangle symbolizing Fire — in this case, the sublimated state of distilled consciousness rooted in the Above. And within that triangle, the symbol for what they call Exalted Mercury, which is essentially the Mercury symbol with a dot in the center, signifies that it has become the One Thing perfected.”

“The One Thing?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone. The center of everything. Our minds and personalities come together as one unifying, powerful thought.”

“And the triangles on either side? And the star below?”

“Water on the left, Fire on the right. With the star below, signifying the union of Fire and Water, the permanent coming together of the Above and Below.”

Lydia nodded. Caleb couldn’t tell for sure, but in the shadows he imagined her giving an oddly satisfied smile.

“Sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like we’ve passed the test, like we’re in any way ready. We don’t know what else to expect. If the water trap requires us to be prepared in some way, maybe all the others do too. I didn’t see far enough in my vision.”

Lydia stared at her shoes.

Caleb fidgeted. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what Sostratus did next.”

“Hopefully, your inspiration will come again and help us when we need it.”

“I don’t think so.” Caleb was again overcome with a terrible apprehension. And then, just as suddenly, he had the feeling someone was watching them. Someone not in this room, not even in sight. Someone… “Phoebe,” he whispered, and a deep chill seemed to rush in from unseen vents.

Is this what she saw — the time it would all turn for me?

A grinding sound echoed off the four walls. It seemed he had lost a minute of time, a minute in which the world had moved on without him. Lydia was kneeling at the base of the door, sniffling. She grunted with effort as she turned one of the signs — Saturn, the symbol for Fire.

“Wait!”

But she had stood up and reached for another symbol, the one Nina had turned first. Jupiter/ Water. Again the grating, scraping sound.

“It’s too late,” she said in a choked cry as she twisted the next sign: Mars/Air. “We’re about to see if you’re worthy.” She shot Caleb a look, and in the trembling flashlight beam he saw tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

He reached for her and tried to yank her arm away. “Come on. We can still—”

“I didn’t finish the sequence!” she shouted as she pushed him off, thrusting him away with surprising strength.

Off balance, Caleb tripped and fell back. Dropped the light. And in the spinning beam he imagined the walls shifting, closing in. Thoth and Seshat moved, turning as before and contemplating the two intruders. And there was Lydia, reaching for another symbol. She finished with the Venus/Earth sign, and then reached for Mercury.

Caleb scrambled forward and dove for her. “Stop! We’ll come back when we know more!”

She twisted out of his way and kept him at bay with her kicking legs. “It’s too late!”

“What are you talking about?”

She grasped the Moon and, when her eyes settled on his, they looked cold and hard. “We’ve been waiting for you Caleb, but you let us down.”

He took a step back. He couldn’t breathe.

She spun the Moon, then reached for the crown above the snakes — the Sun. “We can’t wait for you to snap out of your psychic exile. I’d hoped to free you, but I’ve failed.”

“Who are you talking about?”

She gave Caleb a look of pity. Turning her back on him, she rotated the Sun. “As always Caleb, you haven’t asked the right questions.”

She lowered her head. “Remember me. Remember that I loved you.”

“Lydia…?” He took a step toward her.

“Back up, and get ready.” Her head inclined sideways. “You told me once how your mother’s powers were triggered. Your sister’s too.”

“Lydia!”

“Welcome, Caleb, to your personal trauma.”

“What are you—?”

A rumbling passed through the blocks and sand fell in thin veils. The wall rattled. Three fist-sized holes opened on each side of the door, and six plumes of gas hissed out. Pungent methane, strong and powerful, streamed from the openings. Caleb reached for Lydia, but she ripped her arm free, switched off her light, and darted to the side.

“Lydia!” In the sudden gloom, Caleb reached for his flashlight and speared the beam madly back and forth, catching a glimpse of her legs, rolling into the shadows, but then he heard a tortured cry of sharp rocks scraping together.

A spark in the darkness.

He cursed and leapt back two steps and curled into a ball, hugging his knees on top of the symbol for Lead.

Calcination.

A rush of heat, a burst of searing hot light. “Lydia!”

And the room became an inferno.

It was as if he knelt in a protective container. The entire chamber swirled in a fuming cyclone of volcanic fire, gases igniting and flames roaring all around. But Caleb was safe, barely uncomfortable from the heat. And then he felt it: all around the block he was crouched on, a rush of fresh air propelled upward, a maelstrom of wind creating a barrier. The stone block had lowered and compressed, and the gaps surrounding it expelled a rush of fierce, steam-laden air.

And as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The whoosh of flames subsided and Caleb stood, unscathed. He had only a moment to take stock of the smoking room and realize that even if Lydia had somehow survived the blast, neither of them would make it past the next trap.

The cords were gone, incinerated.

Coughing from the noxious fumes and the choking heat, he spun the light around, desperately looking for some sign that Lydia might have survived, terrified he’d see a smoking corpse.

Then he heard the door grating again, and now it started to open as if pushed from the other side by a pair of monstrous Titans. He took one last look around the room, saw the melted flashlight against the edge of the pit, smoke and embers rising from its depths.

Then he turned and fled, racing to the ascending stairs and bounding between Thoth and his mistress, just as the great door burst open and the ravenous flood roared in.

Three steps at a time he climbed, never looking back. The water chased after him like a rabid jackal, snapping at his legs. He splashed up the next flight of stairs, dragging his feet through the rising water, and then lunged and collapsed on the cool, dry steps above.

He screamed and slammed his fists against the unyielding granite.

He aimed the flashlight back down. The waters were receding. He followed them back down, step by step. He walked between Thoth and Seshat, trading a wounded glare for their scolding expressions. His feet splashed on the limestone blocks as he played the light around the room.

He waited, poised to flee back up the stairs at the slightest hint of a new trap. He watched and counted the seconds, counted the beats of his devastated heart, urging it to calm.

Nothing else happened. The door remained open, a yawning cavern of blackness, defying even his powerful flashlight beam. All his other supplies had either been reduced to ashes or swept away in the flood. He was left alone with nothing but his mind, as clear as it had become.

He waited. And then he thought, I’m not on the next block, not putting weight on the Iron stone.

Suddenly, the door closed with a quick, efficient snapping back into place. On the seal, the wheels all spun back to their original positions as if nothing had happened.

Caleb switched off his light. Alone, he hung his head and embraced the silent darkness.

9

Acceptance did not set in for another week.

A week in which Caleb had divided his time above and below the harbor. He’d read the papers every day, fearing the worst. After the first day he had rented a boat and cruised around the peninsula, looking for anything that had washed up. As always, Fort Qaitbey had brooded staunchly, baking in the sun as a few tourists lingered about beyond the outer walls. He’d resisted venturing again below, but the chamber beckoned, whispering for him to come back, to dwell there forever. To ease the loneliness of those ancient halls.

The guards had replaced the padlock, and without Lydia’s lock-picking skills, he’d had to break it to get back in. Knowing he was embarking on a hopeless effort, he couldn’t help but feel like Sisyphus rolling his boulder to the top of a great hill only to have the gods kick it back down. Even so, he’d smuggled in a small generator and a half-dozen hurricane lamps and combed every inch of the chamber, in vain.

Under another moonless night’s sky, with Jupiter, Saturn and Mars aligned fittingly in a row along the horizon, Caleb crept back inside. Since he had found a mechanism for opening the fortress’s secret door from the inside, he closed it behind him, so he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed. Carrying enough food and water for a week, he descended into the vault. He slept in a roll with a jacket as his pillow. He brought a handful of texts on alchemy rich with imagery and illustrations to aid his interpretation of the next stage. He worked and slept and ate by candlelight. He existed for one purpose only: to study the wall.

To become worthy.

To become Golden.

Again and again he thought about Lydia’s last words. He wondered how she could have deceived him, and he contemplated the breadth and depth of her conspiracy. Who was that man she had been talking to, the one who had chastised him after Nina’s accident? Had Lydia manipulated him into marrying her from the start? Had she worked to become his publicist, then prod him towards the research, pushing him further and further? Had she hoped to spark his psychic talents in order to get the treasure herself?

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” she’d said. And he knew it, but he couldn’t get his mind around the right way of thinking.

All day long, as tourists ambled overhead, he stared and stared, pondering every sign, every etching on the floor and wall. And time after time he endured the flames and the flood, securing himself with steel chains, enduring the heat and standing against the onslaught of frigid water. He reeled as it ripped passed him, tore his clothes and scraped his flesh. He staggered, but held fast, digging his feet in, lowering his head and yielding to the torrent. He held his breath as the waters devoured him, and just when it seemed his lungs would burst the water level dropped in a rush. In the darkness he felt as if he’d ascended and emerged into the clear night air, reborn.

Calcination and Dissolution. Caleb endured them both, and survived.

And then he stepped forward while the water finished draining. His boots splashed to the next stone, and he stood over the symbol for Iron. He breathed deeply, clearing his head and accepting whatever destiny the Fates had woven for him—

— until the ground shifted. The gaping doorway ahead hissed and a wind blew forth, sending shivers across his raw flesh.

Fire. Water. Now wind. Air. He stood, poised, expecting some great gust to hurl him into a wall of rusted spikes. He was prepared for the brutal piercing, an ignoble death, an end to his hopeless existence, but he merely teetered and stood his ground. He dried, and the shivering subsided.

As the water evaporated, Caleb felt a residue deposited from the water and the fire caked on his skin, on his hair, eyelids and cheeks, covering the tatters of his shirt and ripped jeans. It had the consistency of baking soda. Something to do with the Separation Phase, Caleb thought. In alchemy, it signified that his old life had been burned away by the masculine energy of fire, then washed clean by the feminine strength of water, leaving him with the combination of the two.

Renewed, but somehow certain that he had not yet passed the full test, he considered taking a step forward onto Copper. The next stage was Coagulation, in which the alchemist was supposed to earn the Lesser Philosophers’ Stone, to be imbued with a greater sense of purpose and clarity, to see the way through to the realms of the Above. To set foot on the path to immortality. To Gold.

Instead, Caleb stepped back onto the glyph for Tin. For an instant, he was certain such a backward motion would trigger another deadly trap.

Nothing happened.

He was impatient, and growing angrier with the mocking sense of nothingness that pervaded the room. The parted doors teased him with a false sense of progress that made him furious. But he knew for sure he wasn’t ready. Yet, finally, in desperation, he bolted and ran, determined to make it through regardless of what was expected of him.

It started closing as soon as his weight lifted off the block. Caleb leapt for the narrowing aperture—

— and collided with the wall as it sealed. The seven signs wheeled back to their preset positions, and something beyond the great door made a low, wheezing sound like a heavy sigh.

Over the next few days Caleb attempted it eight more times.

Every time the same. The fire, the water, the air… and then nothing. He read and reread everything he had on alchemy. He studied the teaching of Balinas of Tyna, who had claimed to have mastered the Emerald Tablet, and who had performed miracles, healed the sick. He studied all the theories about what the tablet was supposed to contain. All of these interpretations had become infused in his mind, into his very breath. And yet he came no closer to wisdom.

And despite Lydia’s belief in his eventual transition, nothing happened. He may have passed the first two tests, but he still felt trapped in the flames of Calcination. He couldn’t let go. Not of her, not of his past, not of his fears.

And I can’t draw down a power I never really had. His visions had always been passive, reactionary. And try as he might, immersing himself in the depths of the lighthouse sub-chamber, opening his spirit to its mysteries, he was denied and could go no further.

She was right, he had failed.

10

On a crisp, surprisingly cool morning, Caleb checked out of his hotel and made his way to the airport.

The authorities stopped him at customs, and he spent eight hours with the local police. He detailed how he and Lydia had gone on a cruise, and he insisted that she had been swept away during a dive. They asked why he had never reported her missing. Caleb couldn’t come up with a good excuse. They called the hotel, where the manager only fueled their suspicions by relating the odd nature of Caleb’s nocturnal comings and goings, his reclusiveness since the sudden absence of his lovely bride.

Caleb didn’t blame them. Because of his vague and rattled responses, they seemed sure he had killed Lydia, and he was prepared to spend the rest of his life wasting away in an Egyptian jail.

As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad, but it was bad enough.

Egyptian laws were incredibly complex and quite often subjective. He asked for a trial, begged to be shown the evidence against him. Where’s the body? he demanded. Witnesses? A motive? Caleb told them to look for a man in a gray suit, with matching hair. He knew her. They had planned her disappearance together. Set him up.

The police didn’t budge, and they told Caleb they could hold him indefinitely if they felt like it.

Doubleday sent a lawyer on Caleb’s behalf, but his efforts proved ineffective. Caleb began to believe even the lawyer thought he was guilty. Their star publicist, and his co-author, was missing, and Caleb was the sole suspect. It didn’t make good press. His book sales plummeted. They took the stock off the shelves. Cancelled further printings.

And left him to rot. Day after day, month after month in a dank cell.

He asked for his research materials and they refused.

He begged to be allowed a few encyclopedias. A book. Anything.

Again they refused.

It was killing him, this separation from books. More than anything else, even more than his own imminent mortality, he longed for a book, a newspaper, a magazine. He had never been apart from his life’s blood for so long. He missed the feel of pages, the touch of a leather spine; missed the smell of the binding, the sound an old book would make as it opened.

Finally, he pled for pen and paper, and they grudgingly obliged. And on a cool day when the wind blew gently through the barred window of his cell, he began to draw. Just random images at first. Then the visions came.

