The forbidden temple, p.17
The Forbidden Temple, page 17
part #16 of Sean Wyatt Series
Kuldhara was a desolate place, barren and unwelcoming. Upon first glance, Sean understood why people no longer lived there. The searing heat seemed to suck the moisture from his body like a droplet of rain to the cracked, dry earth. He’d been in hot places before, some worse than this, but he never complained. It was part of the job, in fact, all the jobs he’d had in the last several years. You never got used to bad weather or inhospitable climates, but whining about it didn’t make it any better, so he kept his mouth shut and tried to focus on the task at hand.
The two women were a few steps ahead of them, leading the way through the maze-like village.
Most of the mud-brick walls were about five feet high; some were lower, only coming up to the three-foot mark. Tommy held a copy of the ruins’ blueprint in one hand, glancing down at it now and then to make sure they were going the right way. The truth was he was just as lost as the rest of them, save for Adriana, who always had a keen sense of direction.
Sean recalled getting lost in Lucerne, Switzerland once when he was there on vacation. He and several friends were visiting from the United States one summer, and he was separated from the group. He would have thought that with all the mountains, the fortress high up on the slopes, the river, and the unique architecture, that finding his way around that city wouldn’t have been a problem. Yet there Sean was, late one night, wandering around for an hour until he found his hotel, where everyone was laughing as he approached.
That experience was one of the reasons he was more than happy to let the women lead the way, though he was a little surprised Priya wasn’t familiar with the layout. Then again, it was a large country, and she’d been responsible for research in many regions. The odds were she’d missed a few.
Adriana led the way straight down an old passage that was littered with broken bricks and stray clumps of mortar. It all looked the same save for a few distinct differences with the layout of the dwellings. Most of them were nothing more than square structures pressed against each other to form what had to be tight living quarters.
Sean imagined what the village must have looked like when it was occupied at the height of civilization when children ran through the narrow streets and alleys, and the smells of turmeric, garlic, and chicken wafted above. It always struck him as odd that in most places like this, where time and Mother Nature had beaten the land, the roofs were usually nowhere to be seen. He’d thought about it before and was considering it again as they rounded a corner and proceeded down another channel of the maze. Finding a roof in the ruins of anything older than a few hundred years was usually rare, probably because timber rotted far faster than brick and mortar or stone. The materials were the kind that needed to be replaced semi-frequently.
He’d tried to be a good son through the years, helping his parents out financially when they needed it. They were both hard-working people, despite the fact they were retired and had been for nearly a decade. His mother, especially, struggled with relaxing and taking it easy. Those phrases weren’t in her vocabulary.
If she wasn’t working, she was busy with one of her many hobbies—which were actually miniature jobs in their own right. His father wasn’t as intense but still found himself taking on various jobs in his workshop, building furniture and cabinetry. Sean was fairly certain he’d spotted a new arc welder in his dad’s workshop the last time he’d visited. If his dad wanted to learn how to weld, that was up to him. As long as they were happy, Sean didn’t care.
He snapped his mind back to the moment and surveyed the land over the tops of the ruins surrounding them. He chuckled to himself. All those distracting thoughts, springing forth from an observation about roofs.
Tommy touched Sean on the shoulder and gave him a tug with one finger. It was his way of silently telling his friend to slow down for a second. Sean turned to him with a questioning expression on his face, eyebrows stitched together and a stern grip to his lips.
“Hold back,” Tommy said, watching as the women walked farther ahead, spreading the gap between them.
“What’s up, Schultzie?” Sean whispered.
“You really think we’re going to find something here? This place has been combed over more than Watergate.”
The question seemed to come out of left field. “Not sure, man. But we’ve been lots of places that were heavily searched where we still ended up finding something.
“And what’s up with Lidia?” Tommy changed the subject. “She’s kind of…I don’t know, rude?”
Sean hadn’t considered the woman much after their initial meeting when she’d picked up the group at the airport and subsequently dropped them off. He hadn’t seen her since. One of the guards that had been accompanying her was now, apparently, assigned to this trip.
Sean flashed a mischievous grin. “I think you have a girlfriend.” He winked as he said it.
Tommy rolled his eyes. “No, dork. Not like that. I mean, what’s up with her? She sure didn’t seem friendly. Almost like she doesn’t want us here.”
“I’m sure we were just an inconvenience to her. You’ve run sites like that before. It’s a lot to coordinate. The logistics must be a bear to manage.”
“They can be, but again you’re missing my point,” Tommy hissed.
“How is June anyway?” Sean dug one more nail into his friend’s patience.
“She’s fine. Would you stay on topic?”
Sean snorted.
The two women were busy talking as they made the next left in the maze, apparently unaware that the men had fallen behind.
“Sure. What is your point?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Tommy glared at his friend.
Sean’s answer was a blank stare signaling he didn’t know where this was going.
Tommy sighed, exasperated. “Doesn’t she seem suspicious to you?”
