Prologue
Jubal struggled to open his eyes. Everything felt fuzzy like he was drunk. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around. He was in an oval metal room. The walls and ceiling were curved like they had been formed that way and not put together. He could not see any seams at all. It was impossible.
He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the cold metal examination table he was lying on, like the ones in a morgue.
A doorway melted into the wall to his left. It was like the metal became liquid and flowed out of the way. In walked a dark exotic beauty of a woman. She had small devil horns and a whip-like tail that played about behind her. She was dressed in a skin-tight body suit that covered less than most one-piece bathing suits.
She strutted over to Jubal and ran her finger from his inner thigh up and over his manhood up his chest to his lips. “You have something I want. You can be a good boy and give it to me or I can take it. What will it be?”
Jubal didn’t know what she wanted. He didn’t know where he was. All he knew was that he wanted out of there. “What do you want?”
“Your tracking system.”
“My UFO tracking system?”
“Yes,” she almost purred.
****
They were in Cyprus! The first dig where Dr. Vera Vendall had complete autonomy. The mystery and tales of the Knights Templar had always fascinated her. She was anxious to find the perfect dig site. They wandered throughout a section of limestone caves searching the extent of the zoned area they were allowed to dig in. The main Templar ruins looked promising but had been explored in the past. Vera wanted to pick somewhere unique to excavate. No reason to rush to locate the right place. She had six months. They trudged beside the edges of gorges, looked out from rocky outcroppings, followed zigzagging goat paths, descended steep ravines only to climb upward again. Many openings were examined. By midmorning, Vera’s calves were aching.
Jeff, Vera’s happy-go-lucky doctoral grad student and number one assistant, stumbled down a steep hill into a pit-like entrance. Curious, he explored, striking his pick at the wall knocking away dirt and revealing tool marks. “Dr. Vendall, I think I found something.”
Vera carefully climbed down. At once she saw the tool marks. Men had worked this opening. She tried to suppress her exhilaration. “This looks promising. Let’s see how far it goes back.”
The site was well hidden and showed no sign of being touched in the last millennia. Part of a stone wall had crumbled away to reveal a passage. Jeff was a hero for discovering the cave entrance under a massive spine of rock, not quite high enough at the opening to walk upright but opened up once they were inside. It took a few days for the three local diggers to remove and sift through the crumbling soil and stone. At the back of the cave, an ancient manmade passage had been carved out of the rock. Rafters were put in place at the entrance and solar lamps were installed. Vera spent long hours troweling, cautiously striking the soil and rock looking for something substantial, Jeff beside her, hunched over, working.
A dig-camp was established, location for trench latrines determined, a canopy erected against the cave's granite walls, and a worktable positioned. For the time being, buckets of water sat along the wall waiting, and barrels to collect rainwater sat out in the open. Outside the cave, a vast extended goat-skin tent was set up as a secondary worksite and shelter for the three native workers who assisted on the dig.
Phoebe, Vera’s other grad student, was accustomed to spending most of her time with a tablet in hand, photography equipment over her shoulder, researching, or sneaking in as much time as she could manage on her Ph.D. dissertation. Phoebe was not like Vera. Phoebe was more at home studying artifacts in a museum or lab surrounded by high-tech instruments.
Tapping, Jeff heard a distinct hollow tone. He was at the back of the passage they had uncovered, inspecting a handmade rock wall. Calling Vera over, Jeff stepped aside and let her work. She carefully brushed away dirt and saw groves dug into some of the stones at eye level. Little crosses had been carved into them. Phoebe took photos of the wall before work continued.
Together they meticulously worked with fine picks, scrapers, and small brushes until they exposed each stone enough to remove it. Soon they had a big enough opening to peer through.
They saw a room about twenty feet deep and twelve feet wide and tall enough to stand in. The back half of the room was smaller, five feet long and three and a half feet wide, and cordoned off by floor to ceiling tattered tapestries, held up by four corner pillars and connected by rods across the top. Along one wall was a simple table with a gold plate in the middle covered with a lump of some decaying material. The opposite wall had a similar table with a large golden menorah in the center. The walls were covered in murals.
