12.21.12: The Vessel (The Altunai Annals)

  The Altunai Annals I

  For Mary Ellen

  12.21.12:

  THE VESSEL

  The Altunai Annals

  Killian McRae

  Copyright ©2010, 2013 by Killian McRae

  All Rights Reserved. Except as specified by U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or media or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the author.

  Tulipe Noire Press

  P.O. Box 815, Palo Alto, CA 94302

  www.tulipenoirepress.com

  Third eBook Edition, December 2013

  Second eBook Edition, October 2011

  This work represents a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  The twins broke loose of the reeds, squealing in delight, while their younger brother sloshed through the mud behind them. The children had been so patient in the trek across the desert, and in high summer, no less. Their older half-brother, however, sneered at them from the shade of the stout palm on the edge of the oasis.

  Ethiopia hadn’t been part of her plan, but neither had Cleopatra’s death. It was only temporary, she reminded herself. She needed but clear away her wards while Alexandria was brought under control. She also wouldn’t deny there was a temptation to pass onward, to flee. Though the Vessel swore to the dying queen that she would protect the royal progeny, she wasn’t fool enough to suppose that even she could outrun Rome. Nor, it turned out, was there cause.

  Octavian’s interest in the children took her pleasantly aback. He had offered not only amnesty, but amity. Cleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios, and Ptolemy were to become wards of his throne. If the Vessel agreed to the arrangement, she could stay on to serve as governess under Octavian’s sister’s watchful eye. Part of her loathed the idea of Cleopatra’s children under the jurisdiction of Marc Antony’s former wife, but she also understood the safety of the Emperor’s aegis.

  The Vessel rested herself next to the eldest, securing the opening of her satchel to be certain the statuette stayed within. “Pharaoh is consumed, methinks. What troubles you, Caesarian?”

  The stately woman beside him seemed unfazed by either the heat or the distance. He hated how resolute and immutable she was. Venom from his words did drip.

  “My mother is slain, and her lover. The breath of the Senate in Rome is bated and their throats parched, longing to taste my blood, and you think this should have no effect on me?”

  She had always appreciated the prince’s frankness, though it was clearly a trait he had inherited from his father, Julius. His mother had long ago learned to employ the elasticity of the vague.

  “They are heavy burdens for a man so small in years, but I do not see how concerning yourself with Rome’s wishes will benefit.” Her gaze grew somber and her words sincere. “You have my word that you will never become subservient to Rome.”

  He spat upon the ground, his lip curling in disgust. His half-siblings were too consumed in their own sport to take notice.

  “Your word means little. You promised my mother that you would not allow Rome to shame her, but Octavian has had her life. Now you swear to me that I will never be subservient to them? How can I be, if I am dead?”

  He stared off into the distance.

  “My mother may have never caught on to the way you parse words to keep promises, but I have. How far behind are Octavian’s soldiers?”

  She shied her eyes away, focusing on the splashing water. “I could see to it that your death is painless. It is within my power.”

  “Is it within your power to remove the pain that has followed me the whole of my life?” he asked dryly. She shook her head. Caesarian pointed to the frolicking trio. “Then swear to me you will do your best when I am gone to keep it from theirs.”

  “As long as Cleopatra’s blood flows through the hearts of men, this line shall not break.”

  A smile flickered across his face. “No good ever came from involving my mother and men’s hearts. I do not expect any measure of time to change that.”

  07.01.09

  Prologue

  The damned sand got everywhere: in her shoes, in her hair, in her mouth. Even in her ... Well, even in her you-know-what. Christine Smyth despised Egypt. She hated heat. She hated the desert. She hated hookahs and kebabs and overcrowded Cairo city buses. But she especially hated sand.

  “Hey, Chrissie. Everything okay down there?”

  Yet, above all that, she loved Sheppard.

  Christine craned her head and peered up through the blinding portal of light. The late morning sun radiated unyielding rays and silhouetted Shep’s head, making him look like the medieval angelic illustrations she’d studied in college. Not that her husband of two years conformed to any definitions of angelic and holy with which she was familiar. Kind and compassionate, he did love her dearly, but Prof. Sheppard Smyth was not without his vices.

  One particular vice, and the reason she currently sat, attempting to decipher two-thousand-year-old hieroglyphs in an excavated burial chamber under the summer sun on the outskirts of Alexandria, was his dogged sense of determination. Shep had set out to prove his theory, come Heaven or Hellfire. Never mind that his whole historic apostasy was based on one tiny fragment of papyrus discovered in an Ethiopian church vault. On the surface, the glyphs didn’t amount to much. They recorded the arrival of passing luminaries and guests to the court of one of the minor rulers in an area south of Egypt, right before the region was consumed by Rome. This specific entry, however, told of the arrival of three children—two boys and a girl—and their female guardian. The text claimed they had sought asylum after “their mother had been struck down by the Eagle,” and after their older brother had been “rendered a martyr to the two lands.”