Sean’s unknowing gaze turned skeptical. “Why, because she wasn’t as cordial as you’d have liked? She’s not a concierge or a valet, Schultzie. She’s got a job to do, and the three of us interrupted it. I wouldn’t be all cupcakes and rainbows, either.”
“Maybe,” Tommy relented. “Still, there’s something up with her. I can feel it.”
Sean’s eyebrows lifted, enhancing his unspoken skepticism. “You keep holding on to that feeling, pal.”
They turned the corner and almost walked into the women.
Adriana issued a chastising glare. “Why are you two walking so slow?”
“Sorry,” Tommy said, clearing his throat. “Just…taking in the sights.”
She wasn’t buying the explanation, but Adriana decided not to press the issue.
“It should be just ahead,” Priya said. “Whatever it is.”
There was doubt in her voice, and she didn’t try to cover it up. Priya hadn’t said much on the journey here. She’d spent most of her time on a laptop or her phone. The three visitors figured she was working, and so they didn’t bother her. They could only imagine how much was on her plate, on top of driving them out to the middle of nowhere to investigate something that may or may not have been there.
Sean had gently suggested that she stay at the dig site and let them handle it. He’d wanted to say, “leave it to the professionals,” but that would have given off the wrong signals.
When she’d insisted on coming after his toned-down recommendation, he didn’t fight it.
Still, he couldn’t help but get the feeling she was trying to push some kind of guilt on them. That sort of thing bounced off Sean.
Straight ahead, the remnants of the corridor rose to a crumbling archway.
“That’s it,” Priya said, pointing at the entrance.
The four passed through it and found themselves in a considerable area. It was far larger than the rest of the homes in the village, at least by a factor of ten. The room stretched twenty yards from left to right and was about half as wide. One end pointed to the east, while the other ran to the west. There was a fire pit made from red and brown rocks in the center. It appeared to be the only thing untouched by the last few hundred years.
“What is this place?” Adriana asked. She turned her head 360 degrees, assessing the space.
“A temple,” Priya answered in a flat tone. “This was the town’s temple to Vishnu.”
A pall of reverence settled over them for a moment, but it didn’t last long. The oppressive heat brought them back to the task at hand.
“I hope you know what you’re looking for,” Priya said, crossing her arms. “Would be a shame to have come all the way out here for nothing.”
Sean stepped over a broken column that had tipped over long ago. It lay across the floor from south to north, shattered in two places. He moved toward the western side of the structure, his eyes scanning the wall for a clue.
“That’s part of it,” Tommy said as he moved to the opposite wall and mimicked Sean’s search. “Sometimes, we travel great distances and end up with nothing.”
Adriana stayed close to Sean, moving silently alongside him like a shadow. She remained quiet on the subject, choosing instead to focus on what she could see and hear around her. Her senses had saved her more than once, and out here, exposed in the desert among these ancient ruins, she had a sickening feeling that they were being watched. She knew Sean felt it, too, though he was trying to play it off with his banter and by focusing on finding whatever it was Patel had alluded to in his journal.
Her eyes flitted to the wall and the half windows that still remained. These walls were taller than most of those in the village. Around the entire area, the structures had collapsed over time, leaving the homes little more than a third of their original height. The temple walls, however, had remained largely intact and were still above their heads. That made seeing an approaching threat a serious problem.
“I’m going to head back here,” Adriana whispered, jerking a thumb toward the door.
Sean’s eyes flicked to her, and he immediately understood from the expression on her face. He gave a nod.
Adriana left him and wandered back to the doorway, slipping through as Priya’s eyes were focused on Tommy as he made his way to the northwestern corner of the structure.
“I doubt you’re going to find anything here.” Priya pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her nose.
Sean ignored her statement, hiding his own concerns behind the reflective finish of his Oakley Turbines.
“It would have been pilfered a hundred times over,” she went on. “Archaeologists have been here. Thieves probably went through it before they got here. Anything of value is long gone.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Tommy said. “But we have to leave no stone unturned.”
Adriana listened from the doorway to the temple, her eyes narrow against the glare of the sun. Her sunglasses weren’t as dark as Sean’s, though her eyes weren’t as sensitive to bright light as his. She panned the horizon over the ruined walls, making sure no one was approaching with malicious intentions.
Within the temple, Sean turned back and made his way through the rubble toward the other side of the room. It didn’t take him long before he noticed the anomaly on the northeastern wall, situated in the center of the crumbling brickwork.
“What’s that?” he asked, motioning to a stone tablet.
The object stood only a few, perhaps three feet high. It was fixed into a slot in the floor with dirt and rocks gathered around its base. The tablet was almost flush to the wall, only separated by a narrow gap of less than an inch.
He worked his way through more clumps of debris on the floor and then stopped at the tablet, bending down to get a closer look.