Vera stepped back and tried to remember how to breathe again. This could be the find of a lifetime.
“Now we’re talking,” Jeff said. “A genuine find!”
“Perhaps.” Vera couldn’t stop smiling. “We won’t know for sure until we get in there. Phoebe, swing your camera around in there and then set up behind us. I want every step from now on filmed, documented, and uploaded.”
Painstakingly they continued dismantling the wall. Vera wanted just to smash through to get to the real find but knew she had to be careful to preserve the site's integrity. She dared not hope it was as good as it looked. Finally, the opening was large enough for entry. Later Jeff could finish working on the portal. Now was the time to explore.
Vera bent over and stepped into the chamber. Her flashlight scanned the room but stopped before it had even made it a third of the way around. There on the wall was a painted scene she never expected. It was an army walking outside a walled city. A host of soldiers led the army. Next came seven priests carrying shofar, curved ram horns. Then four priests carrying a golden rectangle box with two winged cherubim facing each other. Finally, another large group of soldiers followed them.
Vera stood there entranced as Jeff brought in the lights and set them up. Phoebe followed Jeff in and made sure to look for any creepy crawlies before filming the chamber.
Jeff pointed at the mural. “Is that the Ark of the Covenant?”
“I think so.”
“Why is that depicted here?”
Vera spun around and took the whole chamber in. Could it be? Vera was not a religious person, but she was raised Baptist and knew Bible stories from hours in Sunday School as a child. She also loved to read and had picked up a considerable amount of knowledge about biblical history. As a Templar scholar, her work was deeply entrenched in all things holy.
“I think this room is a tabernacle. The outer area where we are standing is the holy place, and the part within the drape is the holy of holies.”
Jeff turned to look from the curtained area to the painting, then back at the looming curtains. “Isn’t that where they kept the Ark?”
“It is.”
Vera slowly stepped forward to point her flashlight through a tear in the curtain. Inside was a small high table. On top of the table was a shofar with some gold inlay. “It is one of the horns of Jericho.”
“No way. Awesome.” Jeff grabbed Phoebe and twirled her around.
Vera’s huge smile changed to real wonder. This was the find of a lifetime. But it could be a fake. It would need to be tested. But this chamber, the murals, the artifacts, the way it was designed, the Templars must have believed this was one of the horns that blew down the walls of Jericho. For now, Vera chose to believe it too.
“Ok children, we’ve got work to do.”
“Hey, we’re not that much younger than you. Even Phoebe is only a year younger than me at 25. You can’t be much older than that.”
Jeff wasn’t wrong. Vera had just turned thirty. Daily running helped keep her figure trim and athletic. She did some of her best thinking while running. Vera could even be beautiful if she took the time or cared about her appearance. Why brush her long tawny red hair dozens of times a day when it was easier and more practical to put it up in a ponytail. So far, her career had been lackluster. She took the teaching job at the University of Chicago because it was stable. Boring but safe. She didn’t mind teaching but lived to be in the field. The couple of digs she had assisted on were busts, so she couldn’t even wow her students with first-hand accounts of finding significant discoveries. But that was all about to change.
Nothing was touched until the three of them had fully documented the room. Jeff and Vera were making exact measurements, and Phoebe was photographing. Then the old curtains were moved to the side so entry to the inner space could be made. Vera went in and studied the horn. The mouthpiece was gold, and spiraling up the horn from the tip were inlaid words in Hebrew. Vera’s Hebrew was not great, but she was pretty sure it said “the Power of Yahweh,” an early term for God. Jeff, the Hebrew expert, confirmed her translation.
Phoebe came over and filmed, moving around the table. Phoebe froze and let out a little whimper. Vera looked around the table and discovered a body leaning up against the other side. Jeff crowded in, and the three of them stared down at the skeleton remains in dismay.
“Freaky deformity. Is that even human?” Jeff asked.