  The priest who made the discovery hadn’t thought much of it, but knew the document was old. Shep also suspected the priest was aware it could be valuable. The local antiquities smugglers knew of the good professor’s interest in Egyptian artifacts, and that he wasn’t opposed to breaking international law and paying top dollar to obtain pieces that struck his fancy. Shep had received an email with a picture on a Monday night. Tuesday morning, he was aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight bound for Addis Ababa. “Fate,” he’d said. “A sign that I’m not crazy, and this proves it.”

  Christine loved her husband too much to point out, even in hindsight, how a good researcher first gathered facts, then proved his theory, rather than the other way around. Shep couldn’t be turned, no matter how much others tried. Since early in his career, he insisted there was no way the Cleopatra he knew from history, an obsession of his since childhood, would resort to suicide. The Roman historians and countless fantasy novelists had been so successful in inventing the “facts” of her life, why should the facts of her death be any different? This small entry had too many similarities for him to chalk it up to coincidence: the children, the era, the reference made and role assigned to the Eagle. The forces of history had seemingly managed to pull off the greatest murder cover up of all time.

  Such a discovery would assure his place amongst the greats of his field—if he could prove it. It would have been an open and shut case, if the Hollywood and heretical story of her death weren’t so infamou
s. Nonetheless, that made the discovery all the more monumental. His colleagues had laughed him out of the professional community, but Shep knew it was true, deep down in his gut. It was almost ... instinctive. Which was why Christine was currently staring at some of the last hieroglyphs ever etched by ancient Egyptian scribes. Shep believed it, and she believed in him. Besides, she reminded herself, it was this Shep’s supposed fool’s errand that had brought them together.

  Christine examined her etchings, recording the carvings before her on the crinkled sketch paper. An hour and she could flee this steam pot crypt. All that remained was adding some color and figuring out what it all meant. The missing sections in the stonework made deciphering difficult. Shep was more versed in the ancient tongues; he wouldn’t have such a hard time once she was finished and he got a chance to look in detail. It would be as easy as reading the New York Times for him. There were a few characters in particular she was unfamiliar with, ones she hadn’t seen before.

  “Shep? I think I left my pastels in the Jeep. Would you—” Her eyes focused past the sunlight to catch Shep’s smile.

  “Of course, I’ll get them. It’s my job, right? To bring color to your life?”

  “Yeah, and some water wouldn’t hurt,” she shouted back as his head disappeared.

  Christine leaned back and closed her eyes, enjoying a momentary reprieve coming from a hint of a breeze that had managed to swirl about in the chamber. Her sense of relief as it caressed her face was short lived; in her relaxed posture, she neglected to hold down the leaves of paper on her lap. They danced across the floor, taunting her ability to retrieve them.

  “God dammit!” She leapt off her stool to catch them, determined not to crawl around on the gritty floor any longer than necessary.

  Swatting down her hand, she seized them. The top page flexed in the breeze, and she cursed aloud at the crease down the middle, bisecting the confusing glyphs.

  And there it was, plain as day.

  Christine could hardly believe her eyes. She hadn’t been able to decipher the glyphs because they were written both forwards and backwards, one the mirror image of the other.

  And as she looked at the message now so plainly understood, she knew in an instant what it really spelled out: Shep’s proof.

  -Ψ-

  A scream cut the desert wind. Christine’s voice prickled Shep’s ears. The pit was maybe two hundred meters away. Fear made time slow, made the distance seem longer, as he bolted in its direction, leaving a trail of pastel swatches on the desert floor. She cried out again, sending his heart and his legs pumping. It wasn’t until the third time her voice rang out that he realized Christine was actually saying something.

  “Beside us! Shep, it’s beside us!”

  “Hold on, Chrissie. I’m almost there! I’m c—”

  The shaking vibrated his whole person; even his insides trembled. Scared at first that the shifting sands beneath his feet signaled a sink hole, it took Shep a fraction of a moment to realize the truth. Egypt wasn’t known widely for its earthquakes, and he cursed fate that it should strike now when Chrissy needed him.

  With wide eyes, Shep watched as the entry to the chamber loosened around the edges. It took only seconds for the earth to fold the site back into its embrace. The quake wasn’t intense—later he would learn it registered at a mere 5.9—but it was enough to crumble the ancient walls, dried and weakened from exposure.

  It took two days to recover Christine’s body.

  12.15.12

  Chapter 1

  With a sigh, he threw the greenbacks and one more meaningless night down on the bar. His cash was gone. He wasn’t sure if he was still in possession of his keys. He could only vaguely recall where he’d parked the car when he’d gone for “just a drink or two” several hours ago.