He asked for more paper. They gave him scraps at first, but then a guard with a shred of compassion smuggled in a thick sketch pad. And Caleb drew.

For hours on end, skipping meals, neglecting his body, avoiding sleep, he drew. Pain and hunger were mere inconveniences compared to his insights, compared to his growing sense of purpose. The days and weeks flew by and his portfolio grew as he allowed his practice to become an obsession. Every night he looked over the day’s output, and then never looked at the pages again. He awoke every morning and meditated — just sat and listened to his breathing and his heartbeat, learning to tune out the cries of the other inmates, the banging on the walls, the shrieking, the pleading and find a measure of peace residing deep within. He was lucky to have his own cell, but it would not have mattered. He was passing onto a new level of being.

And he continued to draw.

Eagles and suns, gates and stars. A river flowing beside a large complex of stone buildings. He sketched his father, or at least his recollection of him. He no longer suffered pain, but his essence remained for Caleb to capture and put to paper. The signs were the same. Caleb didn’t understand them, but this time he didn’t try.

And he drew.

Once, he awoke to see that dreadful man in the green khakis sitting cross-legged in the shadows of the cell, just beside the door. He breathed heavily, as if he were sleeping. He stared, propped up on his scrawny arms. Caleb told himself it was only a dream, but he knew better. He finally called out.

The man breathed in. Wheezing. The darkness at his head shifted and Caleb froze. He knew the man was looking right at him. A mumbling sound reached him from the darkness, and Caleb smelled something — iodine and alcohol.

“Caleb,” came the word, grating, guttural. “Go… home.”

Caleb sat up and looked closer. The darkness wasn’t quite as dark as he had first thought. He could see the grimy wall, the blood and vomit stains beside the urinal.

The room was empty.

Caleb slid back onto the cot and reached for his pad of paper.

He had more images to draw.

A government lawyer stopped in one day. He was polite and smart-looking in a tailored white suit, but he acted disinterested. Looking around Caleb’s cell at the piles of discarded sheets of paper, he asked what he liked to draw. Caleb only smiled and replied, “Whatever comes to me.”

The lawyer left, and Caleb took up the nub of his pencil and went back to work.

Another month passed. At least, he thought it was a month, having given up keeping track of time long ago in this Alexandrian jail while the world outside went on. He had thought about Phoebe a lot. But he knew, somehow, that she was okay. His mother too. They were both fine, though unfulfilled and desperate. Still driven for answers beyond their grasp.

He knew it. He saw it all, and more.

Knowing that it might prove fatal to look upon the dead, he attempted to remote view Lydia anyway. He fasted for almost a week, and even the normally callous guards were getting uneasy about his health. They didn’t want someone dying of their own volition.

In Caleb’s haze of detachment, his body yielded to his soul, merging, coagulating; and deeper visions came. It was as if he had immersed himself in something of the transcendent, like he had gone skinny-dipping in the cosmic pool of consciousness.

He thought of the mystic Balinas and he laughed. A long beard hung down Caleb’s chest. His hair was matted and in stringy clumps. His skin was full of sores, lice and ticks. If I only had a mirror… maybe we’d look like twins.

But he didn’t care.

His consciousness existed elsewhere. Caleb Crowe was gone. In his place emerged someone new. Someone focused, dedicated. And he saw things — some he wanted to see, and others he never asked for.

When he thought of Lydia, when he really thought of her — the scent of jasmine, the touch of her silken skin, the way the ankh had dangled on her chest — he saw a rush of images: the Great Pyramids lit up at night; a congregation of people in gray cloaks, mumbling to themselves about keys and doorways, about lost secrets and betrayal; a massive, fanciful construction project along a familiar shoreline — an upward-sloping structure that looked like a sheared-off dome with thousands of windows and dedications from every modern language on its walls, with hundreds of workmen, cranes and hoists assailing it from all angles. In the distance, a dozen men and women in dark gray suits stood atop a ridge, watching in silent appreciation.

One of those figures, a blond-haired woman, turned away from the others. Her face was hidden in shadow, the sun burning at her back. But it seemed she looked in Caleb’s direction, and she gave a secret, almost unnoticed nod of her head.

He saw Phoebe next, seated alone in a specially designed chair, peering into a microscope in a dimly lit lab. She wrote with her left hand and moved an ancient fragment delicately with her right.

Then he saw his mother standing outside the family’s lighthouse, looking out over Sodus Bay. She held an apple in both hands and rolled it gently back and forth as if willing from its skin memories that were long lost, but definitely not forgotten. Down the hill, the rusted lightship had received a facelift. People were walking across a remodeled pier, snapping pictures of the old boat, but Helen paid them no heed. She glanced up once at the lighthouse beacon, and in her eyes flashed a distant recollection, as though she expected to see Caleb’s father waving back at her.

Then Caleb saw Waxman. Saw him again and again, like a recording slowed down on a VCR. Unbidden visions swirled around in a choppy soup, pictures of Waxman’s childhood, tormented dreams of his mother. She had inflicted her wrath on everything he did. Interfering in all aspects of his life, turning him into a loner. Waxman had studied all the time. He’d trained by himself, pulled away from friends, from strangers, from life.

Then Caleb saw him enter a familiar white building beside a winding river.

Overhead, an eagle soared, circling, then rising above the sparkling sun.

At the doorway, Waxman turned as if aware of someone’s snooping gaze. “You’re asking the wrong questions,” he whispered, and Caleb snapped out of his vision, jerked awake, gasping for air. His mouth was a desiccated old prune, his limbs too weary to lift.

Two armed guards stood in the doorway. “You’re free to go,” one of them said, and handed Caleb his knapsack.

“Get a shower,” said the other, “and something to eat on your way out.”

Caleb didn’t know it at the time, but he should have figured it out. It was too easy. He’d had help. Probably a simple phone call had sprung his release.

He didn’t ask any questions. He just went with the flow and tide of Fate, accepting this sudden transition in his life and hoping that the long months of confinement had somehow prepared him for something meaningful.

So, after several weeks of recuperation, after cleaning up, after eating and nursing himself back to health, he prepared to leave Alexandria.

“Caleb, go home.”

While he waited for the porter to get his single bag, he looked out the hotel window at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, nestled impressively between the beachfront and the mass of white hotels and offices. He held out his palm to block the glare from the sun glinting off the windows of the dome, and in the spots dancing his vision, he imagined the ancient structure after which it was patterned. And it filled him with hope.

A knock came at the door. Somehow, when Caleb opened it, he wasn’t surprised by who had come to find him.

11

A year ago, Caleb’s first inclination would have been to run. But now he stood firm, calm and settled. He focused on what was important. He saw Phoebe’s face light up, that big grin and her teeth biting her bottom lip. A touch of her handrest controls and her wheelchair shot forward, zipping around Helen and rolling right up to Caleb. She threw her arms around his waist.

“Missed you, big brother.”

Caleb held her, squeezed her with an emotional intensity that surprised him. “Do I have you guys to thank for my release?”

“George,” Phoebe said, nodding back to the threshold of the door. “He worked for months with the authorities, finally pulling enough strings.”

Waxman offered a weak smile. “You can thank me later.”

Phoebe squeezed Caleb’s arm. “By the way, where was my invite to my own brother’s wedding?”

“Sorry,” Caleb gulped. “It all happened so fast.”

“Even after my warning,” Phoebe said, shaking her head. “Was it her, the girl with the green eyes?”

Caleb nodded.

“I tried to tell you—”

“Shhh. Later, okay? Now’s not the time.”

She took his hand and looked at her brother with new eyes. “Come on, we have a lot to tell you. You’re going to be amazed.”

Caleb held his ground, and the wheels on her chair spun. “No, I don’t want to go with them.”

“Caleb,” Helen walked into the room. She was thin and pale, her hair cut short and dyed a California blond to cover her gray. Her eyes were lined with crow’s-feet, hooded but no less crystalline. The blue shook Caleb, and he felt an electric current spark when she touched his arm. “Jail! My poor boy. We were so worried. And they wouldn’t let me see you.”

“Hello, Mother.” He gave her a peck on the cheek. “Why are you here?”

“You shouldn’t have gone down there without us,” she scolded. Waxman sauntered over, his hands in the front pockets of his suit pants. He wore a black turtleneck under his navy blue jacket, and his hair seemed just as wild as Caleb remembered, only now flecked with gray. A lit cigarette was trapped like a worm dangling from his lips.

“Listen, I just want to go back to New York and sleep for a month.”

“You’ll want to hear this,” Waxman said.

Caleb stared at the gold band around his ring finger as he lifted his cigarette, then he looked blankly at Helen. “Speaking of not being invited to weddings…”

“Caleb,” Phoebe pinched his arm.

Waxman turned his head to watch a pair of hotel maids walk past in the hall. He put his arm around Helen’s shoulders. “I told you he hasn’t changed.”

Caleb slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’m going. Thanks for the jailbreak.”

“Caleb,”—Phoebe wheeled into his path—“we know where it is.”

“Where what is?”

Helen smiled. “Don’t be modest, Phoebe. Tell him how you found it.”

“Okay,” Phoebe said, beaming. “You were right, Caleb. We weren’t asking the right questions.”

“About what?”

“The scroll. Caesar’s scroll.”

“I saw it,” Phoebe said, “by refining the question. Remember when I said I kept having visions of a castle on a steep hill, and a prisoner in red robes being led up to it? Well, I decided to follow that lead. I remembered that those ancient scrolls were coveted by aristocrats in the nineteenth century, and it was considered fashionable to have one among your personal treasures, even if you could never read it.”

Caleb’s heart started to race. “Of course. But still, the possibility that just that one scroll, of all the thousands…”

Phoebe continued. “I decided to work from the assumption that it had been removed from the collection. I asked to be shown how Caesar’s scroll was taken from Herculaneum, and then I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Caleb asked. He started to feel faint.

“That man again, in long red robes and fur-lined lapels. But this time, he was standing before a series of machines. Several blackened scrolls, coated with a silvery substance, were stretched out, hanging partially unrolled and glued together where they had started to rip.”

“The Piaggio machines,” Caleb said, recognizing the description. Vatican scholar Antonio Piaggio had invented the device in an effort to stop the wanton destruction of the scrolls by other investigators. It was the only thing that worked until the 1970s, when the Norwegians came along with their gelatin solutions.

Phoebe nodded, and her eyes glazed over, as if seeing the vision all over again. “Someone came up to this red-robed man and said, ‘Welcome, Count Cagliostro, what brings such an esteemed visitor to inspect our work?’”

“Cagliostro,” Caleb whispered. “He was an alchemist, a magician of the old Egyptian mysteries. It fits. He would have been drawn to this scroll, but how did he—”

“‘A dream,’ the Count said, walking from machine to machine, ten of them with scrolls in various stages of unrolling. ‘A dream told me there was something I needed to see here.’”

Phoebe blinked, and quickly focused on Caleb. “Cagliostro stopped in front of one scroll that had only been opened about an inch. He bent over, gasping as he peered at a faint symbol and a few visible letters.”

“What symbol?” Caleb asked, although he could guess. Exalted Mercury…

Phoebe shrugged. “I didn’t get a clear enough glimpse of it. But anyway, he sent everyone from the room, then carefully removed the scroll from the machine, boxed it up and hid it under his robes. He took a random scroll from the hundreds on a nearby table and set it up on the machine. He began to clumsily unroll the first inch when a group of priests walked in, ushered by one of the papyri officials. Discovered in the act, he ran. Fled the library and disappeared into the shadows of the palace corridors.

“My next vision was of Cagliostro in shackles being led up an uneven rock path beside a sheer cliff to a fortress overlooking a valley. The castle, with its turrets and walls, stood against the rough winds and made me think of Qaitbey.”

She let out a deep breath and rubbed her palms together. “And that was it. I did some research and found that Cagliostro had been imprisoned at a castle, the same one I’d seen, jailed on charges of heresy.”

“He was tricked,” Caleb said, “into performing an ancient Egyptian rite of initiation on two Vatican Inquisition spies, who then arrested him. Classic entrapment.”

“So you know.”

Caleb nodded. “He was first imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, but after trying to escape, he was moved to the fortress you saw.”

“San Leo,” she said, pouting. “I spent days looking through Italian guidebooks trying to find a picture that matched, and you knew it all along!”

“Sorry, but at least you found it. The question is, what does that vision tell us about the scroll?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Helen said. “If you’ll join us, we’ve got a flight already booked. It leaves in the morning for Venice.”

“But—”

“I saw one more thing after that vision.” Phoebe wheeled closer, almost running over Caleb’s foot. “A church with Roman-style arches and a bell tower. I found it quickly, in the same guidebook, fifteen miles from San Leo Fortress, in the town of Rimini.”

“The Tempio Malatestiano,” Waxman said, pronouncing the Italian very slowly.

“What does that have to do with it?” Caleb asked.

Waxman sighed. “We think Cagliostro may have had a connection to that church. And since he knew the authorities were after him, he might have stashed the scroll somewhere inside.”

Caleb suddenly felt exhausted from it all, and actually missed the solitude of his prison cell. “What do you want from me?”

“Caleb, you have to take my place,” Phoebe pleaded, thumping her chair’s wheels. She leaned forward. “They need a good psychic to go along, one that’s more mobile than I am.”

