Robert Doherty - Area 51 - Excalibur

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ROBERT DOHERTY
AREA 51
EXCALIBUR
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CHAPTER 1 : The Past
THE SOLAR SYSTEM 2528 B.C.
The starship used a slingshot maneuver around the star to decelerate from
interstellar speed. It was a small ship, a scout, and as the craft slowed, its
sensors aligned on the signal that had diverted it to this system from its
centuries-long patrol. The nose of the ship turned toward the third planet out
as the data was analyzed. The signal was strange—a passive one, a uniform
reflection of light rays from the system's star off something on the planet's
surface, but there was little doubt the unusual effect was contrived by
intelligence.
Searching out, analyzing, and then eventually reporting back concerning any
intelligent life was the ship's mission. The nature of the species that crewed
it was to find, infiltrate, consume, and ultimately destroy any intelligent life
not like it.
Having picked up no active scanning in the solar system or signs of advanced
weaponry, the ship emitted an energy pulse as it sent a spectrum of scanning
signals toward the third planet to determine the source of the crude signal.
Unknown to the crew, the pulse was noted by passive sensors as it penetrated the
atmosphere and reached the surface of the planet. A sophisticated computer,
operating on low-power mode, intercepted the pulse, analyzed it, and projected
possible courses of action in a matter of moments. In low-power mode the options
were limited and the course of action was quickly selected.
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THE GIZA PLATEAU 2528 B.C.
The Great Sphinx glowered at the morning sun, while behind its left shoulder the
smooth limestone sheathing covering the newly constructed Great Pyramid of Giza
caught the rays of light and uniformly reflected them into the sky. At the very
top of the five-hundred-foot-high pyramid, a blood-red capstone, twenty feet
tall, glistened, an alien crown to the greatest structure ever built by human
hands. The massive structure stood alone on the stone plateau, towering over the
surrounding countryside, the nearby Nile, and the Sphinx complex.
The painted face of the Sphinx was sixty feet above the ground. From the front
paws to the rear, it was over two hundred feet in length. It was set low in a
depression in the Giza Plateau, stone walls surrounding it. To the east, in the
direction of the Nile, were Khufu's Temple and the Temple of the Sphinx, where
both Pharaoh and stone creature could be worshipped. A covered ramp led from the
right rear of the Sphinx to the Temple at the base of the pyramid. While the
pyramid was new, the surface of the Sphinx was scored by weather, having been
there since the beginning of Egypt in the time when the Gods had ruled over
seven thousand years earlier.
Between the paws of the Great Sphinx stood the Pharaoh Khufu, under whose
leadership the Egyptians had labored for over twenty years moving stone after
stone to build the Great Pyramid. The Pharaoh prostrated himself in front of a
statue set before the creature's stone chest. The statue was three meters tall
and roughly man-shaped with polished white skin. The dimensions weren't quite
right—the body was too short and the limbs were too long. The ears had elongated
lobes that reached to just above the shoulders and there
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were two gleaming red stones in place of eyes. On top of the head, the stone
representing hair was painted bright red. Even more strangely for the astute
observer, each hand ended in six fingers. The statue's appearance was in great
contrast to Khufu's dark skin and hair and human proportions.
The Sphinx had been squatting in its stone depression for ages, beyond the dawn
of the time of Pharaohs. Only a handful of those alive knew why it had been
built or what it marked. For all but a chosen few it was forbidden to come to
the area between the paws in front of Isis's statue.
Khufu had succeeded his father when he was just out of his teens and he was now
middle-aged. He had ruled for almost three decades and Egypt was at peace with
those outside its borders and rich within its own boundaries. The peace and
wealth had allowed Khufu to implement the building plan for Giza that had been
passed from the Gods, to the Shadows, to the Pharaohs over the three ages.
The vast quantity of stone needed for the pyramid had been quarried upriver and
brought down by barge. Thousands had labored seasonally on it, moving the stone
from the barges and placing each block in its position under the careful eye of
engineer priests who worked from the holy plans that had been handed down.
The red capstone had been brought up from the bowels of the Giza Plateau, from
one of the duats (underground chambers) along the tunneled Roads of Rostau where
only the Gods and their priests were allowed to walk. No one knew what exactly
it was, but they had followed the drawings they had been given to the last
detail, from the smooth limestone facing to placing the red object as the
capstone at the very top.
