Stealing Sacred Fire Read online

  A curl of worn, spiralling steps led down to the lower levels from where the king stood. It could be seen that before each doorway in the circular face of the rock, there was a narrow platform. The shaft was crawling with workers, their voices shrill yet strangely muffled. Wooden carriers, some empty, some full of rubble and broken artefacts, glided up and down the sheer stone face, via pulleys and ropes.

  A short man dressed in dusty khaki appeared over the ledge. His moustache was rimed in white powder, like snow, and also his black hair. He bowed to the king. ‘It is an honour to welcome you, great one.’ He brushed at his moustache self-consciously.

  The king nodded, looking past the man. He pointed. ‘This is impressive, Rashid. You have worked hard.’

  The man, who was the chief archaeologist of the dig, made a self-deprecating shrug. ‘All we needed to do was clear the upper levels. It was all waiting for us.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said the king, sticking out his lower lip. He waved his hand at the yawning chasm. ‘All the little openings down there. Where do they lead? Tombs?’

  The archaeologist smiled, but not too broadly. ‘No, great one. What you perceive as small openings are in fact very large. Twenty feet high, perhaps. They lead out into the city, which has lain hidden beneath the tell above for thousands of years.’

  ‘So what have you found?’

  The archaeologist gestured towards the steps. ‘If you would allow me to precede you, great one, I shall take you to it. Take care. We have set ropes into the wall for support, but the steps are still shallow and very worn.’ He did not mention the six workers who had already fallen to their deaths from the steps. As yet, the team had not penetrated to the bottom of the shaft.

  Slowly, the royal entourage made its way down the steps. Occasionally, the archaeologist would pause to indicate features of interest to the king. ‘At one time the whole of the walls would have been painted, but most of it has gone now. At least in this place. There are treasures to be found further within.’ They looked into some of the openings, but Rashid did not lead them inside.

  As they descended, Nimnezzar noticed that the air changed. It was no longer humid, but almost of blood heat. It smelled dry and faintly electric. He had expected mustiness, the stench of corpse-dust, perhaps a trace of ancient incense.

  ‘Here, great one.’ The archaeologist had paused on one of the ledges.

  The king joined him. Within, he sensed the bustle of industry. ‘In here?’

  ‘Yes. Please lead us. It is quite safe.’

  The king entered the opening, and as he did so, a strange, fleeting feeling gripped his body and an echo of a sound — a deep, resonating tone — vibrated through him. He was aware of the antiquity of the stone walls around him, aware of their memories. He belonged in this place. It knew him.

  The walls here were painted with figures; winged men, goat-headed guardians, serpent women. The king had never seen art like it anywhere else in his kingdom, and he examined every excavation personally. He paused and touched one of the walls. It felt warm beneath his fingers. These are the faces of my ancestors, he thought.

  His party waited for him to enjoy this private moment, their breath stilled.

  Then, he exhaled through his nose and continued to walk down the corridor. Everyone followed.

  Open doorways appeared on both sides of the tunnel. The king stopped to look into each chamber. All were furnished, with long tables and shelves.

  ‘We think this was a market quarter,’ said the archaeologist. ‘Remains have been found of cloth, jewellery, coin, even dried food. It is amazing that so much of it remains given the age of the place. It has never been plundered. No-one has found it before.’ Rashid frowned, clearly remembering he was perhaps touching upon the volatile politics of earlier regimes. In those days, all interest in the pagan past had been seen as heresy and men such as Rashid, who had a keen, academic interest in antiquities, had known it prudent not to talk about their obsessions. Rashid had resigned himself to a life working behind a desk, but since Nimnezzar had seized power, things had changed dramatically. There were now whispers that previous rulers had known all about the forbidden legacy of their land, but had kept quiet about it, no doubt believing it was the work of Iblis. Still, for Rashid, it meant that a life of bureaucratic dullness, with no prospects, had been changed to that of limitless possibilities. The king thought well of his archaeologists and rewarded them highly. Rashid could smell the exciting perfume of his land’s ancient heritage; he could taste its dust in his mouth.