A refusal formed, but then Caleb let out his breath. He imagined her down in that tomb, her hand reaching up, begging him not to let go. He remembered the feel of her fingers slipping away, and the dwindling of her scream before she hit the bottom.

He could not deny her this. He took a breath and glanced from her to his mother. In his mind flashed a vision of excavators in Herculaneum, chipping away at the volcanic rock and sediment, retrieving scroll after scroll. The possibility that they’d found just the one they were looking for and that it might hold the secrets of the Pharos — and the answer to Lydia’s death — proved an irresistible temptation. He saw Julius Caesar again, bathed in torchlight, standing before the defiant caduceus, the scroll in his hand.

This was a chance to discover what Caesar could not, to pass beyond, into the one place he had failed to conquer. To reveal the secrets of Alexander the Great. And perhaps to reveal the truth about ourselves. Why my family has these powers, these visions.

Despite his transition, or perhaps because of it, his path was clear. He wanted the same things: to see whether the Pharos hid merely a treasure of gold and silver, or whether, beyond the door, lay all the secrets of the human race. The mysteries of the spirit and the soul, secrets that had survived a brutal two-thousand-year war waged upon them by the twin armies of ignorance and evil.

His mind calmed and his pulse settled. “And you’ve already booked our flight?”

Waxman smiled. “I may not be as good a psychic as any of the Crowes, but I did foresee you’d be coming with us. We leave in the morning.”

So they had one night to rest, but unfortunately there was little time for it. A deep breath of stale hotel air filled his lungs as Caleb rejoined the others in the main suite. They were discussing the scroll.

“If we can get our hands on it,” Helen said, “and unroll the remainder… there’s a new technique out of BYU that has been successful in restoring damaged ancient scrolls. And our University of Rochester is getting in on the act, with Xerox and Kodak contributing equipment and funds for analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

“The cameras are there if we need them,” Phoebe said. “We can photograph the scrolls at various wavelengths — say, ultraviolet at 200 nanometers or infrared at 1100—to see which will best differentiate the ink from the background.”

“That’s all assuming you can still manage to open the scroll.”

“True.”

“After we return from Italy, why not come back with us?” Helen asked. “Everything’s ready back home. We’ve got the house set up for research, a quiet room for introspection and drawing. The Morpheus team comes over twice a week, so we can use their skills as well.”

Caleb groaned. “I thought the Initiative was disbanded.”

“New members,” Waxman said, puffing on his cigarette.

“Come on,” Phoebe urged. “You can get the pleasure of joining me aboard Old Rusty. The museum is closed again, but you can still see the exhibit.”

He blinked at her. “It was turned into a museum?”

“Didn’t you read my letters?”

“I was a little busy. Anyway, no, I’m not going back there with you.”

Still that voice from his dreams… Go home…

“I told you,” Waxman said under his breath. “Useless as ever.”

“No,” both his mother and sister said at once. Helen moved over and looked into Caleb’s eyes. She scrutinized his face, every line and crevice, and he started to turn away when he noticed her eyes were filling with tears.

“You look like him,” she said, and brought her hand to Caleb’s chin. Her eyes held his, and her lips moved, just barely. “I miss your father,” she whispered so only Caleb could hear. “And I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean?” The room dimmed slightly, as if the lights flickered, and the air shimmered and everything seemed less tangible, less real.

“You know. I—” Suddenly she stopped and frowned, and her face took on the look of a hunted animal. Her eyes darted around and finally settled on a corner, near the television.

Caleb followed her gaze, and for just an instant Caleb saw him, the tall man in the green jacket, matted hair over his face. Just standing there, trembling in the shadows. And then, he was gone.

“Did you—?”

Helen snapped her head back and stared wide-eyed at Caleb.

Waxman moved in between them, pulling her aside. “Listen, kid. We need to show you something, something about your late wife. After that, if you still want to bail on us, that’s your call. Just see what we’ve discovered.”

Phoebe wheeled herself to one side of a rectangular oak table where Waxman sat in front of a black laptop. Helen leaned in over his shoulder and turned the screen in Caleb’s direction. On the monitor was a blurry black and white image, a photograph taken of a group of people standing between the forepaws of the Great Sphinx.

“This picture,” Waxman said, “came from an unpublished book called Keepers of Nothing. It was written by a man named Alex Prout, an author known for his paranoid, disjointed and unconvincing beliefs in all manner of nutty ideas.”

Phoebe cleared her throat. “His first book was titled George Bush and How America Collaborated in the Upcoming Alien Conquest.”

Helen smiled at Caleb. “Anyway, you get the drift. In this latest book, however, Prout seems to have hit on some actual facts.”

Waxman tapped the monitor. “After we learned of your incarceration and the charges against you, we started looking into the background of Lydia Jones.”

“How much did you know about her past,” Phoebe asked, “before you up and married her?”

“Not much,” Caleb admitted. “I didn’t want to share my history with her, so it somehow felt wrong probing into hers.”

Looking away, Helen said, “We found her credits as a publicist, and that got us started. One of the books she had marketed was written by a respected Egyptology professor from the American University at Cairo. When we took a chance and dug into his history, we came across some serious criticisms of his work, all coming from the website of Alex Prout.” She raised her eyebrows. “Seems this professor was a regular target of his.”

Waxman lit up a cigarette. “We got a copy of this photo from Prout’s website. The manuscript for his new book was in his possession when he was mugged in Central Park late last year.”

“He was strangled to death,” Phoebe said. “His papers torn to shreds and scattered into the East River.”

“Fortunately,” Waxman added, “he was so paranoid that he backed up the whole thing to a secure website every time he worked on it.”

Caleb frowned. “Then how did you get them?” He leaned closer and stared at the picture. There was Lydia, dressed in a gray suit, head bowed reverently, leaning against the Sphinx’s left paw. Surrounding her were three other women and thirteen men. But Caleb zeroed in on one man. It was the same face. The same hair. She had been talking to him in St. Mark’s Square. He was the one from the hospital.

He pointed, and before Waxman could answer the earlier question, Caleb said, “I’ve seen that man!”

Waxman nodded. “Lydia’s father.”

“What?”

“Nolan Gregory. The Egyptology professor, the author. Sixty-two years old. Jones is an alias. Your wife’s name was Lydia Angeline Gregory, born in Alexandria.”

Caleb pulled out a chair and slumped into it. His head hurt. The two cups of coffee had only added to the throbbing. All his muscles were cramping, not yet having recovered fully from his confinement.

Waxman continued. “Prout investigated this man, Nolan Gregory, and bribed a few of his acquaintances into giving up this picture. He believed it was the only photograph of the current members of an ancient society known simply as The Keepers.”

“Guess what it is they’re keeping,” Phoebe challenged, before tossing a handful of airplane peanuts into her mouth.

Caleb stared at the photograph again, and Lydia’s eyes dreamily stared back at him. “The Pharos Treasure?”

Silence answered. Caleb could hear the ticking of the clock in the next room.

Helen stood up. “The rest of Prout’s book goes on to describe his discoveries about this group. He claims these Keepers are all descendents of high priests and scribes from the Ptolemaic Dynasty.”

Caleb looked up. “The legends of Thoth. The Books of Manetho and the Emerald Tablet…”

“Lost when your library burned,” Helen said. “We read your book too.”

“Nicely written, big brother,” Phoebe said, raising a can of Sprite. “Although I notice you didn’t give any credit to your sister in your dedication.”

“Sorry.” He stared at the screen again. “So…”

“So,” Helen continued, “Prout believed that the members of this group pass down their secret legacy to one family member each generation.”

“And this legacy?” Caleb asked. “What is it?”

Phoebe fidgeted in her chair. “The truth about a storehouse of wisdom that could change the world.”

“Crazy nonsense,” Waxman said. “Usual stuff about Atlantis and ancient technology. Radical power sources and miraculous medical techniques. That sort of crap.”

“It’s the truth,” Caleb said, “if you believe Plato. Or Herodotus. Both claimed that old priests in Egypt recounted the demise of a prior civilization, and that Thoth had brought the whole of their knowledge to Egypt and started again.” He took a breath. “Which is why you see such a high degree of civilization in Egypt right from the start, with their hieroglyphics, farming, astronomical lore, culture—”

“Whatever,” Waxman muttered. “The point is these guys know something. But Prout’s book never actually mentioned the lighthouse. He believed the Keepers moved this stuff to Giza and buried it long ago under the pyramids or the Sphinx.”

“He quoted the psychic Edgar Cayce,” Phoebe said, crunching on peanuts. “And his visions.”

Caleb held his head in his hands. Closed his eyes and felt it — felt what had been building behind a wall of denial every bit as secure as the one below the Pharos. A wall that now cracked, splintered and erupted into a flood of anguish. “Lydia…” he choked, “she was a Keeper. Using me all this time…”

“… to get inside the Pharos vault,” Helen finished. “Whatever they know, they don’t have the way in. Not anymore.”

“Although” Waxman added, “they’ve been trying to find it for years. Centuries, maybe.”

Caleb shook his head and bit his knuckles, thinking. “No, something’s not right. These people are supposed to keep the secrets, keep them safe. That’s their mission. My vision of Caesar in the lighthouse confirms it.”

Helen nodded. “That’s what I said. I remembered your dream of the father and son. They had the scroll and died to save it, to protect the secret.”

Caleb scratched his head. “But since then, that scroll was lost.” He stood up and started pacing. “Which means the other Keepers have lost the way in. They may not even know what it is they are guarding anymore.”

“There could be other copies of the scroll,” Waxman suggested.

“Doubtful,” Caleb countered. “The way those two were defending it, I’d bet that was the only one.”

“Caleb,” Phoebe said, “we haven’t heard what you did under Qaitbey. How far did you get?”

“Not far enough.” He told them about the symbols on the floor, their meanings and how he had made it past the first two.

“Yeah,” Waxman said, “we found those symbols too. Three years ago, we went back and mapped out the whole chamber, took photos from every angle. But those symbols… never could figure out their importance.”

“Did you see the rings?”

“Yep,” said Phoebe. “But didn’t imagine what they were for. Not like you. Maybe you’ve turned out to be the better psychic?”

“Not really,” he said. “It’s still nothing I have control over.” He took a deep breath. Thoughts were flying about in his mind. He remembered Lydia’s last words, spoke them under his breath, “We can’t wait for you.”

“What?” Helen asked.

“It’s what Lydia told me before she died.”

Waxman closed the computer. “Well, it sounds like the current generation of Keepers feels it’s kept the secret long enough; they want the treasure for themselves. They’ve tried with Caleb, and failed. We need to be on our guard. They may try again to break through.”

“Let them,” Caleb said, and those words came back to him, words Nolan Gregory himself said: “The Pharos protects itself.”

Waxman shook his head. “These clowns might screw it up and make it so no one else can get to it.”

“Do they know you might have found the scroll?” Caleb asked.

“Not unless they have us bugged.”

“Isn’t that possible? Not to sound like Prout with his paranoia, but—”

“No,” Waxman said. “I checked.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “There are ways. Trust me, they don’t know what we know. That’s what frustrates them.”

“And it might be why they’re stepping up their activities,” Caleb said. “They can’t very well protect anything if there’s a bunch of psychics running around, seeing their way past the defenses.”

“We’re cheating,” Phoebe said, grinning.

“Or maybe,” Caleb said, again thinking of Lydia’s words, “maybe we’re only fulfilling the prophecy, achieving what the original designer had anticipated.”

“What do you mean?” Helen asked.

He shrugged. “Just a thought, but in alchemy the goal is to achieve your own personal contact with the One, the infinite.”

“God.”

“Yes, but not necessarily the Judaeo-Christian version of a meddling, demanding, all-powerful figure. The early Hermetic beliefs conceived of an omnipresent energy which infused everything, quickened every atom, every star and scrap of matter as well as thought. As Above, so Below. Everything’s connected. It’s all spiritual and divine. Unfortunately, our material bodies and the temporality of this world somehow interfere with that connection, distracting us. Alchemy, including the Emerald Tablet and the sacred texts, is a way to restore the lost connection. And if you succeed and regain that contact with the divine, if you’re freed of the impurities of this false world, you perceive all truth and can do and experience things that seem miraculous or supernatural.”

Phoebe thought for a minute. “Like what we can do?”

Caleb nodded. “Think about it. This is the only thing that explains the existence of our abilities. How can we see things in distant lands or times, just with our minds?”

“Because reality isn’t what it seems,” Helen said, nodding. “It’s all connected.”

“Exactly.” He looked out the window again. “Many religions carried on the Hermetic message, transforming it slightly here and there and incorporating its beliefs into their own. Buddha maintained the world was an illusion, a veil pulled over our eyes to blind us to our inward spirituality. Early Gnostics and Copts taught that we lived in a material prison created by an evil god, and only through meditation and purification could we pull our spirits free.”

“Excuse me, but how did we get off track?” Waxman threw his hands up. “Why are we in the Twilight Zone? This is about treasure, not religion.”

“It is about a treasure,” Caleb said. “But not what you and Mom have been thinking you would find. It is knowledge of man’s inner divinity. The power of life over death, of spiritual freedom.

“Alexander the Great went into the Egyptian desert and found the tomb of Hermes, of Thoth, and took the ancient tablets he found there. When he emerged, the oracle proclaimed him king of all the world. Alexander studied these tablets, and the teachings clearly went to his head; eventually some of his own generals began to fear him and moved against him. But he and his followers had hidden the treasure, maybe under the Great Pyramid at first, as Cayce claims, then according to Herodotus and Plato, in the temple of Isis at Sais, and then ultimately moved to Alexandria.