In the Pharaoh's left hand as he prostrated himself was a scepter, a foot long
and two inches in diameter with a lion's head on one end. The lion image had red
eyes similar to that
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of the statue, but these glowed fiercely as if lit from within. Khufu had been
awakened just minutes ago by his senior priest, Asim. The staff had been in the
trembling man's hand, the lion eyes glowing. He had passed it to the Pharaoh.
Khufu had thrown on a robe and dashed from his palace to his place before the
Sphinx, as he had been told by his father he must do if the staff ever came
alive. He was now chanting the prayers he had been taught. The statue was of
Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, the Gods who had founded Egypt at the dawn of
time and ruled during the First Age. According to what Khufu had been told by
his father and the priests, in the First Age, the Gods had ruled for many years
before passing leadership on to Shadows of themselves, the followers of Horus,
during the Second Age. Then even the Shadows had passed the mantle on to men,
and the first Pharaohs took command of the Middle Kingdom of the Third Age.
Asim was the only other person in the area. He was the senior priest of the Cult
of Isis and garbed in a red robe. The priest's right arm was withered and
deformed where muscles and tendons had been sliced when he was a child. Where
his left eye had been, there was an empty socket, the skin around it charred and
scarred from the red-hot poker that had taken out the eyeball. Both ankles and
calves were carefully bound to allow the priest to move as the tendons in his
legs had also been partially severed when he was a child. He could not run or
even walk quickly. The priest had also been castrated before puberty.
The mutilation was what was required of the head priest of the Cult and Khufu
and Asim knew there was a method to the madness. The idea was to make Asim's
life so miserable that while he would be able to perform his duties, he would
not desire to live a long life and thus not hunger for the source of
immortality—the Grail—that was said to be located somewhere below them, beyond
the statue before which Khufu
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bowed his head. The scepter that Asim had brought Khufu was the key to the Roads
of Rostau, the underground passageways that ran beneath their feet, and Asim and
his followers were the only ones who had ever walked those roads.
Around Asim's neck was a medallion with an eye carved in the middle, a symbol of
his office. The priesthood he was part of traced its lineage back many, many
years, to the time even before the First Age of Egypt when the people lived in
the center of the Great Sea beyond the Middle Sea into which the Nile emptied,
in the lands of the Gods, before they were cast out and that land destroyed. The
priest stood five paces behind the Pharaoh, muttering his own prayers rapidly in
the old tongue that only the priests still knew, his anxiety obvious.
The quick prayers done, Khufu stood and glanced at Asim. The priest nodded.
Khufu placed the staff against an indentation in the pedestal on which the
statue stood. The carving had the exact same shape as the staff.
The pedestal shimmered, then the scepter was absorbed into it. The surface of
the stone slid down, revealing a six-foot-high opening. The passageway beyond
was dimly lit from recesses in the ceiling, although the Pharaoh couldn't see
the source of the strange light. Khufu hesitated, then reluctantly entered the
tunnel, the priest following, moving quickly despite his crippled gait. The
stone slid shut behind them.
Khufu hurried down the tunnel. The stone walls were cut smoothly, better than
even his most skilled artisan could produce, but the Pharaoh, his heart beating
furiously in his chest, had no time to admire the handiwork. He ruled supreme
from the second cataracts of the Nile far to the south to the Middle Sea to the
north, and many countries beyond those borders paid tribute, but here, on the
Roads of Rostau, inside the
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Giza Plateau, he knew he was just an errand boy to the Gods. His father had
never been down there, nor had his father's father or anyone in his line. It had
always been a possibility fraught with both danger and opportunity.
The priest had not said a word since handing Khufu the scepter, as was law in
Egypt—no one spoke until the Pharaoh addressed them.
"Asim."
"Yes, lord?"
"What awaits us?" Khufu didn't stop as he spoke, heading deeper into the Earth,
his slippers making a slight hissing noise as they passed over the smooth stone.
Asim's voice was harsh and low. "These are the Roads of Rostau, built by the
Gods themselves in the First Age, before the rule of the Shadows of the Gods,
and before the rule of Pharaoh. It is written there are six duats down here. I
would say, lord, that we are going to one of those."
"You have not been in all these duats?"
"No, my lord. I have only gone where my duties have required me to."
Khufu suppressed the wave of irritation he felt with priests and their
mysterious ways. "And in the duat we go to now?"
"That, my lord, is unknown, as I have not been to this one. The Hall of Records
is said to be in one of the duats—the history of the time before the history we
have recorded. This was the time when the Gods ruled beyond the horizon, before
even the First Age of Egypt. The Old Kingdom of the Gods beyond the Great Sea."
