The Secret of the Stones, Ernest Dempsey [popular books to read TXT] 📗

had told him was true about where this item had come from, the implications would be enormous. He leaned back in his chair, removing the reading glasses from his face. With the other hand, he wiped his eyes and pinched his nose.  Inside his brown tweed blazer, his body perspired from the mental exertion.  His fingers struggled against the constriction of the light-blue bow tie around his neck.

He wondered how long he’d been in there. It was easy to lose track of time when your brain was in overdrive from extensive research on a particularly interesting project.

The library was dark save for a few lamps spilling tiny pools of light here and there. He usually visited after hours, though he doubted this near-anachronism of a place was in demand these days. With the advent of the Internet, it was possible to do nearly all of one’s research from home. Still, Frank enjoyed the feel of a library: surrounded by books, works from thousands of years, and all in a material, concrete presence. With a computer, sure, the information was there, but there was no feeling.

He’d let himself get distracted by the thoughts and shook his head in frustration. Frank had been a professor of world and ancient history at Kennesaw State University for fifteen years now. During that time, he had been blessed with the opportunity to travel to many different countries as a special guest of numerous IAA excavations.

The IAA, or International Archaeology Agency, traveled the globe in search of ancient artifacts, most of which modern historians didn‘t believe existed. Fortunately for him, the IAA headquarters was near his home in Atlanta. The proximity, and his expertise on so many ancient cultures and languages, often guaranteed him as the first choice for many of the agency’s research expeditions.

Over the last decade he had been to the Far East, Europe several times, Central and South America, and the most fascinating of all to him, the Middle East. In recent years, he had turned his attention from foreign countries to his own. Growing up in Northwest Georgia, he had a special interest in the history of the country now called the United States. Frank began concentrating most of his efforts on the history of the Native Americans, where they came from, how they got there, and what they left behind.

Sitting there at a work table in the Kennesaw State library, he stared at something that both puzzled him and aroused the childlike wonder inside of him.

Forcing himself back to task, he propped the spectacles back onto his nose and started reading again. “The chambers shall light your way.”

Borringer sat alone at the table, staring at a small, circular stone etched with a script from a time long forgotten, and a place far from the Southern United States. The engraved disc arrived a week ago. Frank had promised the friend who’d sent it that he would analyze the piece as soon as there was a moment to spare. Until yesterday, he had yet to open the box in which it had been delivered. Frustrated with himself now for not looking at this miraculous piece sooner, a chill went up his spine at the implications of both its existence and message as he turned it over carefully, inspecting the smooth surface with the greatest of attention.

Mesmerized, he could hardly believe what he was reading. Impossible. Could the four chambers really exist? He’d thought them to be a legend from ancient tribes, something they talked about, much like the stories of a fountain of youth or El Dorado. But just like with those famous legends, the Golden Chambers had so far never been found. Yet here was a piece of evidence that suggested they were out there, somewhere.

Thinking back, he remembered the first time that he had heard of the four mystical rooms. One of his good friends had told him a story about Native gold in Northern Georgia.

There were several stories, actually. As kids, he had even witnessed some things that made him believe there might be a huge repository of the precious metal somewhere nearby. But nothing was ever found— simply rumors, stories. Notions of an ancient Native treasure had been abandoned long ago.

The stone was shaped like an inch-thick coin, about the diameter of the average human palm. On one side of it was an odd picture of what appeared to be two birds. The opposite face contained some kind of writing in a very odd script. At first glance, the inscriptions had been confusing. There were marks that looked like hieroglyphs, but there were others that appeared to be ancient Hebrew. Still more of the engraved characters appeared to be cuneiform.

It had been an astounding epiphany when he realized that what he was looking at were four ancient languages combined into a singular code. Once he had come to that conclusion, the translation of the phrases had been much easier. But how had these ancient languages come to be on something so obviously Native American? These writings should only be found in ancient parts of the Middle East, and certainly not together on one piece.

Perhaps even more unsettling was the riddle the words spelled out.

He pored over the two sheets of paper on which he’d written the translations. One was a letter to his friend who’d sent the artifact. The other was to a colleague from the IAA.

Glancing down at his watch, Frank realized how late it was getting. He placed a call from his cell phone to his wife at home so she wouldn’t be worried and started packing up his things. After storing sheets of paper, pens, and other items into his laptop case, he returned to his computer. Better to print the stuff off, make some copies, and come back to it tomorrow. The thrill of discovery made