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Authors: Molly Cochran
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far from the land where he once ruled. What the gods have planned for him I do not know, but they have seen to it that the cup which I have possessed for five thousand years is now in his keeping.
The gods. The ancient gods, Aubrey. Are you familiar with them? Or are there no records of them left at all? The ancient gods, long vanquished and forgotten ⦠I smell their presence in the air. Their magic.
If I die, it will be their doing.
And the cup will be yoursâif you can find it and keep it. So you must find it, Aubrey. Find it and kill the boy. Discover, if you can, the instrument of my death and destroy it, for whatever the object is, the most terrible gods of all have placed their power in it.
And now, dear chap, farewell. If you are reading this, then I have already gone to the void, the nothing I was taught to expect. That is my only fear about dyingâthat there might be something other than a void waiting for me.
I do not wish to meet the ancient gods.
Aubrey closed the book. He tried to speak, but found that his lips and tongue were dry. He nodded curtly to the young man in dismissal.
"There is one more article I have been instructed to leave with you, Sire," the messenger said, producing an envelope. After handing it to Aubrey, he bowed. "Should you desire the assistance of my family, I will be nearby."
"Nearby where?"
"Wherever you are, Lord." The messenger performed a graceful salaam, then left.
The envelope contained a map. A map of a rural area in England, near the ruins of a fifth-century castle where Hamid Lagouat, who had ridden with Saladin on his last day of life, had seen a sword in a stone.
A ubrey left immediately for England, but he did not find the boy whom Saladin had described so well in his diary, nor the American FBI agent who apparently had cut himself loose from all ties to his past in order to protect him.
He did spot the woman in the drawings, however. She had remained for some time near the place where Arthur Blessing and Hal Woczniak had disappeared, although it quickly became clear from her actions that she knew nothing of their whereabouts.
He also saw the messenger who had visited him in New York to bring news of Saladin's death.
They may prove to be useful one day , Saladin had said of his relatives. He had been right. When the woman left the country in her own search for her nephew, Aubrey called upon Saladin'sânow Aubrey's ownâprivate army to track Emily Blessing in her wanderings.
She placed personal ads to Arthur in the newspapers of every place she visited. These the Arabs collected and sent to Aubrey. He instructed them to deliver copies of those newspapers to every village and community within a fifty-mile radius of those cities. It was a long shot, he knew, but worth the small effort. The woman was the key. Sooner or later, the boy would come to her. Aubrey would keep her in abeyance until then.
Meanwhile, there was the sword.
Find the cup... Kill the boy.. . Destroy the instrument of my death.
Of the three directives with which Saladin had charged his heir, only the third had been possible so far, and that had taken three years.
The weapon had not even been visible at first. Without the map, Aubrey would never have thought to look for it in the woods surrounding a field of ancient ruins. He would never have noticed one boulder among many, hidden in an overgrown thicket.
But he had Lagouat's map, and though he was skeptical about its authenticity, he followed it to the boulder and then dutifully broke up the five-foot-tall stone with a sledgehammer until its interior was exposed to reveal the hilt of a sword.
It was magnificent, made of pure gold inlaid with precious stones that had not chipped or lost their luster when the rock had been smashed around it. But no matter how hard Aubrey struck it with the sledgehammer, the blade would not come free. It was as if the steel were bonded to the stone itself. Sweating, intensely disliking the
The gods. The ancient gods, Aubrey. Are you familiar with them? Or are there no records of them left at all? The ancient gods, long vanquished and forgotten ⦠I smell their presence in the air. Their magic.
If I die, it will be their doing.
And the cup will be yoursâif you can find it and keep it. So you must find it, Aubrey. Find it and kill the boy. Discover, if you can, the instrument of my death and destroy it, for whatever the object is, the most terrible gods of all have placed their power in it.
And now, dear chap, farewell. If you are reading this, then I have already gone to the void, the nothing I was taught to expect. That is my only fear about dyingâthat there might be something other than a void waiting for me.
I do not wish to meet the ancient gods.
Aubrey closed the book. He tried to speak, but found that his lips and tongue were dry. He nodded curtly to the young man in dismissal.
"There is one more article I have been instructed to leave with you, Sire," the messenger said, producing an envelope. After handing it to Aubrey, he bowed. "Should you desire the assistance of my family, I will be nearby."
"Nearby where?"
"Wherever you are, Lord." The messenger performed a graceful salaam, then left.
The envelope contained a map. A map of a rural area in England, near the ruins of a fifth-century castle where Hamid Lagouat, who had ridden with Saladin on his last day of life, had seen a sword in a stone.
A ubrey left immediately for England, but he did not find the boy whom Saladin had described so well in his diary, nor the American FBI agent who apparently had cut himself loose from all ties to his past in order to protect him.
He did spot the woman in the drawings, however. She had remained for some time near the place where Arthur Blessing and Hal Woczniak had disappeared, although it quickly became clear from her actions that she knew nothing of their whereabouts.
He also saw the messenger who had visited him in New York to bring news of Saladin's death.
They may prove to be useful one day , Saladin had said of his relatives. He had been right. When the woman left the country in her own search for her nephew, Aubrey called upon Saladin'sânow Aubrey's ownâprivate army to track Emily Blessing in her wanderings.
She placed personal ads to Arthur in the newspapers of every place she visited. These the Arabs collected and sent to Aubrey. He instructed them to deliver copies of those newspapers to every village and community within a fifty-mile radius of those cities. It was a long shot, he knew, but worth the small effort. The woman was the key. Sooner or later, the boy would come to her. Aubrey would keep her in abeyance until then.
Meanwhile, there was the sword.
Find the cup... Kill the boy.. . Destroy the instrument of my death.
Of the three directives with which Saladin had charged his heir, only the third had been possible so far, and that had taken three years.
The weapon had not even been visible at first. Without the map, Aubrey would never have thought to look for it in the woods surrounding a field of ancient ruins. He would never have noticed one boulder among many, hidden in an overgrown thicket.
But he had Lagouat's map, and though he was skeptical about its authenticity, he followed it to the boulder and then dutifully broke up the five-foot-tall stone with a sledgehammer until its interior was exposed to reveal the hilt of a sword.
It was magnificent, made of pure gold inlaid with precious stones that had not chipped or lost their luster when the rock had been smashed around it. But no matter how hard Aubrey struck it with the sledgehammer, the blade would not come free. It was as if the steel were bonded to the stone itself. Sweating, intensely disliking the
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