My lord frowned, seeing my reasoning, but still disagreeing. ‘What you put me through was my own damned fault for lying to you; it had nothing to do with any curse!’
‘But you might have got away with the deception had your luck been better,’ I countered.
Lord Devere was becoming rather exasperated by my argument, and my concern for the loss of the ring was arousing his jealous streak. ‘It is not as though you have lost all your psychic talent,’ he said. ‘You have only lost Albray’s services, and if you intend to keep the Lady du Lac in the closet then I do not see what the problem is.’
‘You’re happy about this, aren’t you? I should never have taken it off.’ For a moment, in my frustrated state, I even suspected my lord might have arranged for the stone to go missing.
‘I know what you are implying,’ Lord Devere cautioned. ‘And although it is true that I would not be sad to see the back of your ghostly friend, I would never purposely destroy your peace of mind in this fashion. If I knew where the stone was right now, believe me, I would tell you.’
My lord did hate it when we were at odds. I reined in my frustration and explained what my real concern was.
‘If Albray’s curse is ever to be lifted by one of my descendants as predicted, I need to find that stone. For without it, how will one of our great-great-granddaughters ever be able to contact Albray? Let alone help him!’
‘Can you not summon him to another stone?’ Lord Devere suggested.
‘I do not know,’ I admitted. ‘I would have to find such a stone again…it was only by the luck of the Goddess that I found the first one!’ I began to pace, hating myself for jeopardising Albray’s one hope of future happiness, after all he had done for me. ‘I should have left it in its box at home. If I had, it would be safe now. And what if whoever found the stone recognises it for the tool it really is?’ This was the most horrifying prospect of all. ‘Anyone versed in the Craft would immediately suspect its value.’
Lord Devere had heard enough. ‘Now you are getting carried away—witchcraft is hardly all the rage here in the heart of Islam. I feel sure Kazem will find the stone and return it to you in the morning.’
My husband stripped off his boots and collapsed onto the bed.
‘I wish I shared your optimism,’ I said, and continued my aimless wandering back and forth, albeit at a slower pace. As much as I wished Lord Devere to be right in this case, my psychic premonition told me that the recovery of my treasure was not going to be so simple.
I barely slept that night, or for several nights after. I was not the kind of woman to pine, but the thought of Albray lost forever in the Netherworld, his quest unrealised, his soul unable to reincarnate, kept causing my eyes to well with tears.
It was with a heavy heart that I travelled back down the Euphrates towards the Mound of Pitch. Kazem had ordered the palace searched from top to bottom and anyone questioned who might have come in contact with my lost stone, but no one had seen it.
‘I do hate to see you so depressed.’ Lord Devere offered me a cup of water. ‘Especially over another man.’
My sights were transfixed on the far bank of the river, where some children were frolicking in the water. I was thinking about my own children and how much I adored them. Albray had never had children or known the bliss of married life, and in all likelihood now he never would.
‘Mrs Devere?’ My husband nudged my shoulder with his.
I looked to him. ‘Sorry, did you say something?’
He rolled his eyes and placed the cup of water in my hand. ‘This is so unlike you. Can you not trust that your charm was lost for a good reason? I mean, you have always had the luck of the Goddess with you, why should now prove any different? Perhaps there is someone else out there who needs Albray’s help more than you do? Or perhaps this is the cosmos’s way of telling you that you should be utilising your own skills and not relying on outside forces to solve your problems for you?’
‘Is that what you think?’ I took offence, although part of me knew this was only to resist accepting that my lord might be right. ‘I would not have lasted two seconds against those swordsmen without Albray’s aid.’
‘I know that.’ Lord Devere was being very patient with me. ‘What I am saying is that if you did not have the Albray option, you would have figured out a way to sweet-talk the Shah and get what you wanted, in the same manner you have succeeded for the past twenty years without any help from your ghosts.’
‘Well, I do not have the choice any more.’ I breathed a huge sigh to prevent my tears welling anew. ‘And I have failed a dear friend.’ That was what really hurt.