Tommy joined him near the object and gazed at it, crouching next to his friend. They scanned the words they didn’t understand and then noted the engraving at the bottom. A circle about four inches in diameter was chiseled there. It appeared to be nearly perfect in circumference, a task not easily accomplished, especially with tools from the Old World.
Priya wandered over and stood behind them. “They’re scriptures from the Vedas,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “They speak of Lord Vishnu and his purpose.”
“To maintain balance,” Sean said.
“To maintain it, yes, but also to enforce it.”
“Enforce?” Sean looked up at her over his shoulder.
“Yes. It was his duty to make certain that balance was interrupted by no one.”
Tommy’s eyes lingered on the circle at the bottom. “What about this?” he asked, motioning to the carving.
She shrugged. “Probably a symbol of the circle of life. Of course, it could be the sun. From what I see in the writing, it doesn’t say anything about it.”
Her answer didn’t impress either of the Americans.
Sean set his bag down and craned his neck to the side, getting a good look at the flat edge of the tablet. The stone was around two to three inches thick. Then he scanned the ground until he found what he was searching for.
He bent down and picked up a rock about the size of his fist made from hard sandstone. He scuffled back over to the tablet and reared back.
“Wait!” Priya nearly shouted. “What are you doing?”
Tommy did nothing to try to stop his friend. He could see where Sean was going with his line of thought and realized that if there was anything to find here, it was exactly where Sean thought it would be.
Sean whipped his hand around as though to smash the tablet with it—then stopped an inch from the surface. He grinned at Priya with mischief in his eyes. He tapped on the tablet with the rock. A hollow sound escaped from within.
Her eyebrows lowered. “It’s…hollow?”
Sean nodded and then as quickly as he’d done before, brought the rock back and then drove it forward again, bashing the tablet with the sharpest edge. The surface of the tablet, where the disc was carved, caved in. Sean grinned as he locked his focus on the newly created hole. Then, with greater care, he chipped away at the loose fragments still clinging to the rest of the tablet’s surface.
It only took him half a minute to have a cavity in the shape of the circle that had been there before.
“Well,” he said, “I guess the thieves didn’t take everything.”
He and the others stared into the recess at the glimmering object within. A golden disc with notches engraved at random intervals rested inside.
22
Los Angeles
“That’s the problem,” Adam confessed. His voice wavered, trembling like a child’s after being caught doing something wrong in a classroom.
“What’s the problem?” Brock pressed. “Replicating the process?”
“Actually, that’s not the only problem,” Elma interrupted. She’d been hovering over her computer in the corner since Brock arrived. She stood up and turned to face them. Her lips were red as blood. A thin veil of makeup on her face accented her sharp features. Her skin was pale, like that of someone who’d spent most of her time in a lab like this one, far away from the harmful rays of the sun.
She walked toward the two men with a bit of swagger to her stride. Her black skirt hung down just above the knees; the matching blouse under her lab coat was cut in a V just below the neck but revealed nothing that would distract any of the men from their work or the discussion. It wasn’t to say she wasn’t attractive. Brock thought she was beautiful and was fairly certain Adam would never complain about his partner’s appearance.
“What is the problem, then?” Brock asked, keeping rhythm with the conversation.
“Replication requires the weapon have some kind of power source.”
“So?” Brock rolled his shoulders. “It worked in India.”
She moved closer to the trident and removed some of the wires that were taped to it. “That’s because it had been charging there for hundreds, likely thousands, of years. If Shiva or whoever it belonged to put it there long ago, this thing has been building up a powerful charge all that time.”
Brock didn’t follow. “I don’t understand. There wasn’t anything there to charge it.”
“And that brings me back to the superconductor idea,” Adam cut in. “In the ancient world, they had an understanding of static electricity that we are only now beginning to understand.”
“I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface,” Elma added.
“True,” Adam gave her a sideways nod. “Be that as it may, the people or whatever they were that built this understood that there are pools of electricity that exist all over the world.”
“Pools?”
“Yes. You can’t see them, but they are definitely there, especially in dry, arid places. One of the more well-known regions is Egypt’s Nile River Valley and the Sinai Peninsula.”
Brock stared at him, still waiting for the point.
Adam sensed his urgency. “Anyway, we figure that one of those pools must have existed in that temple and powered this trident. So, when you pushed the button, you released that wave of energy and sent the surrounding area into a raving-mad chaos.”
“Let me get this straight so I make sure I’m understanding what you’re telling me. The static pools aside, you have no way to make this thing power up?”
Adam’s head slowly turned side to side. “Unfortunately, no, not yet. We’re working on it, though. We just need a little time. That’s all.”
Brock chewed on his lower lip. It didn’t do much to suppress his frustration. He calmed his anger by reminding himself that it wasn’t their fault. This was an ancient piece of technology that hadn’t been seen in centuries, probably longer. No one on the planet would understand how it worked; at least that’s what he told himself.
He sensed his face flushing red and noticed the two scientists’ expressions. Adam was unnerved, while Elma appeared to be concerned—but not for her own safety.