  Nimnezzar was not thinking about the recent past. It meant nothing to him now, for he had changed the course of the history of his people. He considered that perhaps no-one had dared venture here before, and then remembered the warning of the old man, Hassan.

  ‘Who lived here?’ asked one of the king’s guard, a senior officer.

  The archaeologist smiled widely. ‘Why, sir, the ancestors of our beloved king. The Arallu lived here, demon lords, the sons of angels.’

  ‘Yes.’ Nimnezzar nodded. ‘They were here.’ He spoke with authority, and no-one doubted that he could hear the voice of the past welcoming him home.

  ‘Have you found... any bodies?’ asked the officer.

  The king flicked him an admonishing glance. The question lacked propriety.

  The officer made an apologetic gesture. ‘I mean, is there any physical evidence remaining of the Revered Ancients?’

  The archaeologist steepled his fingers beneath his chin. Otherwise, his body was perfectly still. ‘No-one was left here. The city was clearly abandoned. They left belongings, but nothing else. No animals, no birds. There are no catacombs. But...’ He flapped his hands. ‘Come, come. See for yourselves.’

  Now he preceded the king down the corridor. They came across a huddle of workers outside a doorway. All dropped their tools and panniers, and fell to their knees at the king’s approach, placing their foreheads carefully against the stone floor. The king ignored them. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘And this?’

  ‘You sense its significance, great one,’ said Rashid. He bustled through the prostrate crowd.

  They entered a circular chamber. The walls were painted with sentinel figures, their attenuated, ophidian faces grave and watchful. They wore long robes of dark red, over which lay cloaks of feathers. There was another opening opposite the entrance, but it did not appear to be a natural doorway, rather that it had been hacked out from the stone walls. Rubble lay to either side. The king frowned at the sight. ‘What has happened here?’

  The archaeologist bowed rapidly a few times. ‘It was a sealed doorway, great one,’ he explained, ‘but the glyphs upon it indicated that something momentous lay beyond. It has taken my people six weeks to cut their way through, but the effort has brought great reward.’ He scurried forward and laid a hand upon the jagged lip of the entrance. ‘It is a pity that some minor destruction was involved, but we have saved the plaster that bore the glyphs. It was extracted most carefully from the wall. You may examine the fragments later, if you wish.’

  The king made a dismissive sound. ‘My translators will be presented with this material. What lies within this place?’ He approached the opening, but felt oddly reluctant to proceed. His ancestors had sealed this chamber tightly. Was even he meant to ignore their efforts to keep people out?

  The archaeologist seemed unconcerned by such thoughts. He stepped into the dark tunnel beyond. ‘Come, come,’ he said, apparently forgetting protocol in his excitement.

  The king cast his eyes around the edge of the opening, then took a single step through. Another vibration coursed through his flesh; stronger this time, like the echo of a great booming deep within the earth. He shuddered, and sensed a wind against his skin, flying fragments of dust. He blinked.

  There was no wind now, and it seemed no-one else had felt its passage. The archaeologist was hurrying ahead. Nimnezzar followed, his flesh numb.

  The short tunnel, which once had been solidly filled in with stone blocks, led
into a larger chamber. Concentric rings were cut into the otherwise unadorned basalt floor, and plain columns surrounded its perimeter. In its centre stood what appeared to be an Egyptian sarcophagus, placed on a raised dais. That, of course, could not be so. The shadowy culture who had built this city had predated the earliest pharaonic dynasties by perhaps thousands of years. The dais was covered in rubble, its origin not immediately apparent. The lid of the sarcophagus had been removed and now stood propped up between two of the columns. Upon it was carved the representation of a winged man, curving pinions arranged over his body. He had the long, serpent face, the slanting eyes. It looked like a stylised mask.

  ‘You said there were no tombs,’ said the king. He could feel his heart beating strongly. He felt breathless.

  ‘We are not sure whether this is a tomb,’ answered the archaeologist cautiously. ‘When we first opened the sarcophagus, we thought it was full of rocks.’ He indicated the rubble. ‘These that you see here. It seemed likely that the artefact had once contained remains, which at some stage had been removed and replaced with the rocks. We took them out, hoping to find some clue as to had what been contained in the sarcophagus. We found more than we hoped for.’