“And,” he continued, “at a pivotal moment in man’s history, when we had a choice between two paths, we chose darkness and subjugation over light and freedom. Copies of these books were rounded up and destroyed. The practitioners were demonized, tortured and killed by the thousands. Yet all through history these secrets have been preserved, hidden away, surfacing only in veiled disguises — in Renaissance art, in symbolic literature like the Grail legends and chivalric poetry. In short, they were hidden in plain view.”

“What?” Helen asked.

“In plain view,” Caleb repeated. “It’s one of the other tenets of Alchemy. ‘Conceal in plain view what is secret.’” He closed his eyes and thought again about the sealed doorway, and for a moment he thought he had it. The answers were right there. Or very close. Then the opening revelation faded.

“Throughout history,” he continued, “the lessons of the Emerald Tablet and the philosophical practices continued, working their way into art, into culture.”

“The Tarot,” Phoebe said, smiling. “See, I did read your book.”

“Thanks, at least someone did. But you’re right, the Tarot represented in image form all the elements of Hermetic ascension, depicting the path to divinity veiled as a game. It’s why the Church banned it in 1403, seeing it as a threat to their spiritual dominion. But like many pagan belief systems, it was found to be easier to co-opt and assimilate such an attractive ritual. The Church reintroduced the deck, but excluded the Major Arcana, the representations of the steps in the realm of the Above. Those were the cards which represented spirituality and communion with the divine. And they also removed the Knights, in opposition to the Knights Templar, most likely, and left us with a deck of just fifty-two cards. Four suits signifying the four elements in the Below stages of transformation, with the Joker, or the Fool, who represented the initiate before beginning on the path to enlightenment.”

Phoebe nodded. “Loved that connection you made. Spades are swords, symbolizing separation and representing Air; Diamonds are the coins of the Tarot, reflecting Earthly desires; Clubs came from the Greek symbol for Fire; and Hearts were the Water of emotion.”

“Now we’re talking about cards?” Waxman was becoming exasperated. “Caleb, I swear I liked you better when you were in prison.”

“George…” Helen scowled at him, then turned back to Caleb. “How does this help us?”

“I don’t know if it does,” Caleb said. “I learned everything I could about the Tarot, about alchemy and the study of the tablet, but I still couldn’t get past the third step before the door. I don’t know what it wants. Unless… maybe the vault was designed in such a way that only those who sought enlightenment, only the purest, could enter.”

“You, pure?” Helen said. “You’re a good boy, Caleb, but—”

“They had pinned their hopes on me,” he said. “Lydia sacrificed herself for their cause — or at least her version of it. She thought only such a trauma would accelerate my spiritual advance toward enlightenment, or purity, in a sense, expecting that I could then fine-tune my talents and open the vault.”

“Why couldn’t they figure it out for themselves?” Waxman asked. “If this tablet thing was translated into Arabic, transmitted around the world after they saved some early books from the Christian fanatics, surely others have had access to the spells or whatever?”

“Apparently something’s missing,” Caleb said. “The Philosopher’s Stone. The Holy Grail. They can’t find it, although they’ve come close. No alchemist has ever been able to truly perfect the process and obtain it. Maybe that’s because the actual physical copies of the books are not available. The early legends maintain that the material the Emerald Tablet was written on had something to do with the powers it could grant. Or else, maybe there were translation errors.”

Waxman shrugged. “Whatever. In any case, Gregory and his gang want what we have, or what they think we might have. We have to figure this out first.”

“Why do you care so much?” Caleb asked, turning to Waxman. “I mean, if the vault doesn’t hold riches and gold and everything; if this turns out to be nothing but a collection of old books, won’t you be pissed? You’ll have wasted your entire life.”

Helen leaned over the table. “Caleb, if it’s what you think it is, we’ll transform the planet. We’ll be heroes.”

“Rich heroes,” Phoebe added, smirking.

“Good enough for me,” Waxman said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“All right,” Helen said. “Caleb, will you help us again? It’ll be like old times.”

He tried to smile. “I don’t know. I guess, as long as it’s not like it was when we were kids, with Phoebe and me staying in our rooms while you adults have all the fun.”

“Not this time,” his mother said.

Caleb lowered his head and sighed. “I’m in.”

12

The valley hugged the base of a precipitous mountain range, its tips shrouded in dark clouds. From the chiseled landscape and the jutting hills, Caleb could see where Dante had received the inspiration for his description of Purgatory in The Divine Comedy. A short ride past Rimini led to Fortress San Leo. They could have driven up and toured the museum and the old prison and military barracks, but from the details of Phoebe’s vision, there would be nothing there of any help. By the time Cagliostro had been imprisoned inside San Leo, he had already disposed of the scroll. Maybe he had been tortured in the castle, and Caleb could possibly attempt to view his confession, but that seemed like a long shot.

Instead, with their driver taking the turns at breakneck speeds, they made their way into town, to the church Phoebe had seen. Finally, they rode through a grand Roman arch crowned with medieval battlements. It was the first of its kind built north of Rome, their guide explained, and initially dedicated to Augustus in 27 BC. They passed a white marble bridge, built by Tiberius, then drove into the bustling resort town, just as the sun sank below the red rooftops and the vineyard-studded hills.

Cafés, hotels and nightclubs flew by as their driver took the narrow roads at even higher speeds while looking over his shoulder and telling his passengers where to eat, how to find quiet areas on the beach, where to get the best wine. He told them, “Most vacationers gone now for the season. The town very quiet tonight. No more celebrations.”

“Too bad,” Caleb said.

Then, though they didn’t ask for it, the driver offered a quick history lesson, relating how Rimini had emerged from Byzantine rule in 1320 as an independent city, and was lorded over by the Malatesta family for over 200 years. The last ruler, Sigismondo Malatesta, had taken upon himself the great work of expanding the Franciscan chapel at the center of town in 1447, in which he decided to house the crypts of his ancestors. The great Florentine architect and precursor of da Vinci, Leon Battista Alberti, had designed the exterior, incorporating Roman arches and grand pilasters. The interior, however, was what had caused such consternation and debate for centuries to come. Within the sacristies and chapels, pagan sculptures, zodiac emblems and mystical designs merged with Christian décor, crucifixes and Madonnas.

Malatesta never quite finished the reconstruction, as his political fortunes had turned and the papacy closed in, confiscating his lands and power. “Some say his true purpose in re-designing the church was for the love of his life, Signora Isotta, his third wife.” The driver turned and grinned at them, his oily mustache fanned across his face. “You will see everywhere sculptures of the ‘I’ and ‘S’ twisted together, for ‘Isotta’ and ‘Sigismondo.’ Much like the young people write on trees, no?”

Caleb nodded, smiling, but the imagery had him considering alternatives. An entwined S… like a snake… around an I, or central staff… Scholars had theorized about this church and that symbol for two hundred years, wondering what cipher Malatesta might have intended. The prevailing notion of a tribute to his wife was certainly romantic, but Caleb had the feeling there had been other forces at work, forces that had perhaps influenced Cagliostro and led him to trust that his secret would be safe here.

Finally, they passed through the Piazza Tre Martiri and pulled up onto via Garibaldi. “There it is,” said the driver. “Tempio Malatestiano. The old Chapel San Francesco.”

Helen thanked the driver and offered a large tip, then told him not to wait. They stood before the arched doorway and admired the great façade with the bell tower in the background.

“Now what?” Caleb asked, looking at his watch. It was six o’clock.

“We go in,” said Waxman, eyeing the doorway, and then looking around at the landmarks as a general would scout a battlefield before an attack. “They close at seven, so we only have an hour to see if it’s here.”

“And if it is?”

Waxman gave Caleb a sideways glance. “I’ll figure something out.”

Caleb lingered outside for several minutes, observing the intricate architecture, the host of varying symbols. Wreaths, vines and flowers, an elephant — apparently the symbol of the Malatesta family — and then, of course, the S-and-I image repeated several times.

Again he thought of the caduceus.

“What is it?” Helen asked over his shoulder. She had moved in close, and he could smell her perfume, like a floral overabundance attempting to hide something musty and old.

“I was just thinking. About how it looks like a snake coiled around a staff. Or, remember the Garden of Eden? The serpent was demonized because he offered Eve the gift of knowledge.”

“Good and evil,” she whispered. “Knowledge of everything. All from the fruit of the Tree.”

“Exactly.” Caleb pointed to the symbol. “It all stems from fear — fear that we might learn too much about this world, about ourselves. Look at the tower of Babel story; God punished us when we all got together and spoke the same language and—”

“—built a tower challenging the heavens.” Helen ruffled his hair as if he were still a little boy. “You and your theories. So much like your father. You read too many books, you know, both of you.”

“Did you really expect me to be that different from him?”

“Never,” she said with a softening smile, “and I wouldn’t want you to change. Come on, let’s go inside.”

He followed her in, craning his neck at the massive arch as he walked into a stuffy chapel, a hint of incense on the air, with sacristy areas on the left and right, and rows of candles down the middle, flickering before several Rosary-carrying locals and a few tourists snapping pictures. The crucifix above the main altar was the most solemn image in the church. The rest of the artwork — lace, sculptures and paintings of Roman cherubs and young children frolicking, scenes of angels dancing on the columns and the figures of the zodiac around the planets — all seemed more playful.

They walked slowly, Waxman leading the way, toward the altar. Caleb could tell by the heaviness in his steps he was expecting to stop any second, hoping either mother or son would drop to their knees in the throes of some great vision. But nothing happened as they stood before each alcove, each chapel, and admired the intricate ornamentation, marveled at the consistency of the classical themes, and were humbled by the grace of the Roman architecture.

After a half hour they had circled the interior twice. Caleb left Helen and Waxman to whisper among themselves when an usher came by and told him that the church would be closing in fifteen minutes.

Caleb continued circling until he stood at a chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael, which depicted the evil serpent’s death at his hands. Below a host of other angels, Isotta’s tomb, beautifully sculpted, was set back against the wall.

Lingering, Caleb stared at the marble coffin for a long, long time. It seemed the candlelight flickered steadily brighter and brighter, flashing against the walls. He was aware of a representation of Diana riding a chariot, holding a crescent moon above two horses on the wall to his left. She seemed to be driving him onward, urging haste.

When Caleb focused again on the tomb, he saw something that wasn’t there before… the shadow of a robed man kneeling and sliding the lid back upon Isotta’s resting place. A flash of red on his cloak was all Caleb caught before he blinked and the vision faded.

But it was enough.

“Come on, we have to leave,” Helen said, suddenly at his side. “I guess we’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

“No need,” Caleb whispered. “It’s here, in Isotta’s tomb.”

Waxman gasped. “You did it, kid? You saw it?”

Ignoring the desire to tell him he wasn’t a kid any longer, Caleb nodded and walked away under the watchful gaze of the dying serpent and the triumphant expression of the Archangel.

Caleb and Helen ate under hooded lanterns at an outdoor restaurant at the Piazza Cavour across from the gothic-styled and newly renovated town hall. A circular fountain built by Pope Pius III stood in the center of the Piazza before a beautiful neo-classical theater.

“Where’s your husband?” Caleb asked when she came down from the hotel to meet him. She wore a blue sundress with a black shawl thrown over her shoulders and secured it with a golden butterfly broach.

“He’s resting. He said to start dinner without him.”

Caleb took her hands. At first she resisted, with the shock of his abruptness. “I need to apologize—”

“Caleb—”

“—for the way I was. For the way I walked out on you and left you with Phoebe.”

“You didn’t walk out on us.”

“Yes, I did,” he whispered. “It was my fault. I was angry, confused and lost.”

“You were just coming to terms with losing your father.”

“I did lose my father. But I still had my mother, and my sister.” He pulled her close and hugged her, squeezed until she sobbed. “Dad never would have wanted me to desert you. I–I guess I understand that now.”

“But your visions…”

He shook his head. “I think Dad knew it was too late for him. He was sending a warning, that’s all. Not a cry for help.”

“A warning?”

Caleb nodded and sat back, looking into her eyes. “I don’t understand it all yet. I was close, in that prison. My consciousness opened, my spirit traveled to places I couldn’t imagine. I don’t really remember it all, but I saw my whole life differently.”

She gave Caleb a sideways look as she wiped her eyes. “Were you brainwashed by the Krishnas over there?”

“No.” He laughed. “But I feel like I underwent some kind of spiritual jump-start. And I saw the fool I’d been when we first set out on this quest.” He lowered his head, and the image of a Tarot card fluttered in his mind’s eye — a vagabond character, full of unwarranted confidence and illusionary dreams, cocky and selfish. “I’ve been many things since, only now I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Helen reached for him. “Thank you.”

It was a comfortable embrace, but all the same, Caleb had the unnerving certainty that it would be the last time he would hold her before another tragedy befell them. Before the Pharos would claim another victim from among the loves in his life.

“So what’s keeping George, anyway? Is he that tired?”

Helen looked down at the crumbs on her plate. “Caleb…”

Just then a cab wheeled around the piazza and came to a squealing stop. The front passenger door flew open. Waxman reached around and opened the back door. “Get in!”

Helen stood and dropped a handful of bills on the table. “Don’t say anything,” she warned when she saw Caleb’s eyes widen.

“He didn’t—”

“Don’t,” she repeated.