‘You cannot say that for sure.’ My husband placed a hand on mine. ‘You may still be able to reestablish contact with the knight via another stone. Why be defeated before you have exhausted every avenue?’
Now he really was right and I hung my head, ashamed of my pessimistic attitude. ‘I am just so remorseful,’ I confessed. My heart was so heavy that it felt as if it had dropped into oblivion and left a gaping hole in my chest.
‘I know you are,’ he sympathised. ‘And I was the one who asked you to take off the charm, so how do you think I feel?’ I knew he was not mocking me. Although Albray was not his favourite soul, I could tell Lord Devere truly felt bad about what had happened. ‘Yet you only feel remorse because you choose to react that way to this situation,’ he continued, quoting my own philosophy back to me. ‘You could just as easily choose to know that somehow everything will turn out for the best, and that, even if there is a curse, it will only have as much power over you as you choose to give it.’
‘You are right,’ I conceded, sniffling back my emotion and breathing another great sigh to release the lump of guilt that had been squatting in my chest for days. ‘Anything is possible if I will just allow it to be.’
‘That’s the spirit! No pun intended.’ He tapped my water cup, urging me to drink before I got dehydrated.
I took a sip and continued with the attempt to turn around my negative state of mind. ‘I have been up against worse than a curse in the past. I will find Albray again, one way or another,’ I said, feeling decidedly more optimistic.
‘I so look forward to that,’ my lord replied.
I gave him a look that implied I was well aware he was being sarcastic.
‘No, truly,’ he insisted. ‘Then I might be able to get you to think of something else.’
‘I am sorry.’ I decided it was high time I changed the subject. ‘I wonder how much progress Levi has made in our absence.’
‘You refer to the dig site, I gather?’ My husband wore a cheeky smile, unable to hide his pride that his son was so attractive to women.
‘I have been wondering about his progress with Miss Koriche too,’ I admitted. ‘I hope it is not her intention to break his heart.’
‘I think it rather impressive that Levi could seduce such a woman at all,’ my husband said. ‘Eastern women are far more chaste than the women of Europe—’
Lord Devere bit his tongue as he noticed the expression on my face. ‘Is that right?’ I said, pretending to find the comment insulting.
‘What I meant to say was…’ He had a think about it and realised there was no fixing the statement. ‘Miss Koriche is just so closed to most people, and yet with Levi…’ he said, and shrugged.
‘Yes, it is a little odd,’ I agreed. Why was this the case? Because he was younger than the rest of us and more easily trusted?
‘Not to worry,’ Lord Devere said. ‘In a few days, we shall hear all the news right from the horse’s mouth.’
‘I hope the horse is not still mad at me,’ I said. I regretted that I had not made my peace with Levi before leaving—that was how disputes festered.
‘Levi can never stay angry with you for long, you know that.’
‘But I have never come between Levi and his lady love before,’ I added.
‘Well, if we are going into “but ifs”…’ my lord grinned. ‘But if the situati
on has righted itself in our absence, all shall be forgiven, especially as you have managed to get our permit extended. I think that is a much more positive scenario to meditate upon.’
He actually drew a laugh out of me. ‘You are in fine mental form today, my lord. You put me to shame.’
My husband was pleased to see me laugh, and it felt good to let my worries go for the moment.
We arrived at the Mound of Pitch to find the site completely deserted. Far from my troubles being over, I feared they were just beginning. The only movement we could see was that of an eerie wind scattering sand about the excavation and its little village.
‘Oh my…what has happened?’ My first thought was that bandits or the local law enforcement agents had raided the site.
‘There does not seem to be any sign of a struggle,’ Taylor said, having had a quick look around the village. ‘Nor does there appear to be anyone here. I am guessing that we have been shut down.’
‘Against the Shah’s orders?’ I thought that unlikely. ‘The kad-khuda has surely received the royal decree by now?’
My husband exited the site house, where he had been conducting a thorough search. I had not seen his expression so grave in a long time. ‘Levi is not here either,’ he said, ‘and all the household servants are gone.’