Khufu wasn't interested in history or the Gods but the future. "It is said there
is also a hall that holds the Grail, which contains the gift of eternal life."
Asim nodded. "That is so, my lord."
"But you don't think that is where we are headed?"
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"It is possible, my lord. It has been passed down that we will be given the
Grail when the Gods come again and we will join them. Perhaps by building the
Great Pyramid and finally at long last completing the plan handed down from the
First Age we have earned the honor of the Gods. However, I have not yet laid
eyes upon the Hall of Records or the Grail."
"Maybe you haven't been looking closely enough," Khufu muttered. Building the
pyramid had certainly been a feat worthy of some reward from the Gods, he mused.
Even with the Gods' drawings, his engineer priests had been fearful they could
not do it. Others had tried on a smaller scale in other places, testing the
design, and none had succeeded, such as the one that had collapsed on itself at
Saqqara. Using the practical knowledge learned from those attempts over the
centuries and the Gods' plan, Khufu had felt confident he could succeed—and he
had.
They reached a junction. The path to the right was level. To the other side, the
path curved left and down. Khufu had been taught the directions even though, as
far as he knew, no one in his line of Pharaohs had ever actually been down
there. The Pharaohs ruled above, but the Gods ruled there.
He turned left. It was cool in the tunnel but Khufu was sweating. He who had
watched ten thousand put to death in one day on his orders after a battle. He
who held absolute rule over the lives of his people felt fear for the first time
in his life. But burning through the fear was hope, for he kept reminding
himself what his father had told him—that inside the Roads of Rostau, hidden
under the Earth, there was indeed the key to immortality, the golden Grail of
the Gods that had been promised. And that there would be a day when the Gods
would grant that to the chosen. Despite Asim's pessimism, was today the day, and
was he the chosen one? After all, as Asim had noted, he had completed the Great
Pyramid that season after twenty years of labor, a
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marvel indeed, exactly according to the plans left behind by the Gods. And he
had put the red capstone up there, a thing that had come out of one of the duats
down here, dragged to the surface by Asim and his priests under the cover of
darkness.
The tunnel ended at a stone wall. Asim used the medallion around his neck,
placing it against a slight depression in the center of the stone. The outline
of a door appeared, then the rock slid up. Asim stepped aside and motioned for
the Pharaoh to enter. Khufu stepped through, into a small, circular cavern,
about twenty feet wide. In the very center was a tall, narrow red crystal, three
feet high and six inches in diameter, the multifaceted surface glinting. Set in
the top of the crystal was the handle of a sword. Khufu walked forward, drawn
irresistibly toward the crystal. Asim was at his side now. An ornate sheath
could be seen buried deep inside the crystal. The Pharaoh had never seen such
crystal or metal worked so finely.
"It is called Excalibur," Asim said. "Take hold of the sword, my Pharaoh. Remove
it from the crystal."
Khufu reached down and grabbed the handle of the sword. The sword, still covered
by the sheath, slid smoothly out of the crystal.
"Now free the blade, my lord."
Khufu hesitated. "Why?"
"My Pharaoh, it will free the red capstone we just put on top of the pyramid to
act outside of itself."
"That makes no sense. What can the capstone do?"
"I am telling you only what I was instructed, my lord. It is important."
Khufu began to draw back the blade. A shock coursed out of the handle through
his hand and into his body as he pulled it out of the sheath.
Khufu staggered back as a golden glow filled the entire
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chamber. Khufu blinked as the smoothly cut walls flickered and came to life. A
flurry of images flashed across them, so quickly he could barely note them: a
massive golden palace that dwarfed the pyramid he had just built set on a hill
above a beautiful city of white stone surrounded by seven moats of water; a
wave-battered island with three volcanic mountains in each corner sitting alone
in an endless ocean; a rocky uninhabited desert with mountains surrounding a dry
lake bed; a desolate land swept by snow and ice; a strange land where the sand
was red and a massive mountain dominated the horizon, and other images flashing
by faster and faster so that he lost track. In some manner, he felt a connection
to all those places.
Suddenly the walls went black, then a new image appeared, of a field of stars,
so many Khufu could not even begin to count, and the stars were moving rapidly,
wheeling across the walls.
Then blank again, before revealing a view of the surface above but from a
perspective he didn't recognize at first. He could see the Sphinx and the Nile
beyond as if from a great height and he then realized that in some manner, the
walls in this deep cavern were reflecting the view from the top of the Great
Pyramid. He was surprised to see that the red capstone was now glowing as if lit
from within.
