George was quiet for a moment, in part because he was surprised by Gallo’s strident point of view, but also because it made sense. While he didn’t consider himself hostile to religion, he did tend to categorize it as fiction. But he had seen things that could only be described as miraculous, and Fiona was learning to speak the language of God. At first, he thought the language discounted the stories of Moses and Jesus. They were just guys who spoke the language. But how could a shepherd and a carpenter learn the language of God? And why wouldn’t they have used it to improve their lives? Moses wandered the desert for forty years and never set foot in his Promised Land. Jesus was crucified. If they’d had access to the Mother Tongue, or the Ark’s power source, why didn’t they use those things to change the world?
He smiled at himself.
They had changed the world. But not like a human being would have. “I concede the point. The Originators could be supernatural. Angels, demons, Nephilim. I can’t discount anything, and I don’t have all the answers. But for the sake of making sense of all this, I’m going to work through it in a way that’s easier for me to grasp.”
Gallo smiled and turned to Fiona. “This is why men need women willing to challenge their point of view. Makes them more well-rounded.”
“Anyway…” George said, trying to suppress his smile. Gallo held the keys to his heart and his mind, and she knew it. “…what I’m getting at is that Moses and the Israelites left with the Ark, but the shekinahs—”
“That’s a dumb name,” Fiona said.
Pierce smiled. “The important thing is that Joshua triggered the solar event, and he didn’t have a transmitter array or any special knowledge—”
“That we know of,” Gallo put in.
“That tells me that the Ark is some kind of user-friendly control interface. Maybe Moses taught Joshua a few words in the Mother Tongue, or maybe it responds to psychic intentions. Either way, we can use it the same way. Turn off the Black Knight. Maybe even make it self-destruct, so this can never happen again.”
“You really think you can find the Ark?”
“I think we have to. It’s the only way to guarantee that Fallon or someone like him doesn’t trigger another solar event. Fi, do you think you could make a golem to keep the cows away from us?”
Fiona considered the question for a moment. “Maybe. It doesn’t take much to set them off, but I’ve got an idea. Do you think it’s a good idea to leave them here?”
Pierce nodded. “Once we leave, put some distance between them and that sphere, they’ll melt back into the ground, just like they did when Moses left three thousand years ago.”
“What about the guys with guns?” Gallo asked.
“I think I can deal with them, too,” Fiona promised.
“They’re probably already gone.” Pierce nodded to Fiona. “Do it.”
The young woman moved to the mouth of the cave and shone her headlamp down at the piled rocks at the base of the cliff. She murmured the emet command, and then, with a loud rumble like another small tremor, the rocks began to move. Thousands of small pieces and a flurry of sand came together like iron filings around a magnet, forming a towering colossal figure that reached as high as the cave opening. Unlike the other golems Pierce had seen her create, this one was not humanoid. Despite its rough composition, he had no trouble distinguishing the shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Gallo grinned and laid on the sarcasm. “Definitely nothing supernatural about that.”
Fiona allowed herself a slight smile, but the crease of her forehead showed her intense concentration. The golem began moving away, shaking the ground with each ponderous step. Fiona followed it with the beam of her headlamp, but after just a few steps, she turned around. “You guys should probably look away.”
There was a faint flash of light, nowhere near as brilliant as what they had earlier experienced. Then he heard Fiona cry out.
“Fi?” Pierce whirled around and found her picking herself up off the cavern floor, trembling.
“That doesn’t usually happen,” she said.
“What? What happened?”
“Feedback. Felt like an electric shock, but I’ll be okay.” She stood up, shook herself, and managed a wan smile. “Rexie went all to pieces, though. One golem per cow, I guess.”
“You’re not doing that again,” Pierce declared. “We’ll just have to make a run for it.”
The fact that she didn’t protest told him that she was trying to downplay the severity of the jolt.
Pierce peered down at the base of the cliff, and was dismayed to see two of the shekinah creatures milling about nearby. They weren’t circling like predators. In fact, they were barely moving at all.
He took a deep breath, and then began the descent, facing the wall as he made his way down the irregular steps the way he might climb down a ladder. Every few steps, he glanced down, making sure that the beasts were keeping their distance. As soon as he was back on the grade, he waved for the others to follow, then returned his attention to the shekinah creatures. There was no indication that they were even aware of his presence. They ignored Gallo’s arrival as well, but when Fiona emerged from the cave, the reaction was unmistakable. In unison, the creatures began shuffling toward them. Pierce felt the first tickle of static electricity on his face.
He shone his light away from the creatures and started forward as fast as the loose terrain would allow. A shekinah appeared ahead, trundling toward them on a slow but obvious intercept course. Pierce shifted away from it, but he was stopped after just a few steps by a gaping fissure. The shekinah now blocked their retreat, forcing them to continue along the edge of the fissure, but then another creature came into view in that direction.
Pierce skidded to a stop and searched for another route. The fissure was too wide to leap across, which left only climbing back up the slope, a move that would leave them pinned against the cliff face.
He heard Fiona speak, but it took him a second to realize what she was saying. “Versatu elid vas re’eish clom, emet.”
“Fi, no!”
Even as he said it, he felt the ground tremble as a newly formed golem began moving toward the strange creatures. Pierce saw it in the light of his headlamp, a giant T. Rex composed of sand and loose rock, closing on the creature pursuing them. Its massive jaws opened and then came down over the misshapen shekinah.
“Don’t look!” Fiona shouted.
Pierce was already turning away, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the golem envelop the smaller creature. There was a harsh tearing noise, and Pierce could feel electricity cracking all over his body, but the golem’s body shielded them all from the worst effects. Some light rays seeped through the cracks between the loosely joined rocks comprising the earthen creation, leaving a few streaks across Pierce’s vision. But it wasn’t even as bright as a camera flash. As the golem crumbled, Fiona collapsed like an unstrung puppet.
Pierce scooped the fallen girl up in his arms, over her weak protest, and with Gallo beside him, he started back the way they had come. The rubble left from the golem’s disintegration made for a precarious crossing, but once past the worst of it, Pierce picked up the pace. His lungs burned from altitude and exertion, and his legs felt like molten lead, but the sight of more shekinahs closing in on them supplied a burst of adrenaline that left him both numb to the pain and energized.