‘Maybe Levi is down in the dig?’ I suggested.
We all made haste towards the pit. As much as I did not want to concede that the curse of losing my ringstone might have something to do with this strange twist of fate, it seemed a rather bizarre coincidence.
In the second room of the ancient dwelling we had been excavating, the hole in the floor had dropped to new depths and the walls had been reinforced with timbers. A rope and pulley were rigged up to an overhead beam, providing the means for an individual to lower himself down. We could not see the bottom of the hole, it just dropped into darkness.
‘Well, someone has been very busy.’ Taylor was obviously impressed by our son’s progress.
‘Levi!’ I called down into the dark depths, but there was no reply.
‘I believe a torch might be in order,’ Lord Devere suggested.
Mr Taylor retrieved the said item from the site house and, setting it alight, we dropped the flaming brand into the shaft. It landed about thirty feet below us and then clattered off out of sight.
‘Stairs,’ Mr Taylor deduced. ‘I am all for going down.’
‘I shall go.’ Lord Devere removed his jacket. ‘It is my son that is missing.’
‘He is my son too,’ I said, not about to be left out.
‘You can be right behind me for all I care, Mrs Devere,’ my husband said, taking hold of the rope. ‘But I am going first.’
Mr Taylor lowered Lord Devere down, then aided me to descend after him. Fortunately I was attired suitably from the camel ride back to the site. Once I was safely down, Taylor threw us several unlit torches, which we could ignite from the first torch, which was still flaming a little further down the stairs. Lord Devere then helped lower Mr Taylor down to join us.
‘These stairs are stone,’ I commented, noting the rarity of the material. Immediately I remembered the priestess who had owned the serpent comb, and her dash up these very stairs before they were buried and forgotten for aeons.
‘The walls are also stone.’ Taylor could hardly believe what he was seeing. ‘Such extravagance for a mere stairway.’ He looked excited at the prospect of finding great treasure.
‘That could explain why this structure is not filled with earth like the rest of the ziggurat,’ Lord Devere speculated. ‘The walls are resilient enough to have held back sand and flood.’
‘Until now,’ I said. ‘Or rather, until Levi unearthed this passage.’ My anxiety for my son’s welfare was paining my chest more with every passing second.
‘Let us see where our unusual stairway leads, shall we?’ Taylor said. ‘With any luck we will find our missing crew.’
The stairs, constructed from huge stone blocks, led deep underground; where they plateaued stood a large arched entrance. Expertly chiselled into the stone were ancient glyphs that I could not read. However, by tracing my finger over the inscription, I was able to discern the psychic imprint of the scribe who had originally recorded the message in the stone. I spoke the translation aloud: ‘Let no man enter this Court who has not prepared himself to appease the great scribe and his mistress, she who holds the divine key. In the Halls of Amenti, the righteous will earn the blessing to bask in the sweet vitality of the sacred flower. The unrighteous will never leave this Court.’
‘You have many hidden talents, Lady Devere,’ Mr Taylor commented, surprised that I seemed to share my son’s aptitude for deciphering ancient languages.
I sidestepped his curiosity. ‘Oh, I have picked up a thing or two in my travels.’
‘This warning does not sound very promising for the likes of me,’ Taylor joked. ‘You two may fare better.’
‘The question is, how did Levi fare?’ Lord Devere raised his torch and moved on through the archway.
The immensity of the next chamber took my breath away—the light of three flaming torches did nothing to fill the huge edifice. The stone walls tapered upwards to a central flattened ceiling that was the same width and length as the walkway ahead of us. Six massive stone columns on each side of the thoroughfare supported the great stone blocks of the ceiling.
‘How the hell did they erect this?’ Taylor shook his head, stumped, just as scholars had been doing for ages regarding just about every ancient structure known to man.
‘Perhaps levitation was big in ancient Mesopotamia?’ I suggested.
Mr Taylor assumed I was joking and gave a laugh; Lord Devere knew I was quite serious.