Waxman patted the breast pocket of his jacket, squeezing a lumpy-shaped item, and all Caleb could think of was a shattered work of art back in the church, a desecrated tomb.

“They won’t miss it,” he said after Caleb shut the door and slid in beside his mother.

“How did you get in?”

“Bribed the guard to take the night off,” he whispered so the driver wouldn’t hear. “I won’t tell you any more until we’re back in the States.”

“Assuming we get through Customs.”

“We’ll make it,” he said giddily, smiling as he fixed his hair in the mirror and then reached for a cigarette.

Caleb hung his head and slumped away from his mother as she tried to move closer. Closing his eyes, Caleb searched his feelings about his role in this theft and discovered that, surprisingly, his excitement for the discovery outweighed his sense of guilt.

They were closing in on the truth.

13

Nolan Gregory stood in the darkened vault, with just the running floor lights to see by. He preferred it this way. The stars were just visible, backlit in the deep blue of the dome, and he could almost believe he was outside, standing on a desolate beach without the dust and haze and noise of Alexandria.

Seven flights above the dome, the library was closing. They were turning off the lights on the inside while lighting up the exterior glass panes. He sighed and sat quietly, listening to the hum of the generators and the battery of IBM servers running below the floor.

I’m getting old. Too old for this international cloak and dagger shit.

Soon he would have to go to New York. His informant in Italy had indicated that the San Francesco church had been vandalized, and Nolan could only take that to mean that they had been successful.

They had found the scroll.

Caleb’s focus was returning. Lydia’s death and his incarceration must have triggered his abilities, just as she had believed it would. Gregory shook his head ruefully. For so long, the Keepers had thought the scroll was still in the collection at Naples, and needed to keep a man inside looking for it, when all that time, Cagliostro…

Interesting, but it didn’t change things. He bit his lip and turned away from the scornful sight of the constellations.

It won’t be long now.

He wondered which would come first — the scroll’s translation or Caleb’s revelation? Nolan wasn’t sure exactly what was on the scroll, other than that it at least explained the seven codes and how to pass them. But that much they already knew. Was there more? What did it say of the Key? The two-thousand-year-old question.

Right now, he had no choice. No other Keeper could be spared. He was the oldest, the most expendable. And God knows it’s going to be dangerous.

He would have to stay close, to be there the instant they had a translation or any other breakthrough. And then it would be a race against Waxman and his considerable resources. He had debated for months whether to reveal himself to Caleb, but in the end he had come back to the original premise that like an initiate of the Egyptian mystery school, Caleb would only achieve enlightenment through self-discovery and direct experience. Without that progression, the Key might be forever lost.

It was time.

Nolan buttoned his jacket and straightened his sleeves. When he next returned, if he came back at all, this chamber would all be different. Full, thriving, alive with wonders. An accomplishment to honor, if not rival, the genius of Sostratus.

14

After waking from a fitful nap, Waxman unbuckled his seat belt, stepped into the aisle and made his way toward the back of the plane. Caleb was sitting in the row behind him with Phoebe, whose wheelchair was stored up front. He had his eyes closed and headphones on, listening to one of the in-flight music stations.

Cocky kid, Waxman thought. It’s about time he contributed. And now it’s Phoebe’s turn. Time for the cripple to pull her weight. Their last hope was that this damned scroll could be opened, and that it had something useful on it. But he had to be careful; lately it felt like he was on shaky ground with Helen. Every day, everywhere he went, it seemed he trod in Philip’s shadow. Several times he had caught Helen staring at the photographs in her room, the ones she would never remove, the ones he would never again make the mistake of asking her to take down.

All in all, it could be worse. She was still a beautiful woman, and she let him have his hobbies, tolerated his absences and asked no questions. In many ways, she was the perfect wife. And what better way to keep an eye on the project? To fan the flames of Helen’s obsession with the Pharos Code, and to be ready to pounce at the moment of revelation. In one fell swoop, by marrying Helen, he had ensured himself access to vital information before the Keepers could ever learn of it.

And that was all that mattered — that, and finding the treasure. Soon. Whenever he felt like they were losing ground and would never succeed, he closed his eyes, imagined the vault opening for him.

In the lavatory, after squeezing through the narrow door and sliding the occupied slot over, he took a deep breath and stared in the mirror, right next to the No Smoking sign and its vapid threat of fines and jail time.

He reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of menthols, turned on the water, took out his lighter and pulled one cigarette from the pack with his teeth. When he looked up, the mirror had fogged over, thick puffs of steam exhaling out of the sink. Odd that the water could be so hot…

Waxman was about to wipe the mirror clean when lines started appearing on the glass. Smears and curves formed as if a finger slid along the surface.

Cursing, Waxman put out his cigarette, then smeared the fog clear off the mirror with his jacket sleeve. “Leave me alone!”

Something in the drain gurgled and bubbled up with the steam that promptly fogged up the mirror again.

Waxman wiped the mirror clean again and turned off the water. “I’m done talking to you. We’ve found what we needed, and soon I’ll do what I was born to do.”

15

It took the better part of three weeks to unroll enough of the scroll to obtain some fragments to analyze. Phoebe was able to secure a lab and a couple interns at the University of Rochester to assist; and together and in shifts, they worked around the clock, applying thin coats of gelatin, separating the layers and prying them apart piece by piece. Phoebe slept there five nights a week, supervising, and Caleb visited every day.

While this was going on, Helen and Waxman continued their remote-viewing trials at home. They brought in new psychic candidates, and worked at applying their abilities to the remaining five signs. The new recruits were showed the great seal, the alchemy symbols and the symbols for the planets. As always, the context was difficult to capture without leading their imaginations.

Mostly they failed, and the potential hits were far from revealing. Waxman grew frustrated and impatient, and he took to leaving for days at a time. “Doing research,” Helen insisted. Caleb bit his tongue and kept quiet. He never broached the subject with her. Things were going well between them, the best they’d ever been, and he didn’t want to rattle that cage by questioning her husband.

So the days passed. Caleb spent hours walking the leaf-strewn hills below the timid lighthouse, fighting the chill from winds blown over the bay. This particular November morning, he reminisced on the years he’d been away, and he determined to make up for them, to infuse his spirit with the breath of these massive willows, with the feel of the frosted ground beneath his feet, with the sound of the wind and the birds.

He visited the docks and strode along the pier toward Old Rusty. Every morning after his cup of coffee, he came out to toss a rock at its steel hull, just to hear the dull, echoing thud. He thought of Dad. He imagined his father at his side, like it used to be for such a short time. He remembered being taught how to throw a curveball. “Go on,” his father would urge. “Sure it’s a historical treasure, this old lightship, but it’s ours to watch over. And if I want my boy to use it for target practice, damn it he will.”

Even now that memory made Caleb grin. He looked at the dents in Old Rusty’s lower hull, the red paint chipped away and nearly invisible above the barnacle-crusted waterline. The whole ship was eighty-four feet in length, with two steel masts twenty feet high, painted red, with a glass-enclosed oil lantern at each masthead. He thought back on the history of lightships, from the early Roman galleys with baskets of oil and wicks, to the last two centuries of naval use. From 1820 until 1983, more than a hundred lightships were in use along the United States coastlines. Eventually these old relics were phased out and replaced by permanent lighthouses or electric buoys.

This one, Old Rusty, had been here for more than thirty years, decommissioned after serving faithfully at various posts off the Northeast coast. It was listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places, and fell under the watch of the family of lighthouse keepers here, to Caleb’s father, and to his father before him.

Caleb crossed the ramp, stood on its cast steel deck, and peered into the large wooden deckhouse. Inside were controls for a steam chime whistle and a hand-operated 1,000-pound bell, along with framed sea charts, wheels, tables and cupboards. A few years ago it had been opened to the public as a museum, and Phoebe had worked inside part time, collecting donations and dishing out various historical anecdotes. Caleb wondered if they couldn’t apply for a grant to improve its condition a little. Slap on some paint, restore the deckhouse, smooth out those dents in the hull…

For some reason, that simple notion, so distinct from code-breaking and world-spanning quests, seemed idyllic. But he smiled and let that dream rest for now. He said goodbye to Old Rusty, and when he stepped off the pier he saw Helen up at the house, waving her arms. She seemed agitated.

Out of breath from the climb and sweating despite the temperature dropping and the wind picking up, he finally made it back up the hill. Before he could ask what the matter was, his mother’s words reached him on the breeze.

“Caleb! We found something.”

“Another ring,” she said, “this one on the ceiling. Something we never noticed before.” She led Caleb into the family room, where dozens of pictures were hanging on each wall. In the kitchen he heard the psychics taking a break, talking and laughing.

Helen pointed to two pictures. “We asked them to draw images concerning the Pharos chamber and the sign for Iron. Both Roger and Nancy have drawn what looks like a man suspended upside down. It seems to match the image and orientation of the Hanged Man on the Tarot.”

“This is above the third block,” Caleb said excitedly. He pictured the chamber again and tried to imagine being there. Having just endured the torrential flood of the second trap… he unhooks the harness and steps onto the next stone, feels the white powdery residue coating his skin and clothes. The air blowing around him, legs balancing, holding fast against the wind…

“Suspended…” He thought about it, imagined twisting back and forth. To what purpose? He thought of the Tarot again, and from what he remembered of this card’s symbolism, it had to do with letting go, giving in to God’s will. Continuing the themes of Calcination and Dissolution, this was a logical step in releasing the initiate’s preconceptions, his ego. But it also had to do with self-sacrifice. Martyrdom. He thought of Lydia, whose death had come about because Caleb couldn’t see the way past this step.

He slid into a kitchen chair and lowered his head. “I don’t get it. The symbolism of that Tarot card is ‘to win by surrendering.’ But how does that help us?”

Helen took down one sheet of paper and held it in front of Caleb. “This might be a clue.” She pointed to something the second person had drawn: a series of blocks crumbling around the hanging person. “What if the next trap has something to do with the floor falling away? And to survive it—”

“—you have to be suspended in the air.” Caleb rubbed his eyes and squeezed them tight, trying to see inward. “But what sets it off? I stood there for almost an hour one time, and nothing happened.”

“Did you step forward, toward the door?”

“No. Away.” He could see his foot lifting, starting to move forward. But it was as if he had a notion of self-preservation, and pulled it back and turned the other direction. “I guess I just felt there was no point going forward if I hadn’t experienced anything at this stage.”

“That may have saved your life.”

Before he could respond, a flash of white light and a burst of heat exploded inside his head with the image of…

… Sostratus leading his guest out, returning through the great seal and into the main chamber. The door closes slowly, the snakes again facing each other across the staff.

“The traps will be in place as I have described,” Sostratus declares, and directs Demetrius’s gaze down at the inscribed stones underfoot. “You have seen my vault below. You have seen its defenses.”

“I have seen.” Demetrius is pale, and shaking. “But I fear that with such defenses, what we place inside may never be found.”

Sostratus smiles. “No, my friend. Human nature, such as it is, will always lead men to yearn for the truth. And the legends we create will live on. The grandeur of this lighthouse will endure, serving as a beacon for generations long after its light no longer burns.”

“And how will you ensure that what it guards will be sought after? If no one knows…”

“Ah,” Sostratus says, stroking his white hair, “they will know, because you will tell them.”

“I?”

“Yes, you and those whom you select to keep this knowledge.”

Demetrius shakes his head. “No, Sostratus. That will not work. How can I find enough trustworthy individuals? And, how do I get them to pass along the information?”

“They will pass it on to a son or daughter, one per generation.” Sostratus places a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Choose your Keepers, Demetrius, then spread them over the world. Those selected will keep the secret. They will know what the lighthouse’s true purpose is, and what it protects.”

“These Keepers…” Demetrius takes a breath. “What makes you think they will not try to steal the contents for themselves?”

Sostratus shifts his arm around Demetrius’s shoulder. “My friend. That is precisely what I am counting on.”

As suddenly as it had begun, Caleb was torn from the waking dream. He clung to it and focused and tried to keep his mind wrapped about it, but the visions scattered through his grasp like fireflies on a warm summer night.

“No,” he stammered, trying to stay in the dream. “I saw them.”

“Saw who?” Helen was leaning close, pressing her cool hands to his burning forehead. “Caleb, you terrified me. I’ve never seen someone fall into a trance so suddenly. You were shaking, so pale. And your eyes—”

“I saw them,” he repeated. “Sostratus… and Demetrius.”

“The architect and the librarian?”

Caleb blinked away the remaining imprints of the two men and the great seal. “I’ve had several visions now of the two of them together as the Pharos was being built.”

Helen stood up and took a step back. In the kitchen the others were washing dishes and talking over the noise. “Maybe you should go back into the trance, if you can. Find out more.”

He took a deep breath. “You know I’m no good at forcing visions.”

“But this sounds like the connection we’ve been seeking!” She glanced at the kitchen and motioned for someone to stay away for a moment longer. “Caleb, if you can learn more, it might confirm the presence of the books you think are hidden there.”

“The books I know are there,” he corrected. “We don’t need confirmation of that. What we need now is to understand the puzzles, find a way past the traps. From what I saw, Sostratus constructed the vault and the door, then he built the traps around them and set everything into place. I don’t think I’ll get a view of anyone getting past them. I don’t think anyone ever has.”

“Someone must have. There’s the scroll.”

“Which might only be one Keeper’s attempt to pass the door. Maybe he failed, or maybe only some of the answers are in it.”