He started as a seven-foot-high red line appeared between him and the vision on
the walls. The line wavered, then widened until a figure appeared, a twin to the
statue above. Yet Khufu could see through the figure, to the display on the
wall.
He was trying to take all this in when the figure began speaking. The speech was
singsong, in a language the Pharaoh had never heard.
"Do you understand the words?" he asked Asim, his voice a whisper as if the
image could hear.
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"It is the language of the Gods, my lord. I was taught as much of the language
as has been passed down and remembered among the high priests."
Khufu waited impatiently for the priest to translate.
"It was hoped the Great Pyramid would bring more of the Gods," Asim finally
said, his head cocked to one side, his single eye closed as he listened closely
and tried to understand. "That was the design." Asim's thin tongue snaked around
his lips as he listened further. "It has not worked that way. Instead an enemy
comes." Asim's good arm slowly raised until it pointed upward. "From the sky
above."
Khufu looked at the ceiling of the chamber. He could see the sky displayed. It
was clear, not a cloud or bird visible.
"What kind of enemy?" Khufu asked, but Asim was again listening and didn't
respond right away.
"The Ancient Enemy of the Gods," Asim finally said. "The killer of all life. The
enemy with the patience of"— Asim shook his head—"I know not the word, but
something like the patience of a stone, infinite. And the specific word for the
enemy, the closest I can come to is when the locusts gather—a Swarm."
Khufu had seen swarms of locusts so thick they made day into night passing
overhead. When they alighted in a field, they stripped it bare within minutes.
He tried to imagine a Swarm that could be a threat to the Gods but could not
conceive of it. The vision continued speaking, the sound almost like that of a
bird, Khufu thought.
'The capstone—what it calls the Master Guardian—will stop the Ancient Enemy,"
Asim finally said as the vision ceased speaking. "Excalibur controls the power
to the Guardian. While the sword is inside the sheath the Master Guardian cannot
work. You have freed it and thus the Master Guardian has power. The Master
Guardian can now take action against the Ancient Enemy."
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Khufu turned to the priest. "How will this Master Guardian do this? What Ancient
Enemy?"
Asim was looking up. He pointed at the display on the roof of the cavern that
showed the sky above the pyramid. "That enemy, my lord."
Khufu looked up and blinked. There was a dark spot high in the sky, rapidly
growing larger. As it descended it began to take shape and Khufu felt his
stomach knot and twist with fear. It was a large black flying spider—that was
the only thing he could think. Eight legs, spread wide around a central, round
body. And large—how big he had no idea, but its shadow was now covering the top
of the pyramid.
"How will the Guardian fight this?" Khufu whispered.
"You have given it power by removing Excalibur from the sheath," Asim repeated.
"Watch the power of the Gods, my lord."
Khufu wanted to strangle the priest. He could not tear his eyes from the rapidly
approaching monster. Suddenly a golden orb of power streaked upward from the
Master Guardian toward the object and hit it. The spider jerked sideways. Khufu
kept his eyes on it and a second golden orb raced into the sky and struck the
enemy. Bright red flames burst out of the side of the flying spider and it
jerked once more, now going upward, trying to escape.
A third golden orb hit it and enveloped the entire object. It was still going
higher and higher, edging toward the west. Khufu staggered back as there was a
blinding explosion. When he looked up, the sky was clear.
The golden glow inside the chamber decreased and Khufu almost collapsed, feeling
drained. The Pharaoh started as the image began speaking again.
"We are safe for now," Asim translated. "But"—he paused as he translated, eye
closed—"it is not safe."
"What isn't safe?" Khufu demanded.
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"The Great Pyramid. The Master Guardian. The pyramid did not work as intended.
It summoned the Ancient Enemy and not the Gods of old. If the Ancient Enemy came
once, it can come again. What drew it here must be destroyed."
The figure chimed on for a minute and Asim remained silent, until the figure
stopped speaking, coalesced into a thin red line, then disappeared.
Asim opened his eye. "I have been told what is to be done. Put the blade back in
the sheath, my Pharaoh."
Khufu slid the blade into the scabbard.
"Come, my lord." Asim was hobbling toward the tunnel. "There is much to do."
So stunned was the Pharaoh by the recent events that he didn't even question
being ordered about by the priest. He simply followed him out of the chamber,
the covered sword in his hands.