On the inside of the huge columns, facing the walkway, were carved images of six goddesses. On the opposing side of the columns, facing the outer stone walls, were carved the likenesses of the corresponding six gods.
‘The goddesses facing inward would seem to indicate that this shrine was tended and watched over by females,’ I noted out loud. ‘I am guessing that this was a Court of the Dragon Queens—the Princesses and Priestesses of Ur who studied the teachings that the scribe, Thoth, allegedly inscribed on fifteen emerald tablets. The scribe was the servant of the great mother, known as Ninharsag or Hathor, and she in turn protected Thoth and guided him towards enlightenment.’
‘Okay.’ Mr Taylor raised both brows, open to run with my theory as he obviously had little knowledge of the treasures and texts he was digging from the ground.
I could not see what was at the end of the walkway, but to the side of the pillars, along the outer walls that the gods faced, we discovered a wide stone canal that appeared to have been bricked up on both sides, and most likely at the far ends as well.
‘I imagine they were water canals once,’ Taylor commented.
‘It is said that the ancient city of Ur was entirely surrounded by a huge moat, which fed canals that ran through the great ziggurat and its splendid outlying city,’ I said. ‘So your theory is highly likely.’
We made our way cautiously along the walkway towards the darkness at the far end. Beyond the pillars arose a huge statue of stone—a sculpture of a woman’s torso, with the head of a bull, and between the great arced horns on her head was a sun disk.
Taylor smiled as we admired the massive centrepiece that encompassed nearly the entire end wall of the structure. ‘Even I recognise which goddess this sculpture personifies.’ He looked to me, impressed by my earlier commentary. ‘I now see why Lord Malory sent you here, my lady.’
Suddenly a light appeared ahead and we all stopped in our tracks.
‘Levi?’ I called.
The open flame, which appeared to be a torch, began waving back and forth. I sensed movement behind me and turned to see Lord Devere waving his torch about.
‘A reflection,’ I realised.
Taylor peered at the reflection, which was still some way off. ‘The flame in the mirror seems so
mewhat richer in colour,’ he said. He approached the mirrored surface expectantly, and when his torch illuminated its material we all gasped. ‘Gold,’ Mr Taylor said, stunned. The gold formed two doors on the massive statue of Hathor, where the goddess’s womb was located. Before Mr Taylor could reach out to touch them, the doors retracted into the walls. Flabbergasted, he stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Impossible!’
‘Not impossible,’ Lord Devere corrected. ‘There are reports of such doors in a temple in ancient Alexandria. The deception was based on a trigger under the floor that set a counterweight into motion, causing the doors to part.’
My husband walked over to where Taylor stood and pointed to the floor. ‘What did I tell you?’
In his hurry to get to the golden doors, Taylor had inadvertently stepped onto a long timber strip of flooring that continued beyond the entry to the next chamber.
‘Once you step off the trigger, the doors will close behind you.’ Lord Devere moved forward again. ‘You scare far too easily, my friend.’
As we passed through the arched doorway into the womb of Hathor, the chamber within lit up around us, the walls comprised of what appeared to be solid gold tablets. These huge rectangular blocks varied in width and were positioned to form semicircles on both sides of the circular room.
Out of curiosity I counted the tablets. ‘Fifteen,’ I said.
‘They are not emerald, though,’ Lord Devere stated the obvious, ‘so they are clearly not the Emerald Tablets of Thoth.’
‘But they could be very lovely copies,’ I suggested. ‘Thoth did travel extensively and probably recorded his insights wherever he went.’
In the centre of the room was a raised round pool of liquid. When ignited, it lit the entire chamber. The strange thing was, at the moment of illumination I heard a sound like that of a large group of people drawing a long, well-needed breath.
‘Oh my Goddess!’ Taylor’s eyes watered with joy at the sight of all the gold tablets, each one meticulously engraved with blocks of ancient text. ‘This is beyond all—’
‘Shh!’ Both Lord Devere and myself ordered him to silence.