  Slowly, the king approached the open sarcophagus. He realised he was afraid of what he would see within it. The case was at least six feet high. He had to go right up to it to look inside, and he was a tall man.

  ‘It is lined with obsidian,’ said Rashid. ‘The ancients believed that the black glass had magical properties, and would act as a containment…’

  Nimnezzar’s guard waited anxiously, sensitive, like hounds, to their king’s mood. They saw him peer over the lip of the stone. For a moment, he stood wide-eyed in apparent shock, then he uttered, ‘Mighty Allah!’ the name of a god he had forsaken years before. He stepped back, staggering as his heels met the rubble. He had seen someone — no desiccated mummy, but a man lying as if asleep within the tomb.

  The guards all gripped their weapons more firmly, their bodies stooped into postures of alertness.

  The archaeologist hurried up to the dais. ‘I know it is a shock to first behold it. Perfectly preserved. Not even the rocks have crushed it.’

  The king turned to him, his eyes holes of dark fire. ‘It?’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you realise who this is?’

  The archaeologist cowered. ‘We are presently engaged in translating the inscriptions found around the edge of the casing.’

  ‘Look at him!’ roared the king. He grabbed Rashid by his shirt collar and lifted him up bodily so he could see into the sarcophagus. The king shook the smaller man as if he were a child. ‘That is the noble countenance of a Watcher lord,’ he said. ‘Be humble in his presence.’

  He let go of the archaeologist, who staggered back off the dais. The king summoned the senior officer of his guard. ‘Come, Nerim.’

  The officer stepped up beside him and together they gazed down into the tomb.

  The figure within lay as if asleep, shrouded in a layer of rock dust. Through the dust, it could be seen that he was robed in costly if rotted fabrics that were adorned with jewels. A cloak of vulture feathers surrounded him. His red hair was braided over his chest, glinting still like bronze, even beneath the patina of crumbled stone.

  ‘He looks as if he could wake at any moment,’ said the officer in a low voice.

  Nimnezzar hunkered down and ran his fingers over the inscriptions on the stone walls of the casing. ‘I know this sigil,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’ Nerim knelt down beside him.

  The king took the man’s hand and pressed it briefly against the stone. His eyes looked feverish. ‘I know.’ He stood up once more and looked over the side. ‘Penemue,’ he said, ‘who gave knowledge of the bitter and the sweet.’

  ‘Penemue,’ repeated Nerim, his brow creased.

  Nimnezzar shook his head in wonderment. ‘If it is he who lies within this tomb, he was one of the original rebel Watchers who fell from grace. For five thousand years, he has endured the punishment of internment.’

  The officer looked sceptical. ‘But how could the body remain preserved this long? It looks as if it… he… was entombed recently. But that cannot be possible.’

  ‘No.’ The king looked at his officer with feverish eyes. ‘Presuming, of course, that he is dead.’

  For a moment, all was silent, but for the humming of the bare electric lights.

  The officer leaned away from the king; his knees cracked. ‘Not dead?’

  The king stood up. He had been waiting for this moment a long time, since the vision that had come to him as a young man. In the vision, an angel lord had appeared before him and told him of his sacred destiny. He was to reinstate the line of divine kings, strengthen the blood-line that ran so faintly within him. In his blood: a memory of ancient days, when the rebel angels had ruled the land and built their hidden cities beneath it. Nimnezzar had seized power, but still he lacked knowledge. There had been no more visions.

  ‘Penemue,’ he said, and put his hands against the edge of the sarcophagus. His voice was a low, respectful whisper. ‘You, who are the father of Sargon, grandfather of Naram-Sin, ancestor of Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal, and the guardian protector of my family: hear me, Nimnezzar, spiritual son of Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar. Honour the ancient contract…’

  And there was movement in the tomb. Dust stirred in eddies as if wind had somehow invaded the sarcophagus. The dais began to vibrate, and some of the light-bulbs in the room popped out into darkness. Several people in the chamber uttered gasps of fear. The king gripped the stone, although his officer retreated hastily.

