“Hey!” Pierce shouted from the other side of the gallery, where he stood in front of a lion skin that hung on the wall. He gripped its curly black hair in his hands, close to pulling it out from excitement. “Is … is this?”
“I wore it in Nazca,” Alexander said. “But it was one of many I wore in my early life. When I was still a hunter.”
King cleared his throat. “So the source of this power is in Egypt?” King asked, hoping to keep the conversation on track.
“The trail leads to Egypt, where golems were used as slaves, along with the Jews, to help build the pyramids. Once you understand that golems were fairly common in the ancient world, you can trace their history and involvement in ancient cultures around the world. The pyramids in Central America, Stonehenge, Easter Island—”
“The ziggurats of Sumer.” King could finally see where Alexander was going. The ziggurats of Sumer were mankind’s first truly amazing construction projects. It was also the cradle of modern civilization, giving us our first written human language, cities, and code of laws.
“And it is there, in Babylon—the capital city of Sumer—that we discover how this ancient language was lost to humanity, hidden within the scores of languages developed shortly after that period of history.”
The answer came to King before Alexander could speak it. “The Tower of Babel.” King knew the biblical account well enough. God, upset that the people had built a tower to reach Heaven, had confused the population’s language and scattered them around the planet. And he didn’t buy a word of it.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s another Jewish myth given a few verses in the Bible.”
“Not just the Bible, or more accurately, the Pentateuch. It is also mentioned in the Book of Jubiless, Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, the Greek Third Apocalypse of the Baruch, the Midrash, Kabbalah, and the Qur’an. The Sumerians tell the story as Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. But perhaps most interesting are the Central American traditions. In one, a tower is built that will allow Xelhua, a survivor of a great flood, to storm Heaven. But the tower is destroyed and those who built the tower had their language confused. Then again from the Toltecs; a tower known as a zacuali, is built by the survivors of a deluge, but once more their language was confused and they were scattered around the planet. The ancient history of the world is recorded very similarly in most cultures, including a great flood, the Tower of Babel, and, most importantly, a protolanguage that every human being had been speaking since the dawn of Homo sapiens.”
* * *
THE DIM LIGHT wasn’t exactly easy to read by, but it was better than nothing. The same could be said for Fiona’s reading material—a three-week-old copy of the New York Times. After reading the movie and book reviews she searched for a comics section, but found none. What a rip-off! She had hoped a little humor might distract her from the growing tension of those around her.
The revelation that she knew about the wraiths before being imprisoned made her a pariah. Her confidence about being rescued by her father, whose identity she refused to divulge, only made the others more skeptical of her presence. Some thought she was a spy. Only Elma continued to speak to her.
A hand bearing the mark of the Herculean Society took hold of the open newspaper and pulled it down. Elma’s head poked over the top. “Any interesting news?”
Fiona lowered the paper to her lap. She sat cross-legged on her cot, wrapped in a blanket. Still dressed in her black pajamas, she looked like a typical girl about to be tucked in by her mother. But she was not a typical girl, and Elma, as nice as she was, could never be her mother. Though kind, she lacked patience, a sense of humor, and an imagination. King had her beat, hands down. “If you consider movie reviews news, then yes.”
Elma blew air through her lips, a noncommittal sound that was neither laugh nor disapproval. She sat on the bed, bending the mattress toward her weight, which seemed heavier than usual. “The others have been talking,” she said.
Fiona had been observing the group since her arrival, watching their movements and listening to conversations with her keen ears. There was a subtle pecking order that kept things orderly, but also created a kind of caste system. Certain prisoners ate first, bathed first, and made decisions for the group. With so many different cultures represented, it seemed the one with the most dominant social structure had been adopted. They had become an underground society with rings of social position. Elma was on the outer ring, mostly for the kindness she’d shown Fiona. Buru, who was speaking to a group of men, had pulled away from Fiona and maintained his position at the society’s core.
But Buru had not forsaken Fiona. The information Elma occasionally delivered came straight from Buru. Which is what made Elma’s next words so worrisome. “They want to get rid of you.”
Fiona sat up straight. “What? Why?”
“You frighten them.”
“I’m just a kid.”
“Since your arrival, you have shown greater strength, knowledge, and resilience than any of them. They believe you are either here to watch us or are the cause of all this.”
“What are they going to do? It’s not like you can have me transferred to another cell.”
Elma just looked at her gravely.
They’re going to kill me, Fiona thought. Her face filled with fear, but it was momentary. Anger came next. “You just let them try it,” she whispered through gritted teeth.
Elma’s hands shot up in frustration. “You see! Even as these people plot to kill you, you show them to be cowards.” She sat quietly for a moment, then asked, “Where does this strength come from?”
Fiona had never thought of herself as strong. She just got by. She adapted. Life on the reservation hadn’t been easy, starting with: “My parents died when I was little. I was raised by my grandmother. But I think I took care of her just as much as she took care of me.”
“Life without parents can be tough,” Elma said, “but you—”
“A year ago, my reservation was attacked. More than three thousand people were killed, including my grandmother.”
Elma’s hand went to her mouth. The Siletz Reservation attack was well known around the world as the worst terrorism attack since the World Trade Center. “The news said there was a survivor, but never gave an identity. It was you?”
As Fiona nodded, Elma reached out and touched her face, then her hair, as though to confirm that this little girl was in fact a Native American. “It’s no wonder you’re tough…” She stood up. “This will change everything. You don’t have to wo—”
The chamber shook. The lights hanging from the ceiling swayed.
As the pounding of giant feet grew louder, Fiona shuffled back against the wall. She knew the sound. “They’re coming for me,” she said.
Elma looked at her, eyes wide. “Who is coming for you?”
Fiona pointed in the direction of the noise, toward the back of the chamber. “They’re coming for us all.”
The back wall of the chamber broke apart, falling into rubble. A tunnel was revealed. A whispering voice came from the tunnel. The crumbled wall shifted into two piles and began taking shape. As two hulking bodies of stone emerged, Elma filled her lungs to scream.
* * *