  Last call had come and gone, but despite his best efforts the memories remained. He should have known better; Christine’s face was burned too deeply into his soul for the alcohol to reach. The best Shep could hope for was to achieve numbness. He measured his success against his current situation. A guy sitting down the bar eyed him with repulsion, but the good professor didn’t give a damn. He hadn’t showered in five days, and even he noticed his own stench. Who the hell cared? On the flat screen, some Barbie-impersonating reporter gabbed on and on about the Mayan calendar and the end of ... yada, yada, yada.

  Numbness achieved. Whooptie-fricking-doo. Not that it would last. It never did. His inherited trait was both a blessing and curse; Shep could get drunker than a Toyko businessmen, but he sobered up quicker than a priest on Sunday.

  He rose, then faltered, as the flash of her eyes and sienna lips played across the inside of his eyelids. Christine’s eyes, so unique—hazel irises with a rim of amber around the edges. For the past year he had borne her memory like a shield against living, wore it as a cloak against happiness.

  The bartender gave Shep, steadying himself on the shaky barstool, the once-over. “Need us to call you a cab, Doc?”

  He hated being called Doc; it made him feel old. He was only thirty-seven, damn it. Maybe not young but hardly prepping his application for the AARP. That’s why he always had the students call him “Professor Smyth” or, even better, just Shep.

  He returned the bartender’s glance and answered, only slightly slurred, “No, Nick, I’ll be fine.”

  The cold December air brought a tinge of sobriety when he stepped from the pub. Enough to get him home safely, anyway. The keys had been in his inside jacket pocket, just as usual. The car, parked in front of Lillie’s Flower Shop, just as usual. Twenty minutes later, he once again had defied both death and the watch of Beantown’s finest, stumbling into his one-bedroom townhome on Boston’s South End, feeling empty and alone. Just as usual.

  Shep surrendered to the couch, not even bothering to remove his coat. One shoe made it off, but then the other didn’t seem worth the time or effort. He needed sleep. He’d had enough for one day; he couldn’t let the crushing loneliness and stockade of memories the house held creep in on him before the alcohol’s effects faded. He closed his eyes and welcomed oblivion, praying that just this one night, he wouldn’t see her in his dreams.

  He couldn’t have slept more than an hour when the phone’s ringing broke the haven of night. The answering machine no longer worked; it lay in pieces in a box on the counter, smashed from when he had first heard Christine’s voice posthumously answer a call. She’d never been able to sell him on the convenience of voicemail. Shep championed analog all the way. He hoped the caller would give up, but no such luck.

  After the tenth ring, Shep rolled over and reluctantly rose. The route of navigation between his couch and his small home office had been cleared of obstacles some time ago. Pulling the old-fashioned desk rotary phone receiver off its base, he fought back an alcohol-induced belch.

  “Hello?”

  Silence. He waited.

  “Hello?” he repeated, this time with a hint of annoyance.

  “Is this … Professor Sheppard Smyth?”

  The south-of-the-border voice itched at his memories, but he couldn’t exactly place it.

  With his free hand, he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes. “Yes, this is he, though I’m not accustomed to taking phone calls at—” he focused on the grandfather clock in the corner “—three-thirty in the morning.”

  “Lo siento, but it couldn’t wait,” the caller continued, and the faint image of an olive-skinned man with a healthy black beard formulated in Shep’s mind. “It’s been a while, Shep, but I hope you remember me. This is Hector Gonzalez.”

  The name snapped into position as Shep’s mind pulled up the necessary files. Hector Gonzalez had obtained as much notoriety in the archaeology of Pre-Columbian cultures as Shep had in Ptolemaic Egypt. They had both risen to eminence in their fields after grad school. Whereas Shep counted himsel
f fortunate to have the tenacity of tenure that academia granted, Hector had recently gone the “clay for pay” route and into the world of corporate-funded digs. AKA, Hector took his orders from the bastard rich in search of antique trophies. Or so Shep had heard.

  After grad school, they hadn’t had much back and forth. A short email of condolences when Christine died had been their first, albeit one-sided, communiqué in four years. Shep had never replied. Why, then, was this man calling out of the blue and in the black of night?

  “Hector? Of course.” Shep tried to infuse an impression of I’m-still-a-professional-and-sober into his tone. “I remember, just wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

  He left, “in the middle of the night after years of not talking … don’t you have someone else to call for bail money?” at the back of his throat.

  “I know it’s late, so I’ll get to the point. I need help, and I’m working on borrowed time. I found something that doesn’t make sense. It just can’t be real, this thing. I need it verified. That it’s fake, I mean. I was wondering if you’d be available.”

  Shep worked through a yawn. “Now’s not a good time. I just finished teaching this term and was looking forward to—” being left alone to wallow in my own self-pity “—getting a little down time.”

  Hector continued as though Shep had said nothing, “The site’s undisturbed, and it dates back almost a thousand years. We also found some Arab and Norse artifacts in the same layer, but thank God he’s not interested in those. At least, I don’t think so. There’s no evidence of modern activity at that depth. Just come and tell me this one piece isn’t real, and I can get on with my work.”