“Did you see any of these Keepers?”

“I think I saw Sostratus create them.” Caleb frowned. “And I heard something about his plan for the treasure’s release. He was relying on man’s inner nature — the Keepers’ greed, their curiosity — to one day seek out the treasure and find the way in.”

“Sounds like a lot of presupposition on his part.”

“But it was something Sostratus would do. He was tricky like that.”

Helen urged the others inside and had them take their places again around the table. “Okay, that was symbol number three, and we think we might have the answer we’re looking for.”

“We hope,” Caleb added.

“We hope,” she agreed, giving him a wary smile. “Let’s continue, people. Four more to go.”

Caleb took a breath and settled back in his chair, for the first time in his life eager to join one of these sessions. As the others took their seats, he thought again about what his mother had just said.

“Four more to go…”

All of a sudden, Caleb was struck with the certainty that she was wrong. We’re missing something. And then he realized what was bothering him. The sealed door with the caduceus was only at the halfway point, maybe a little more. If the adage As Above, So Below held, then there was still a long way to go before they reached the beacon — the fire, the light of truth — where Sostratus surely hid his vault.

And if seven clues were needed to open this door, what would be next? Caleb tried to picture it, but saw only darkness. There would be the octagonal section, ending in the cupola and the pillared room with the mirror.

“Octagon,” he whispered, shivering in a sudden chill.

Helen looked up, first at Caleb, then to the kitchen, where a brisk wind blew through the open door.

Waxman was standing there. His face was rosy. He stank of menthol. “Caleb,” he said. “I’ve just come from the University. Phoebe’s asking for you. She’s finished unrolling the scroll. ”

16

Caleb bounded up the steps just as the first snowflakes began to fall. At his back, across Elmwood Avenue, Mount Hope Cemetery sprawled over two hundred acres, its monuments and time-worn markers standing as mute soldiers among the rolling hills and saluting into the twilight. He took one last look, waved to the cab driver who had just dropped him off, then flung open the door and ran into the university’s archive center.

He had left Waxman and Helen at home to continue working with the psychics. He’d told them that realistically, poring over the fragments, taking the pictures, scanning them into the computer and playing with the resolution could take days before a translation was possible. But the real reason he had come by himself was that he didn’t care to share space with Waxman. The man still got under his skin, and of course he had never quite accepted Waxman’s role in his mother’s life. Caleb liked to think he had become more tolerant, but this was one instance where he had reverted to the petty emotions of a child. He just didn’t like the man. He respected that his mother saw something in him, although what that was Caleb couldn’t tell. There never seemed to be any real affection between them. They acted like business partners, and maybe that was part of the problem; Caleb didn’t make an effort because Helen never acted like he was her husband.

So Caleb convinced Waxman to stay in Sodus while he made the trip, promising to call as soon as they discovered anything significant.

He rushed down empty halls, pounding each step as hard as he could, relishing the sound of his echoing shoes, as if he were trying to banish any malevolent spirits lingering about. At the end of a long corridor, he took the stairs down three flights, past eerily blinking hallway lamps, then through the fourth door on the left.

Inside, Phoebe sat in her work chair in front of a laptop on a long table. The other interns were gone, sent home hours ago. Four binocular microscopes were set up along the table, and a large glass strip covered the unrolled fragments of the blackened scroll. Observing the shreds and scattered pieces, Caleb marveled that anything could be salvaged from of it.

“About time, big brother.” She had her hair in two pig tails, and she wore a red turtleneck with little reindeer embroidered on the collar. “Come on, see the fruits of modern technology.”

“Tell me you have a translation.” He walked around the table and pulled up a chair.

“Not yet, but I’ve scanned all the photographs taken at different wavelengths and uploaded them onto my laptop. I think I’m close, but need your help in interpretation.” She pointed to her screen and clicked with the mouse to shrink the image. “There are fifteen of these fragments. Here’s the first one.” She called up a tattered-looking strip. The lettering appeared blue, with the background now in white.

Caleb grinned. “Perfect! Thank Mother Nature for preserving this for us in volcanic ash.”

“Yeah, never mind all her children that she killed in the process.”

“Cycle of Life, sis.” He jabbed her with an elbow, hoping she knew he was kidding.

“Anyway. Here’s the symbol for Lead, and there’s the one for Tin.”

“And there,” Caleb pointed, “near the one for lead… a cone drawn around a figure of a man who looks like he’s praying.”

“Right, the next section is badly torn, and not much could be recovered, but next to the sign for Water we see the figure again, bound with two chains.”

Caleb’s excitement mounted. “So far, this scroll is two for two. Whoever drew this at least got that far. Wait, was this how the scroll began? Wasn’t there any introduction, any words to the reader?”

“Nothing,” Phoebe said. “Nothing but the word ‘Pharos’ and then that symbol…”

“The one for Exalted Mercury.”

“Yeah, that. Well, it seems more like a cheat sheet to be used by someone who already knew how to get into the chamber and what they were supposed to do once they got there.”

He tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Then Cagliostro, having seen only the first inch, knew this for what it was.”

The lights flickered for an instant, and Caleb’s eyes darted to the door, a window set in the middle. Did someone just walk by?

“So the third symbol,” Phoebe continued, “Iron…”

“It shows a man suspended above the floor.” Caleb quickly filled Phoebe in on what the psychics had just discovered.

“Three for three. So far so good.” Phoebe clicked again, and enlarged a section. “Fourth. Copper. Here, it’s like the writer couldn’t draw what’s going to happen, so he wrote, ‘Go below.’”

Caleb leaned back and rubbed his temples. He had a fleeting thought that maybe it meant the seeker was supposed to go down the stairs to the external vents and wait, but that didn’t make sense. There wouldn’t be enough time to then get to the next stone.

“What if—?” He began, but saw movement to his left. A face at the window, looking in, then it was gone just as quick. Caleb leapt to his feet.

“What is it?”

“Somebody’s outside.” He started toward the door.

Phoebe grabbed his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Evening classes are letting out.” She tossed her hair and batted her eyes. “I’m sure it’s just one of my many admirers.”

Caleb took a breath and sat down again. Something about that face… the white hair, narrow, hawkish eyes… He had seen it only for a second, but he knew who it was.

Nolan Gregory.

“Keep working on it,” he told Phoebe as he stood up again. “I need to check something.”

“You’re going to leave me in here all alone?”

“I’m sure you can handle yourself, along with any ‘admirers’ who might come looking for you.”

“Fine, I’ll solve all the puzzles myself. You just go. Have fun chasing shadows.”

Caleb tore open the door and stepped into the empty hallway. He stopped and listened. To his right, up the stairs, a door closed. He took off in that direction, bolted up the stairs and out into the lobby, where he saw someone dressed in gray rushing out the front door.

The walls seemed to close in, narrowing as he ran. Caleb slammed into the door and burst outside. Four steps at a time, then onto the street. He chased the fleeing man across Elmwood Avenue. A black Lexus screeched to a halt just as he hurdled the front fender, before being blocked by a passing transit bus. “Come on, come on, come on!”

Seconds later he was across the street and racing up the hill. Caleb bounded the waist-high stone fence the other man had just climbed, and tore through the cemetery in pursuit. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, a driving sleet from the wintry evening sky. The shadows had grown long and jagged, and the tired elms sloped longingly towards their departed leaves. He chased Gregory through the older section of the cemetery, weaving around worn monuments and moss-covered stones, side-stepping miniature obelisks and urns, crosses and pillars. For an older man, he was in great shape. Caleb, on the other hand, was wheezing and cramping up his left side within minutes. But adrenaline kept him going.

Gregory looked back once, then sprinted toward the eastern boundary.

“Mr. Gregory!”

He connected with the path and lost his footing on the icy pavement, slick with scattered leaves. Caleb was almost upon him, but he dodged him and ran out through the gates.

He raced into the street, onto Mount Hope Avenue.

“Mr. Gregory, please!” The old man turned, and in an instant Caleb saw his eyes shining their defiance—

— and then he disappeared in a flash of white batted against the grillwork of a Ryder truck. The air split with the sickening sound of crunching bones, followed by a squealing of tires. Caleb’s heart lurched but he kept running, now chasing the flopping, rolling body twenty feet away. Nolan Gregory lay twitching in the gathering snow.

Caleb held up a hand and shouted, “Call 911!” and then knelt beside Nolan. His face was clean on one side, a bloody, shredded mess on the other. One eye was missing and his nose had been crushed. His mouth opened and a dripping cavity full of shattered teeth tried to speak.

Caleb touched his shoulder, but then took his hand away, afraid to cause the man any more pain. “You didn’t have to run,” he said, making fists out of his hands. “I just wanted to know… wanted to ask you why.” He leaned forward as the snow turned to freezing rain, mixing with his sweat and running into his eyes.

“Why Lydia? Why sacrifice your daughter? Why me, damn it? Why!”

Sirens wailed in the distant, sleet-soaked dusk.

Nolan Gregory made a sound like laughter. “The Split,” he said in a choking voice.

“What?”

“The Great Split… the Keepers. The Renegade, Metreisse. Fifteen eighty-seven.” He let out a chuckle that gave way to an unearthly rattle, and his eye rolled back in his head.

“Gregory. Mr. Gregory!” Caleb grabbed his hand, squeezed it and leaned closer. He thought of urging him to stay conscious, convincing him that help was coming, but he knew it was too late for that. Instead, Caleb sat with him. It seemed the thing to do at this momentous transition from one world to the next. And he spoke, not knowing exactly where the words came from. He just started talking, telling his father-in-law about the Light, about the truth. About going home.

Caleb held his hand and rocked in the freezing rain. Closing his eyes, he felt the driving, frosted sleet. Soaking wet, he still felt warm, like a rush of heat radiated out from Nolan Gregory’s hand up Caleb’s arm and down his spine.

Red and white lights beat against his eyes, and when at last he opened them, police and firemen were running toward him. He stood and let go of Gregory’s hand, then stared out across the battalions of tombstones, the dark sentinels observing without judgment. As he waited, Caleb repeated only one thing, whispering it over and over like a mantra.

1587. Metreisse.

17

Back inside, Phoebe was waiting at the door to the lab. When she saw Caleb she turned pale. “Are you—?”

“Fine.”

“You were gone so long.”

“Had to stay and fill out a report.”

She searched his face, and then pointed to a nearby shelf. “Paper towels in there. And I have a spare sweatshirt around here somewhere.”

“Thanks.” Caleb slumped into a chair after grabbing the roll of paper towels. “What did you find?”

Phoebe offered a weak smile. She rolled back to the laptop, punched a few keys and turned the screen so he could see. “For the fourth seal, you’re on your own. That fragment is too damaged. We’ll have to hope for more visions. But the fifth is clear: Mercury. You need to bring something along with you. Stand on that block, place sulfur in the crevasses of the symbol, and light it.”

Caleb gave her a curious expression.

She shrugged. “That’s what it says; I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.”

After a moment’s consideration Caleb spoke. “It means,” he said, wiping his wet hair with his damp sleeve, “you’ve begun the process of destruction, and you’re starting on the path to purification of your soul.”

“If you say so.” She tapped a few more keys and moved the mouse. “And then we come to number six: Silver, which corresponds to the Moon.”

“Distillation,” he said. “Dissolving the ego and increasing purity. Releasing the lunar energies, and… okay, your eyes are glazing over. What does it say to do there?”

“This is where the scroll starts to really break down. There’s a big section damaged here, but it looks like it says to reflect a light onto the serpent’s head.”

“Reflect? Like, with a mirror?”

“Probably, although I wonder if a flashlight would do.” She scratched her chin. “I guess the point is to illuminate the serpent with a connection, linking it to yourself.”

“See? You are getting this stuff.”

Phoebe grinned. “I try. Okay, now here’s where you’re going to kill me. The description of the seventh, the Sulfur or Gold puzzle…”

“Yes?” Caleb visualized the steps in sequence, putting together the path to completing the cycle.

“It’s gone.” She sighed. “I mean, there’s nothing legible, other than the word for gold.” She bit on one edge of her pigtail. “I’m sorry. I can work at resolving the image some more, but…”

Caleb slumped forward. “Despite that, Phoebe, great job. Amazing. We’re almost there. But as much as I want to continue this, please look something up for me — if you’re connected to the Web.”

“Of course I am.” She gave him a dirty look. “I’m a cripple, remember? I don’t get to go out much. I belong to some chat rooms where everyone thinks I’m this professional tennis player. It’s great.”

“I’m sure it is.” Caleb leaned forward. “Look up the name ‘Metreisse,’ and put in the date 1587.”

“Okay. Spell it.”

“I don’t know. Yahoo it.”

She tapped some keys. “Alright… there it is, first try.” She looked a little closer. “The first hit is from a book by an English historian. Let’s see… ‘Henri Metreisse was an alchemist in the court of Queen Elizabeth the First.’… Never successful, of course, in turning anything to gold,… but it says here he counseled the queen to victory over the Scots in several great battles. Oh, get this. He claimed to have clairvoyance, and could… He could see into the enemy’s palaces, even overhear their battle plans!” She stared at Caleb. “A remote viewer!”

Caleb scratched his chin and fought the onset of chills. He’d have to find that sweatshirt. “What else? What about 1587?”

She scrolled down and then followed a link. “It says he was known to have convened with fellow alchemists. They met at Stonehenge during every Spring Equinox, but after the meeting in 1587, he never returned.”