Wreckage from the scout ship tumbled toward the empty desert west of Giza. Among
the debris was a black pod, approximately fifteen feet across, the metal surface
unmarred by the explosion. As the pod approached the surface of the planet, its
terminal velocity began to slow as some internal mechanism interacted with the
planet's electromagnetic field. Still, it was moving so fast the outer surface
gave off heat, glowing in the sky like a falling star. Despite slowing, the pod
hit a dune with enough velocity to plow deep into the sand. It was completely
covered when the pod came to rest, submerged twenty feet in the desert.
An hour after the crash, a camel rider approached. A Libyan who was heading
toward Cairo to do some trading, he'd seen the falling star from his caravan ten
miles to the south. Leaving his son in charge, he'd ridden in the direction the
object had fallen, curiosity pulling him across the sand.
He'd already passed places where it was obvious objects
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from the sky had impacted in the desert, but whatever had hit, they were deeply
buried under the sand. He approached a sixty-foot-high sand dune and noted the
disturbed surface near the top indicating another impact. The Libyan halted his
camel at the base of the dune and dismounted. His robe flapped in a stiff breeze
and all but his eyes was covered with cloth wrapped around his head.
The Libyan paused, his head swinging back and forth as he looked about. He had
the sense of being followed, but his eyes detected no sign of another person.
He'd had the feeling for a while, but there was no evidence to support the
instinct.
He cocked his head as he heard a sound. A grinding noise. Then nothing but the
wind for several moments. He took several steps closer to the dune where the
sound had seemed to come from. Then he heard something different. Almost a
slithering sound. He took half a step back, then paused. There was something
inside the dune. Of that there was no doubt in his mind. He looked left and
right but there was no movement. He could feel the heat of the sun on his
shoulders but a cold chill passed through his body. The Libyan drew a curved
sword from his belt. The noise was getting louder.
Mustering his courage, the Libyan took several steps forward until he was at the
base of the dune. The sound was very close now. The Libyan jabbed the point of
his sword into the dune, the blade easily spearing the sand. He did it again and
then again.
He pulled the blade back and cocked his head. Nothing.
The tentacles came out of the sand underneath his feet, wrapping around his
legs. He was pulled under, desperately trying to slash and stab with his sword
at whatever was below him. His scream was cut off as he disappeared under the
sand. His camel bolted off into the desert, desperate to get away.
Then all was still.
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A quarter mile away, on the far side of a dune, two dark eyes had watched the
encounter. The possessor of the eyes waited a few moments, staring at the spot
where the Libyan had disappeared, then he slowly slid down the side of the dune
to his waiting camel. He headed back the way he had come, toward Giza. The sun
glinted off a large ring set on the man's right hand, highlighting the eye
symbol etched on its surface. The hand the ring was on held the camel's halter,
but it was shaking so badly from fright, that he had to let go and allow the
camel to make its own way home.
It was the middle of the night and by order of the great Pharaoh Khufu no one
was allowed outdoors in sight of the Giza Plateau except himself and his high
priest Asim. Given the strange apparition the previous day of the flying
"spider," no citizens tried to resist the command. Khufu and Asim stood on the
roof of the temple at the base of the pyramid. The night sky was clear. The red
capstone no longer glowed as if lit from within as Khufu had Excalibur inside
the scabbard now strapped to his own sword belt.
Khufu could still see in his mind's eye the black spider that had come down from
the sky. He did not understand what it was, but there was no doubt in him that
it was a danger. Whatever entity controlled such a flying creature and was
capable of fighting the Gods was indeed something to be feared.
"What are we waiting for?"
"When the sword is in the sheath, the"—Asim searched for the right words—
"Chariots of the Gods cannot approach the capstone. You must take the blade out
once more."
Khufu drew the weapon. He watched as the capstone glowed once more.
Asim continued. "Since you have removed the sword, the capstone can be
approached."
"By who? What Chariot of the Gods?"
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"There, lord." Asim was pointing to the north.
Something was approaching through the sky. Khufu started, and then realized it
wasn't another air-spider. This object was shaped like an inverted dish and
golden, reminding him of the glow that had surrounded him in the chamber far
below during the day.
"The Chariot of the Gods," Asim whispered.
The object passed by overhead and hovered above the very top of the pyramid,
five hundred feet above their heads. A glow extended down from the disk and
surrounded the red Master Guardian. The Guardian was twenty feet high at the
base and had been brought out of the Earth below by Asim and other priests,
following instructions as handed down through the ages. It had been laboriously
dragged to the top just the previous week to complete the pyramid by being
dragged up the scaffolding that had been wrapped around the edifice. Although
larger than blocks used in the structure, Khufu knew it was lighter because of
the number of men needed to pull it, indicating that it was not solid. No one
knew what it was made of, as the red surface had seemed to shimmer, and men
feared to touch it.