  ‘Penemue!’ cried Nimnezzar. ‘The time of your sacrifice is ended. May your spirit come forth from the furthest reaches of the universe and return unto your body!’

  A weird, eerie shriek sped through the labyrinthine tunnels and vaults of the ancient city. Stones fell from the ceiling of the chamber onto the heads of the king and his followers. Fear gripped Nimnezzar’s soul. He wanted to retreat, order his people to pile the rocks back into the sarcophagus, but it was too late now. He had to continue and fulfil his destiny. ‘Penemue,’ he said again; it sounded like a sob.

  Below him, the eye-lids of the Watcher opened slowly, revealing reddened, desiccated orbs within. Nimnezzar saw an expression of terror cross the long, inhuman face. Lips cracked open, eyes widened. And the city reverberated to the silent vibrations of a voiceless scream of pain and despair.

  Chapter One

  Two Suns Rise

  The Midlands, England

  His eyes opened and, for a moment, the screams of carrion birds echoed around his mind; fragments of a dream. He lay still for some minutes, his body tingling with discomfort. Then an urge to move stabbed through him, and he sat up abruptly in the bed, unsure of where he was. It felt as if he’d been sleeping for millennia.

  A figure moved into his line of sight. His sight was unclear for he could see no more than a shining outline. ‘Who’s there?’

  The figure came forward, swam into focus. ‘Shem. You are awake.’ The statement was almost a question, as if the sleeper had made false awakenings many times before, only to deceive those who watched him.

  ‘Salamiel.’ He held out his left hand, and once Salamiel’s fingers curled around his own, he realised how cold he was. ‘How long have I slept?’ He felt drugged, unable to recall how he’d come to this place, and when.

  Salamiel sat down on the edge of the bed. He seemed reluctant to answer. ‘How much do you remember, Shem?’

  Shemyaza pressed a hand against his eyes. ‘Enough.’

  Salamiel stood up. ‘Let me fetch you something to drink. Are you hungry?’

  Shem nodded. ‘Whatever.’

  After Salamiel had left the room, Shemyaza lay back down on the bed, blinking at the ceiling. Warmth was flooding back into his system. He was aware of the summer afternoon beyond the window. The room did not face the sun, and in fact was very dark, but the air beyond was full of summer sounds; childre
n crying out, the clear sound of traffic, birds. He knew who he was, what he was: Shemyaza, spiritual king of the Grigori, the descendants of angels. Many life-times seemed to tumble through his mind. He had lived for thousands of years, yet had not. He had been reborn, reshaped, remembered. Fallen angel.

  His history was the fabric of legends, most forgotten now, and some so fragmented in the dreaming mind of the world that the truth was lost or obscured.

  Many thousands of years before, in the most ancient of days, the race remembered as angels had openly walked the earth, and were worshipped as gods by humanity. They were known as the Anannage, the Sons of God, who harboured dangerous and terrible secrets concerning the nature of the universe and how to manipulate its subtle forces. Humanity, whom they regarded as a lesser species, was often used as labour for their clandestine work projects, forever excluded from the light of the Anannage’s great knowledge. Their secrets were not for sharing with children. Inevitably, change had devastated their closed world. Shemyaza and a number of his colleagues had scorned the laws of their people, which forbade intimate interaction with the lesser race and, having been bewitched by the beauty of human women, had taken them as lovers, revealing to them the forbidden knowledge of the Anannage. The fruit of this doomed union was a long and bloody conflict between different factions of the Anannage. Shemyaza and his co-conspirators had been captured and punished. Some had been buried alive beneath the earth, while Shemyaza himself had been burned, his soul cast into the constellation of Orion where it had been imprisoned for millennia.

  The time of the Anannage’s glory had passed, and they disappeared from the world. Their great achievements were forgotten, their superior knowledge remembered only as myths. In their wake, they left the surviving members of a hybrid race spawned from the union of Anannage and human: the Grigori. Shunned as demons, the Grigori went into hiding, but continued to govern human affairs from afar. Now, they wielded enormous power in the world, having great influence over both commerce and government.