She reached into her bag for a can of Coke. “Want one?”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Phoebe took a sip. “What happened out there?”

Sighing, Caleb looked up. “Nolan Gregory was spying on us. Spying on me… again.”

“But, I thought Waxman checked us out for listening devices.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” Caleb said. “Gregory was following me. He knew everything I was doing, especially anything connected to the Pharos.”

Phoebe sat quietly, pensive. “Did you kill him?”

“What? No. He ran into traffic…”

Phoebe nodded. “So what’s this about 1587?”

“As Gregory died he told me I was important to them because of something called the ‘Split.’ Something that happened to the Keepers in 1587.”

Phoebe tapped her fingers. “Dissension in the ranks? Keepers against Keepers? Maybe that’s why he and Lydia wanted the treasure so badly. They have competition.”

“Maybe,” Caleb said, his eyes swimming out of focus, as if his vision were being pulled in another direction. “But there’s only one way to be sure.”

“You mean…?”

“I mean, get out your pencils and paper.”

Phoebe clapped her hands. “It’ll be like old times!” She grinned. “Except now you’re not such a dork.”

They dimmed the lights. Caleb changed into the dry sweatshirt and pulled up a chair beside hers. They decided against a formal trance. This one would just be free-form. Experience the visions and share with each other what they’d seen.

“Ready, big brother?”

“Yeah.” He took her hands. “Actually, no. Not yet. First tell me something. What did you see that time when I was in college? You told me about the girl with the green eyes.”

She pulled her hand away. “Oh that. I was hoping you’d forgotten. Well, I liked to try to look in on you now and then. Not that I was snooping, I just missed you. But for a stretch of a couple weeks, every time I tried it was always the same: I saw you being pushed underwater and held there by this girl with green eyes. The weird thing was, though, she was weeping while she did it.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. I don’t know what it means, but I kept hearing a baby crying. Wailing actually. The whole time while she was drowning you.”

“A baby?”

“Yeah. Like I said, weird.” She gave a wistful smile. “Probably I was getting your visions mixed up with my dreams.”

He reached for her. “Oh, sis, I’m so—”

“I know.” She sniffed, then pushed Caleb away. “So anyway, are we going to do this? Because if we are, you should prepare to get outmatched by your baby sister again.”

Later, Phoebe would say she hadn’t seen anything. Only a confused jumble of scenery, with no people. A land of hills, forests and rivers. And rain, lots of rain. She lingered too long in the setting, and when Caleb shook her, after what had seemed like hours, it was over.

Caleb’s vision began at once, as if it had been waiting there, expecting him to join…

… eighteen men and two women standing under the stars in a clearing, surrounded by a stone circle made of immense blocks. They are all wearing gray robes with planets and stars stitched onto the black fabric. Seven torches burn in a straight line toward a smaller stone to the northeast, upon which a large burning brazier sends its smoke into the air. Overhead, the moonless night is clear, the stars bold and close, peering down through the terrestrial curtain to watch the spectacle.

One of the elders steps forward. He is a white-bearded, hunched-over man, but with a surprising vigor about him. “We are here to discuss how to handle Metreisse. I had hoped he would honor tradition and come to our gathering, but it seems he has fled.”

“Kill him,” says one in the back of the crowd.

“Find him first,” says a woman leaning on a twisted staff entwined with ivy. “Find him and see if he’s the one.”

“We know he’s the one,” says the first speaker. “Who else could have learned the way past the traps?”

“Are we sure someone did?”

“Yes. Our watchmen reported seeing a cloaked figure enter the ruins of the Pharos last month during the lunar eclipse. This intruder was underneath the structure for many hours. When he emerged, my spies say he sought them out, called them from their hiding places, then gave them something to tell us. ‘Tell your masters that I have found the final Key,’ he said. ‘And I will hide it for all time, as long as your interests diverge from our original purpose. I have not entered the vault, and no one else shall until it is time.’”

“How dare he?” someone in the front mutters.

“He dares,” says the other female, “because he believes he follows the will of Sostratus.”

“Sostratus lied,” a new voice speaks up. “We all know this. Once, Sostratus did the world a favor and protected the great works from the centuries of coming darkness. But he did not intend us to wait this long!”

“And wait for what?” asks the first female.

“It is decided, then.” The elder steps into the center of the circle and raises his arms. “We are to seek him out. As long as it takes. Seek, and retrieve this key, whatever it is. Determine how to use it.”

“Do we have any idea where he went?”

“Only that he sailed east into the Mediterranean aboard a galley.”

“Then that is where we shall start.”

One man who has been silent up until now steps forward. “And if we fail to find him in our lifetime?”

The elder sighs and looks wearily at his feet. “Then the search will continue in the next.”

When Caleb came back into the present, it was with calm, relaxed breaths. His eyes fluttered, and he blinked in the somber light. Phoebe sat in front of him, chewing on a Snickers bar.

“How is it that you’re not fat?” he asked.

She grinned and made a muscle in her right arm. “Tennis, remember? What did you see?”

He told her.

“So, someone had figured out the puzzles, found a way past the traps.”

“Someone with the gift,” Caleb said. “We know Metreisse could remote view, or at least he claimed to have that power.”

“And yet, if he found the treasure, did he really leave it there?”

“Seems like it. Or maybe, having viewed the way past the traps, he never actually opened the door. It sounds like he considered himself bound by his ancestors’ pledge to keep the treasure safe.”

“So how do we use this information? And what did Gregory mean by it?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “It has something to do with me, though. And… what?”

Phoebe was gaping at her laptop screen. “Something just happened. My screen flickered like it does whenever a new program starts up. Weird.”

She bent over the keyboard and moved to a new program. “Just checking something… Oh no!”

“What?” he stood behind her and looked down.

She pointed to the first item on the list. “The file. I had saved all the scanned photos in one big file, and someone just accessed it and deleted it. It’s gone.”

“Where?”

“Checking…” Phoebe pulled up a couple files, checked her emails, then threw up her hands. “I don’t know. It’s not even in the temp folder any more. I could scan everything back in, but—”

“But someone else has it.” Caleb leaned in. “Did they get it all?”

“Yep.”

He cursed. “Who has access to your computer?”

“I don’t know. I was online, so either someone came snooping and grabbed this file, or I had a virus put on my laptop at some point, a virus that let someone else spy in on me and steal what they wanted.”

“That’s just freakin’ great!” he said, throwing his pencil. “The Keepers have it.”

“Maybe,” Phoebe said, frowning.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’? Who else could it be?”

“I don’t know. But I’m worried that it could be someone in the Morpheus Initiative.”

“Come on, those guys? They…” Caleb stopped and looked at her closely. “But you’re not suspecting them.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You know who I’m thinking about.”

He stood up and grabbed his things.

“Waxman.”

18

After several attempts to reach them and getting only voicemail, Caleb wheeled Phoebe out to the street and a waiting cab. The sixty-mile drive back to Sodus took two and a half hours. The roads were slick. The rain had turned back to snow, and there were cars in the ditches every few miles. Fortunately the cab driver had a four-wheel drive and a strong sense of self-preservation. Even so, they skidded several times and fishtailed twice into traffic, barely missing oncoming cars.

When the cab pulled up to the house, Caleb got Phoebe out of the cab and into her chair, then helped push her through the snow up the driveway.

“No cars,” Caleb observed. “And no lights on inside.”

“Shit,” Phoebe said.

The house was empty.

“I don’t believe this,” Phoebe said once they were inside. “Not Mom too! She wouldn’t just leave us.”

“Unless she believed it was in our best interest not to come along.” He continued looking around the kitchen and the living room, where new drawings hung on the walls and lay scattered about the tables. “I don’t need to RV the scene. I can imagine Waxman telling her that it’s best they go on their own and get a head start without us. I bet he reminded her about what happened in Belize.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Phoebe said. “We’re different now, and besides, look at my condition! For all of Sostratus’s genius, I doubt he was progressive enough to include a handicapped access ramp for me.”

Caleb continued digging through papers, scrutinizing the drawings. Everything lined up for the first six puzzles. “I don’t see anything about the Sun, about that final block. You didn’t—”

“No. The scan was incomplete. Scroll was damaged.”

Caleb turned to Phoebe, and saw her sitting hunched in her chair in the dark kitchen. “Could they have gotten anything from that scan?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Unless Waxman has some proprietary software or something that enhances resolution. There were fragments of the scroll missing, but some of what was there could be legible enough, and maybe a computer program could extrapolate missing letters from the position of the visible ones, and—”

“So you’re saying they could have the answer?”

“Or worse. They might think they have it, and be wrong.”

Caleb pushed his hair off his forehead and cast a reflexive glance around the room, not looking for anything in particular, but hoping — hoping they were overlooking something simple. “Mom wouldn’t have—”

“Caleb,” Phoebe cut him off, “look. A camera.” One of three Helen usually had rolling to document every step of the process.

“What about it? They must have forgotten it in their hurry to get out of here before we got back.”

“I don’t think so. Hook it up to the TV.” Caleb gave her a doubtful look. “Humor me, okay?”

Caleb hooked the camera up to the TV’s input jack and turned it on. He rewound the tape until the time stamp displayed seven thirty, three hours ago, then pressed play and sat on the couch beside Phoebe.

“Maybe we should make some popcorn,” she suggested, without a touch of emotion.

“Shh. No talking during the movie.”

On the screen, the living room sprang to life. Twelve people sat around the table, and at the left side, Helen stood, bending forward and holding up a sheet of paper. It was an enhanced photograph of the seventh stone before the door. The symbol for Sulfur. “Here is your target,” she instructed. “Imagine standing on this sign and then experiencing the door opening. How does it happen? What do you see? Draw what you feel.”

“Alternately,” she said, “think about the hidden vault under the Pharos. Imagine the last puzzle, the final key. See it, and draw what you see.”

Caleb scratched the back of his neck. “Mom seems a little rushed.”

“Desperate,” Phoebe agreed. “Better to let them just focus on the symbol and see where the unconscious leads them.”

“Right, I think she either just confused them or sent them thinking about something else.”

“We’ll see.”

Nothing happened for the next few minutes, as the psychics all sat in various poses, eyes closed or opened. The room was quiet. A few candles flickered in the background.

Caleb fast-forwarded until he saw some movement. Nearly a half-hour had passed. Some people were drawing, but others were talking.

“I saw my fingers covered in gold,” one middle-aged woman with dark bangs said. “And then I reached out and touched the staff. The door opened—”

“I was also covered in gold,” a bald man in his seventies spoke up. “And I shuffled to the door, leaving trails of gold dust sparkling in my path.”

“I didn’t see any of that,” said another woman. “I just saw a ship. Actually it might have been several ships. They were all a little different in shape, but they all had red and white sails.”

A man in the back, wearing a turtleneck, cleared his throat. “I saw a ship, too, and I drew it.” He held up a sheet of paper. The ship had two masts, and roamed a sea beside a coastal town, where a tower guarded a harbor.

Another man walked into the camera’s view. He bent over and whispered into Mom’s ear.

“Waxman,” Phoebe whispered. “Mom’s shocked. Look at her eyes.”

“People,” Helen said. “I think we might be done here. It’s clear the seventh puzzle is opened by one who’s covered in gold, or at least it’s on one’s fingertips. Information from George here supports it. We have verification from an ancient scroll that says ‘to pass the seventh, touch the staff with fingers of gold.’“

“What about the ships?” the man in the turtleneck asked.

“False reading,” Waxman suggested. “Who knows?” He stretched like a cat, reaching for the ceiling. “I think we’re finished. You people have done a tremendous job. You’re excused until further notice. Expect a hefty bonus check in the mail in about two weeks, and if you wish your names included in the study, please let Helen know.”

People started shaking each other’s hands and saying goodbye. Helen walked to the camera and reached for the off switch. For a second nothing happened. Then her face appeared, full in the lens. Her eyes darted to the kitchen, then back to the camera.

“Caleb, Phoebe… we’re going to Alexandria. George… George is… I’m sorry. This is something we both want, it’s what we need to do. If we succeed, everything will change. I promise. I’ll be there for you, and this will all be over. Love you both—”

Caleb stopped the tape and when he turned around, Phoebe was at the phone. She hung it up. “Nothing. Mom’s turned off her cell phone.”

“Or they’re in the air.” He looked around helplessly.

“Caleb?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Mom’s in trouble. And I think she knew it.”

“I know. My fear is that the next call we get will be from the authorities, telling us they’re dead.”

Phoebe sighed. “Mine too.”

Snow knocked against the windows, and the storm rattled the lighthouse frame.

Caleb tapped his foot, staring into the distance.

“What are you thinking? Do we go after them, or just wait for them to call?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think they have the right answers.”

“To the seventh puzzle?” Phoebe asked. “It sounded right—”

“Not the seventh,” he said. “I think that one’s right. But remember Mom’s instructions to the team? They came back with two distinct visions.”

“One dealing with the gold, the other with ships.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath and pictured the lighthouse again, magnificently rising in its three tiers, and then he saw its mirror image below. “How did she phrase the second set of instructions? She said to visualize the last key… whatever that is.”

“Right, so that’s what they did. They saw the seventh sign, and—”

“What if the seventh isn’t the last?”

Phoebe opened her mouth. “Oh.”