Khufu started as the Master Guardian separated from the pyramid, lifting into
the air as if by magic. The golden object, with the Guardian in tow, began
withdrawing in the direction it had come from, to the north. Khufu watched until
it disappeared into the night sky, then he turned to Asim.
"Where does it go?"
"To a secure place, my lord. Separate from the key."
"Why separate the two?"
"The Master Guardian will be more secure if the key is not with it." Asim
absently rubbed his empty eye socket. 'The sword you hold was once wielded by
the greatest of the Gods. With it he controlled the Master Guardian, and in turn
his entire domain."
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Khufu looked at the smooth blade. He had never seen such fine metal. "It is a
great weapon, then."
"It is," Asim said. "Especially as it controls the power for the Master
Guardian. It allows whoever has the sword to be very powerful." "And now?"
"Have your troops scoured the desert for the spider creature, my lord?"
"They have found no sign of the sky monster, but have apprehended all the people
they found to the west."
Asim nodded. "The prisoners must be part of what we do in the morning."
"And?" Khufu pressed.
"My lord, tomorrow we must complete the undoing of what our people have worked
so hard to do over the past twenty years." He pointed. "The facing of the
pyramid must be removed." "Why?"
"It sent out a signal, my lord, but it did not bring the Gods as hoped, but
their enemy."
Khufu knew the pyramid could be seen far away, and he imagined that if one could
be in the sky as the spider creature had been, it could be seen at a great
distance indeed. He did not wish for a repeat of that. "It will be done."
Hidden in the dark shadows of a refuse pile of cracked stone blocks the watcher
from the desert had observed the same thing as Khufu and Asim. He'd noted the
direction the golden disk flew off in, Master Guardian with it. Despite the
darkness of his hide, he wrote all that he had seen down on a piece of reed
parchment. As his hand moved, a large ring with an eye symbol reflected the
scant starlight.
Then, keeping to ground he knew well, he made his way
17
off the Giza Plateau and to a small hut near the Nile. Inside, he checked the
writing, making sure it reported accurately what he had seen, then rolled it and
slid it into a tube. He poured wax from a candle on the end and then used the
ring to seal it with an imprint—the imprint had the same design as that on the
medallion worn around Asim's neck.
He slid the tube inside his robes and sat down cross-legged on the sand floor,
waiting for the sun to rise. He'd managed to escape the Pharaoh's troops in the
desert, sticking to the hidden ways. He'd noted that the members of the Libyan
caravan had been brought to the plateau in chains, the man he'd seen disappear
under the sand among them.
Tomorrow would be a most interesting day, he mused.
When dawn came, it was assembly-line murder.
The great Pharaoh Khufu, son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetpeheres, ruler of the
Middle Kingdom, watched, his face impassive, as rivers of blood flowed down the
smooth limestone facing of the Great Pyramid.
He was at the flat top where the Master Guardian had been, over 480 feet above
the Giza Plateau, seated in a throne made of gold. Four sacrificial tables were
spread out in the small space in front of him, manned by priests of the Cult of
Isis.
Asim was working swiftly as there were many thousands of throats to be cut. A
long line of stoop-shouldered men stood on the wooden scaffolding that led to
the level platform at the top of the pyramid where Asim wielded Excalibur, the
sword of the Gods, moving from table to table, sliding the razor-sharp blade
across throats. Soldiers ensured that the line kept moving. Every worker who had
spent even one minute inside the pyramid during its construction was in that
line. When Asim's work was done, the only ones to have been inside the pyramid
and live would be Khufu and Asim.
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As each worker reached the top, two soldiers would lift him bodily, throw him
onto a slab, pinning his shoulders down, and a priest would hold his head back,
waiting for Asim to come by and draw Excalibur across the man's throat while
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ROBERTDOHERTYAREA51EXCALIBUR1CHAPTER1:ThePastTHESOLARSYSTEM2528B.C.Thestarshipusedaslingshotmaneuveraroundthestartodeceleratefrominterstellarspeed.Itwasasmallship,ascout,andasthecraftslowed,itssensorsalignedonthesignalthathaddivertedittothissystemfromi scenturies-longpatrol.Thenoseoftheshipturned...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：155 页 大小：1.18MB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

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