The body before them was in the tattered remains of a Templar tunic, stark white with a red cross on it. The body was primarily skeletal, with some withered flesh still clinging to the bone. But it was just not right, anatomically incorrect. The left foot was more like a hoof of a cow or maybe a goat. The right arm had a third bone in the lower part that was not supposed to be there. The left hand’s fingers had fused in pairs, forming two longer, larger fingers each ended in a talon and an average thumb. There was a tail. It was short but present. Stranger still was small horns protruding from the skull. It appeared as if larger horns had been shorn off but were growing back.
“I’ve never seen such dramatic malformity in an adult before,” Vera said. “For now, let’s keep this whole find exclusively between us.”
They spent the day carefully noting the location and position of the artifacts before moving them to the work area. Phoebe video cataloged and entered precise notes on her tablet. The body was moved to the top of a sorting table in the cave work tent, covered with a finely tied fishnet, then a protective oilskin tarp. It had been a fantastic day. They washed up, ate, and retired to their tents.
Vera wearily lay on top of her cot, her thoughts racing. Could this be the discovery of a lifetime? She was still so young and optimistic about the future. Am I to achieve acclaim at the age of thirty? She debated back and forth in her mind if she should contact her department at the University or wait until she knew more. She dreamed about viewing the tapestry fragments behind glass exhibit cases in a museum and seeing the primary artifact, the golden ram’s horn, poised on a pedestal the centerpiece of the room. Vera didn’t think it possible for her to sleep this night. She had already thought herself fortunate. Her doctorate had given her the chance to travel the world and immerse herself in diverse and fascinating cultures. Although all archeologists hope for a spectacular find, she had been content with the opportunity to experience marvelous glimpses into past civilizations and view relics from antiquity.
Phoebe and Jeff each had a small tent but ended up in the same one after Vera was in bed. After a while, Phoebe and Jeff left his tent to walk around and went down into the cave and under the canopy to inspect the curled horn.
***
The blast instilled terror! The sound was deafening and reverberated throughout the cave system and beyond, echoing around the boulders, seeming to increase in volume. It was terrifying. Once the loud crashing of falling rubble and tumbling wall ceased, only Phoebe’s hysterical screaming remained.
Vera noticed there was a total cave-in, and the inner cave entrance to the horn chamber had collapsed. All access to the horn chamber was blocked. The limestone wall the work area was constructed against had collapsed and the work table could not be seen, the condition of the body unknown. A wave of panic rushed over her.
Focusing on the still-screaming Phoebe, Vera ran over and saw Jeff’s body lying prone, his fingers still wrapped around the glowing horn. THE HORN GLOWED! Jeff must have blown it, and suffered the consequences. His eyes were open but unfocused. He looked like he was awake but didn’t respond to stimuli. Vera checked for a pulse. He was alive.
Vera shook Phoebe to get her to stop her screeching and set the diggers to work trying to haul away the debris from the landslide. One of the diggers crossed himself, turned, and fled screaming in Greek. The other two men got to work. Phoebe, stunned, hovered over Jeff, trying to wake him.
Unnoticed, Vera’s laptop showed a tiny red light indicating the camera switched on.
Vera made a cell call to their nearest contact and ordered an ambulance. Leaving Phoebe with Jeff, she instructed her to gently open his fingers and release the horn, cushion it and secure it in a duffle. Then to begin documenting the event in her video catalog. It seemed futile now. Every time they succeeded in clearing a bit of rubble away, another onslaught of falling rock fell back down. Vera desperately wanted to find the body or what was left of it. The ambulance came and went leaving them disheartened.
****
E felt the presence fill him. Instinctually he looked in the mirror. He liked to watch his possessions. A golden aura surrounded him as it had so many times before. The divine energy filled him and renewed his faith, instilling him with purpose. His breathing slowed and became rhythmic. He watched as his lips involuntarily moved to speak the words of the divine he served.
“You have been called.”
“I heed your call.”
“My horn has been blown. Seek it.”
“I will seek it.”
“Only you are worthy to retrieve it.”
“I will bring you your prize and the unworthy shall be judged.”
“Go now my vessel and know I am always with you.”
“Your will be done.”
The faithful watched as the aura faded from view and the enveloping consciousness withdrew. E knew where to go without being told. It was always this way. The divine presence filled him with the knowledge he needed to complete each calling.
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