Caleb started to pace, something that always helped when he was researching a book. “We know the treasure has to do with the writings of Thoth. And we also know the seven steps of alchemy lead to spiritual rebirth, the seventh being to make permanent that state of consciousness imbued with the eternal.”

“The Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Right. But some sources also maintain there is an eighth stage. Beyond the seventh there is rebirth, complete transcendence. Setting everything in motion. God created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, then on the eighth, it all clicked into place. Same with Thoth. Eight is also the number of the octave, and Thoth was said to create the world through his voice, through music.”

“Okay, I get it. Eight’s a powerful number.” Phoebe wheeled into the room. “But are we sure there’s another door?”

“Think about it. The Keepers were furious with the Renegade, Metreisse. If there were only these seven puzzles, they should have been able to figure them out, being the studied alchemists they were. Instead, Metreisse, using psychic abilities, was the one to find the way into the vault. That makes it sound like the last door maybe isn’t something that you can use your intellect to pass. It might be more conventional, requiring the right physical key.”

Phoebe nodded. “And Metreisse fled on a boat, exactly what Mom’s psychics had seen. But what does it mean? That the boat sank, and with it the key?”

“Maybe,” he said, fearing the prospect of having to don scuba gear again at some point. Still, it didn’t quite sound right. “Then why would the Keepers of today still be convinced that we have it?”

“I don’t know.”

But I should. I should know. Caleb rubbed his temples. The answer is close, hidden in plain view.

It wasn’t the first time he had had that feeling, but again he couldn’t make out what he was meant to know, and he cursed his lack of intuition. As far as he had progressed, he still hadn’t transcended far enough.

Phoebe whispered. “Mom’s in trouble, big brother.”

“I know. We have to go. Maybe there’s a chance we can get there ahead of them.”

“Doubt it,” she said. “Unless the storm delayed their flight.”

“Let’s hope for nasty weather,” Caleb said, and went for the car keys.

19

The Pharos protects itself.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, while Phoebe was fast asleep beside him, Caleb had the sudden certainty that they would be too late. They’d had no luck at the Rochester airport. And not only did all the previous flights leave on time, but theirs was the first to be sidelined.

Two hours they’d waited for de-icing and final runway clearance, then they were off to JFK, where they had another hour’s delay before boarding their flight to Alexandria, after a stopover in Paris. They had no way of knowing how much earlier Helen and Waxman had left. All they could be sure of now was that they would be too late.

He buzzed the flight attendant and requested a pillow and tried to sleep, knowing that he would need his strength.

It was ten thirty in the morning by the time they hailed a cab at the Alexandria airport. At eleven, they were stuck in horrendous traffic, behind slow-moving produce trucks, and held up by a gala event at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where huge crowds surged around a festival-like atmosphere on the grounds in front of the enormous glass-roofed construction. Caleb marveled at the blue dome of the planetarium off to the side, and he noted the sturdy construction, the reinforced concrete girders and the enormous walls of the main library. As they slowly drove past, he recalled reading that four levels were dug under sea level, protected from the sinking of the land on a raft of concrete.

Finally they made it to the causeway. Halfway across, Phoebe grabbed Caleb’s arm. They were both sitting in the back seat, neither talking. Barely breathing. It seemed like they were in a funeral procession.

“Sirens.” Phoebe pointed, and Caleb saw the flickering lights up ahead. He rolled down his window and looked out. In the sky, a lone helicopter sped away, rising up from the Pharos promontory.

“Bad accident,” the cab driver said, his English surprisingly good. “I hear it on my CB radio. Scuba divers have… how you say… accident?”

“What happened?” Phoebe asked as they neared the parking area for Qaitbey. Her face had gone pale, her shoulders trembled.

The cabbie spoke some words into his CB, and the answer came back, a garbled series of guttural consonants. “I am told an older woman was just lifted out in a helicopter, taken to hospital.”

Phoebe’s nails dug into Caleb’s flesh. “Stop! Turn the cab around and take us there.”

“Pardon?”

“Do it!” Caleb said, his mouth dry. “Did they say what happened to her?”

“Do not know. They find her on the rocks. No swimsuit, no air tank. They say she will probably die, I am sorry to say. Underwater very long.”

“Was there a man with her?”

“Yes, yes. Man with her. He is OK. He must be very powerful man. He survives accident and calls police.”

Caleb shot Phoebe a look.

She leaned forward. “Just drive to the hospital, please. Fast.”

As they turned around, Caleb stared at the old sandstone turrets of Fortress Qaitbey, and he saw the red and blue lights flickering off its massive walls. For an instant, he could see a marble stairway ascending between two immense royal statues looking solemn and compassionate.

Helen was on the second floor. And as Phoebe wheeled into the room and rolled beside her bed, Caleb glanced around for Waxman. His hands were tight fists, and he found himself grinding his teeth, fuming.

“Where is he?” he asked the first doctor entering his mother’s room. “The man who brought my mother here, where did he go?”

The doctor, a dark-skinned bald man, shrugged. “Your father checked her in—”

“He’s not my father.”

“—and… eh… he left immediately. Said you would be along to care for her.”

Son of a bitch.

Caleb went to his mother’s side. His arm around Phoebe, he sat in a chair and they both held her hands. She was so cold. Her head was wrapped in bandages, and a tube had been inserted into her nose. An IV fed fluids through her right arm.

“What about a decompression chamber?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be in one?”

Phoebe shook her head. “The nurse told me she’s too bad off. She needs the IV, morphine and rest. They chose to save her life.” Her voice cracked and she could barely finish the sentences. “They say she won’t wake up again, and if she does, she’ll be a vegetable. The damage to her brain, a severe stroke from the pressure…” Phoebe blew her nose and rubbed away her tears. “She won’t—”

“It’s okay,” Caleb whispered, even though he knew it wasn’t. “Mom’s alive,” he said. “And as long as she is, there’s hope.”

“What did he do to her?”

“We’re going to find out.”

Phoebe lifted her head. Her eyes were like steel ball bearings, cold and fierce. “Let’s do it now. Let’s view the bastard.”

He took his hand away from his mother’s and held Phoebe’s. They had seen similar visions before, but never this direct, never such a match, detail for detail.

It started with the caduceus. The door parting, the seventh symbol unlocked. This vision tunneled through Caleb’s consciousness like a sonic drill. He saw the great door ease open, and Helen and Waxman gave a shout of joy. Their skin glittered with a golden dust. They picked up their lanterns and a flashlight, and bounded forward. Caleb’s mind’s eye followed…

… Waxman down another staircase. He shines the lantern’s brilliant light around. “Eight sides to this room.” They stand together in an immense, cavern-like chamber with high vaulted ceilings and what looks like two circular portals above, vents for bringing in the water used for the second trap.

“We’re in the octagon section.” Helen pans the walls with her flashlight. “Caleb was right. ‘As Above, so Below.’”

“Yeah, all credit and glory to your son, Amen!”

“Stop being so cynical. He’s the reason we’re here.”

“No, you are. It was your dedication, your focus, your drive that kept this dream alive long after he deserted you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Whatever. We’re almost there. The treasure awaits.”

They circle around and around on smooth stairs, through thin layers of dust shaken free in the quakes. Here and there a crumbled stone lies on the stairs, and pieces of the wall have fallen in places; but soon the steps end and they walk onto a flat floor that leads to another door, this one with a single image drawn on its surface.

“That again! What is this?” Waxman shines his light up and down. It’s a modest door, about half as large as the previous one, and otherwise non-descript. The room itself is bare, with no artwork on the walls. Nothing inscribed on the floor. No rings, no pits. Nothing but red granite blocks.

Helen shifts her weight, looking over her shoulder. “I don’t know, but I think we may have it all wrong.”

“Nonsense. Here’s a handle on the door. Probably just pull on it and—”

“Don’t touch anything!” She shouts and grabs his hand.

“Are you serious?”

“Do you even have to ask?” She takes a step back, almost to the stairs. “Did you forget what we just went through up there? Any one of those traps could have killed us, and when we find another door you think it’s going to be as simple as pulling it open?”

Waxman exhales roughly, exasperated. “Fine, then RV this one. Let’s do it now!”

“No. Let’s leave, and think about this. Come back later, once we have all the information. We can analyze the scroll some more. We can probe our psychics, we—”

“—can’t wait any longer! It has to be now.”

“Why?”

Standing at the door, he wraps his fingers around the handle. “Because.”

“Why? Nothing’s as important as our lives. We can wait!”

“No, we can’t.”

“What are you talking about? What about the thrill of the hunt, the research, the quest into psychic talents? I thought that was what made this all worth it, whether or not we succeed in getting beyond that door.”

“No.” Waxman glowers at her, then turns to the door, his hands in tight fists. “There’s more, much more. I have to make it stop!”

“What are you talking about?” Helen takes one step up the stair, back the way they have come.

“She never stops,” he whispers, brushing the handle free of dust. “Every minute, every day.”

“Who are you talking about, George? Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes, a long time ago.” He looks back, and his eyes are glowing fiercely in the lantern’s brilliance. “But it ends now.”

He grunts and pulls back on the handle.

“Wait!” Helen yells. “I think I see something — a hole above your hand. Maybe there’s a key.”

But it is too late. The room shakes.

Helen screams and turns. Waxman slips and falls. As he topples, a foot-wide block rips free from the side of the door right where his head was. It shoots out across the room and glances off Helen’s skull, spinning her around, and she crumples onto the stairs without a sound. Just as quickly, the deadly trap withdraws and returns to its sealed position.

Waxman lunges for Helen. He lifts her and races up the stairs, gasping for air. This time, as he makes it back up through the octagon section, the great door slams shut in front of him. A grinding sound arises from the left, up high in the chamber. Then another echoes the first, from the other side.

The walls rattle.

Waxman shines his light up and directs it toward one, then the other portal. The great circular doors have been opened, moved by some major contraption of gears and levers.

“Oh no.” For a moment he feels blood soaking his arms and his chest, flowing from Helen’s head. She shakes and mutters something. A name. “Philip…”

The water bursts through the twin vents above, monstrous jets flooding the chamber. Waxman drops Helen and starts to run back toward the stairs when his feet are swept from the floor. He flies back into the wall, spins around before being yanked to one side, where another door rolls open at the floor level. In a rush of bubbles and churning water he blasts out the door into a circular, tube-like hallway. Rolling, spinning, gagging and choking. Another body bangs against him and gets tangled in his legs, then a powerful slam and they are punched through into a wall of water. He grabs hold of Helen out of reflex, holds his breath, and they rise together, propelled by the exiting currents.

He opens his eyes and his mouth to utter a bubbly, agonized scream as the sudden pressure overwhelms his head. But he remembers his training and exhales slowly, kicking furiously all the time.

Somehow, he surfaces alive, just as his lungs are about to burst. He emerges into the bright sun, surrounded by a sea of multicolored boats. Men and women scream and point and dive in to help.

Caleb fought to free himself from the vision, but he failed…

… and finds himself in a helicopter. This time, leaving the hospital landing pad.

“Your jet is waiting at the airport, sir,” says a man in uniform. He has a crew cut, and is wearing a starched blue suit.

Then Caleb flashed to different place, much later, and saw…

… Waxman exiting a small black jet. He turns up the collar on his long coat and jogs across a runway toward a waiting black limousine. The night is cold, brisk. To the east, a faint glow announces the rising sun. Inside the limo, the driver rolls down the back window.

“Good to have you back, sir.”

Another flash.

Waxman steps out of the limo and strides across the long walkway toward one of many white-walled concrete buildings in a vast complex. Over a low hill and beyond a line of trees, he can hear the rushing of icy water in a river. He passes through two glass doors and a metal detector, where an armed guard welcomes him by name.

He walks across a gray-and-black marble floor, past an early morning janitor using a waxer to polish the smooth surface of a huge seal, and for an instant the vision pans out, allowing a whole view of the entire emblem—

— the profile of an eagle’s head, perched atop a sun with multiple rays bearing out in all directions, with familiar words written around its circumference. Then the vision zooms back in on Waxman as he uses a thumbprint scanner to gain access to a long, white hallway. Inside, he pauses and looks over his shoulder, as if convinced he has just heard someone following. Shaking his head, he continues walking, and stops at an unmarked door halfway down. Again he uses the thumbprint, then swipes a card to gain access.

Lights spring on, and a great war room is illuminated. Dozens of screens and monitors line three walls. The fourth wall is occupied by file cabinets. There is a map in the center of the long table, with a red dot over northern Egypt.

Waxman slumps into a chair and lowers his head. “Shut up, mother,” he hisses. “I’ll still win. I’ll find it.”

Then he begins to sob, of all things. He pounds the table. Again and again. And with each slam of his hand, Caleb’s vision crumbles, tiny pieces falling away like leaves from a great branch, swirling around before his eyes, until…

It was gone. Caleb was sitting in front of Phoebe.

They opened their eyes at the same time. “Caleb…” she whispered.

How could he have not realized it before now? That letterhead in Waxman’s case, the images in those dreams of his father. Remote viewing. Together they had received the sights they’d needed, and found the answers they’d sought. Caleb had drawn so many pictures of this same emblem, never putting it all together.

But it added up now. Waxman’s ability to hack Phoebe’s computer. His connections with local governments. The money to bribe officials. But what did it mean? Why has he been using us? Why?

They continued to stare at each other until Phoebe said what they were both thinking. “We never asked the right questions.”

Then they both whispered it at once, as if fearing that to voice it any louder would give it power.

“CIA.”