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

deeper into the earth, the group came to a point where they could go no farther. In front of them stood a wall made from the same stone as the rest of the corridor. The difference was that the other walls had no identifying markings. This one did.

Hieroglyphics of amazing detail jumped out from the solid rock canvas before them. There was no mistaking the inscriptions’ origin. Various Egyptian deities, animals, symbols, and other characters were easily recognizable even to the novice historian.

“Amazing,” Tommy whispered.

Sean reached out slowly so the two men with guns wouldn’t freak out. He traced the outline of a glyph that he’d never seen before. It was a picture of some kind of boat with figures of people and animals surrounding it.

“That must be one of the boats that brought the Egyptians over to the Americas. Looks like they brought a bunch of animals with them. Probably as a food source.”

“Would make sense,” Sean agreed. Then he turned his attention to a couple of oddities on either side of the path.

Carved into the stone were two hollow spaces. Within each vacancy sat a stone bird. The two animals faced each other from across the corridor, and each had a small inscription below it.

Ulrich was obviously irritated by their halt in progress. “Where is the chamber?”

“He always like this?” Sean jerked his thumb toward the blond man.

“You have no idea,” Tommy chuckled in spite of himself.

“I’m glad you two are comfortable with the fact that you are about to die,” Ulrich threatened.

Sean’s smile disappeared for a moment as he turned to face the murderer’s blue-gray eyes. Then he turned back to his friend. “Still, I think those guys down in Peru were way worse.”

Tommy couldn’t help but outright laugh. “Yeah. Probably.”

“I knew it!” Allyson exclaimed as she gave Sean a chiding glare. “I knew you guys were up to something in Peru!”

Obviously tired of the little trip down memory lane, Ulrich forced the gun barrel to the back of her head.

Both friends’ faces turned somber.

Tommy spoke up. “All right. All right. Obviously, we can’t just move this wall. It’s got to be, like, two or three tons, easy.” His eyes scanned the smooth surface.

“What do these markings say? Can you translate it?” Ulrich urged.

“Basically, it’s a story of how the people came here. Apparently, there was one man who they believed to be some kind of a savior for their people, someone who would take them to a new land.”

“Sounds like the Moses story from the Bible.” Allyson final spoke up.

Glad to see she was no longer in shock, Sean turned to her. “Sort of like that. But this story predates that one. These hieroglyphs are from a much earlier Egyptian kingdom.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I wonder what they wanted to get away from?”

“Yeah,” Tommy continued. “You can tell from the construction of the characters, the lines, the way they have been carved, these are some of the more ancient forms of Egyptian writing.

“You see,” he went on, “eventually, the Egyptians went to a more abbreviated form of writing called hieratic. It was much simpler and faster for their scribes to use than what you are looking at right now. This must come from the time around the Old Kingdom.”

While Tommy kept reading the wall, the guard’s attention had been distracted by the bird in the left wall. His right hand held the gun, but the man’s curiosity led his left hand to the smooth stone of the carving’s head.

He was just about to feel it when Tommy yelled, “Stop!”

The guard yanked his hand back, startled.

“Don’t touch anything,” Tommy ordered. “There is a riddle here. I think this whole place might be booby trapped.”

Ulrich cast the guard a warning glance.

“It says, ‘To find the way, the birds will guide you. The one that returns shall doom bring forth. The other shall lead you home.’”

“Ok,” Sean said. His face contorted into a sarcastic smirk. “That seems simple enough. To move the wall, we have to do something with one of these birds.” He looked at one and then the other.

“Yeah, but if we choose the wrong one, we may not get out of here alive,” Tommy added.

“How do you know which bird? They look the same to me,” Allyson asked.

“I’m not sure,” Tommy replied, scratching his head. “The one that returns…I wonder what that means.

“It must have something to do with the writing beneath the birds. But the language is different than on the wall. Looks a lot like the writing on the back of the stone I found at the Vann house.” Tommy pondered the problem.

“Can you read it?” Ulrich butted in.

“Not really. That was why I sent the stone to Frank to begin with.”

Sean reached into his pocket. “You mean this stone?”

He opened his palm, producing the medallion.

“Where did you get that?”

“Joe had it. I guess Frank mailed it to him before Blondie here could get his hands on it.”

Tommy took the stone and examined it closely then looked at one of the stone birds. He stepped over to the sculpture and pointed to the word underneath it. “These birds must be the raven and the dove.”

“Which is which though?”

Ulrich watched silently off to the side, keeping his gun on the hostages.

“We have to assume that this one here is the raven. It is the first one in the riddle and the word on the stone matches the writing below. But that is only half of the solution.”

“Which one returned?”

“I’m not sure.” Tommy stepped across the small space to the other bird. “Both of the birds look the same.”

Then he leaned down to look at something that