Babylon Rising Read online

  Surrounding the floor was a raised work area that was protected by heavy glass. That was where Methuselah must be, Murphy thought, but he could not make out any specific figure up there. His head was clearing and his breathing was starting to normalize.

  “That was certainly worth the trip from home, Methuselah. Now, may I claim my prize and get back there?”

  “You call that earning your keep, Murphy? That was just my special way to get you inside the tent. Get ready for the real show. Right now.”

  For the first time, Murphy heard an ominous sound, a low rumble that filled the empty space, but he was not sure what he was hearing. “Aaah, I see, Professor Murphy, by your perked-up ears, that you are ready to meet your match.”

  Murphy sighed. So, now it really begins, he thought. Then came a second, much more ominous sound. Something crashed against the metal door from the other side. Something that Murphy suddenly realized was about to come shooting out that metal door, heading directly for him. “Say, um, Methuselah, aren’t you going to tease me first with a look at your latest artifact? So I at least know what it is that will make you try so hard to kill me.”

  “Yes, you do know I love to have my sport with you, Murphy. I actually wish you could live to get this one. It’s hot stuff. Tell me, what made you so excited about seeing the word ‘Daniel’ from me today?”

  Before Murphy could answer, there was another, even louder banging against the door. Murphy could not help but flinch where he stood and looked anxiously at the rattling metal.

  “Up to now you’ve put into play some amazing artifacts from Biblical times, Methuselah. I don’t know how you got them, but I never would have found them on my own. And Daniel, well, you know he was the most important prophet of all. I have studied him for years. Let me at least get a good close look at whatever Daniel artifact you’ve gotten your hands on.”

  “No. Enough talk, Murphy. You’re about to get a closer look than you’ll want. Because tonight you’re not going to study Daniel, you are going to be Daniel.”

  With a metallic clang, the sliding door at the other end of the room was raised.

  A full-grown lion stood roaring in the doorway. Murphy could not help but marvel at the tawny color, the tensile muscles along its flanks, its full mane, and the way the bright floodlights from the walls made the claws practically sparkle.

  The lion, however, was wasting no time admiring Murphy. With a roar that echoed from every wall, and a propulsive spring of all four powerful legs, the lion bore down on Murphy as if he were an easy meal for the taking.

  On pure instinct, Murphy threw himself to the floor, landing with a jarring thud just to the left of where he had been standing but close enough to smell the full hot blast of foul breath from the lion’s mouth.

  “Come on, Murphy, don’t run. Make a fight of it, be a man.”

  The lion’s claws braked on the wooden floor as its roaring head swept from side to side. Angry flecks of saliva pelted Murphy. After the first landed on his face, Murphy was already moving again, rolling twice and scrambling to his feet. Without stopping, he reached one of the wooden poles of the netting and swung himself back up into the net. The lion was in close pursuit and swiped its front paw within an inch of Murphy’s leg. Having missed once, the lion swung the razor claws again without resting, and again just missed. The third swipe ripped Murphy’s left sleeve to shreds.

  Before he could get raked again, Murphy bounced up from the net. He landed a few feet away, back on the ropes, and without stopping, he bounced up again. The lion swatted at the rope again and again, but looked frustrated and confused by this bouncing prey.

  Between the wooden floor, which was slippery to its back claws, and the netting, which was tangling his front claws, the lion writhed and roared in frustration. Murphy kept bouncing as far from the lion as he could get each time because he knew that the moment the lion connected with him, even with a glancing blow, it could be his last moment on earth.

  “Murphy, stop playing popcorn and come down and give the pussycat a chance to really play with you.”

  I’ll come down, Murphy thought, but not the way you’re thinking. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his army knife. He did not wish to intentionally take another creature’s life, even though the beast had four paws full of blades to his one. Instead, as the lion clawed and tried to jump up toward him, Murphy stumbled to one of the poles in four bounds. There he slashed the rope holding the netting to the pole.

  “Murphy, that’s not fair,” Methuselah screamed.

  “Don’t talk to me about fair, you maniac.”

  Murphy was bounding to the next pole. The lion swung furiously but seemed to be tiring, much like a heavyweight boxer in a middle round. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, Murphy realized, but the lion definitely looked confused by Murphy’s rapid movements.

  As the second side of the netting fell away from Murphy’s knife, the lion realized too late that he should have moved out from under it. Its two front paws were now hopelessly tangled in the heavy rope. Murphy slid more than jumped to the floor, careful to stay out of range of the lion’s claws.

  Or so he thought, until an intense pain seared his left shoulder when a back claw struck him as it jerked free from the ropes. Murphy forced himself to run toward one of the two remaining ropes holding the netting, able to run faster on the floor. Best case, he had maybe another ten seconds before the lion pulled himself free of the ropes that had already fallen around him.

  The pain in his shoulder told him he would have to lift himself back up with only his right arm, and he was grateful for the hundreds of pull-ups he forced himself to do in the gym each week. He raised himself up and swung around, then bounced again to grab the pole and slashed the third thong just as the lion was twisting away from the heap of ropes it had torn away from its body.

  Now with this new batch of netting entrapping him, the lion momentarily collapsed on the floor. It roared through ragged, heaving breaths, still trying to slash free with its claws. Murphy rolled to the floor but made sure to stay completely out of the range of the lion.

  “Aw, Murphy, you spoiled everything.” Methuselah was fairly sputtering. “But you got fight in you, boy. For a useless Bible teacher, you got moxie, I’ll give you that.”

  Murphy was breathing almost as rapidly as the lion. He managed to gasp, “How about giving me my artifact instead?”

  “Well, you earned it, I guess. Only it’s not going to be what you think.”

  Murphy straightened and looked up at the platform. “What are you trying to pull here, Methuselah?”

  “Shut up and listen. It’s right there in front of you. You just have to grab it.”

  “Grab what? Where?” Murphy was getting a bad feeling.

  “Oh, your body’s still prime, Murphy, but I swear all those digs have turned your brain to dust. Look at the lion’s neck.” Sure enough, Murphy noticed for the first time that there was a thin leather strip tied around the lion’s neck. Attached to the strip was a red tube approximately the size and shape of a very large cigar holder.

  “Oh, no, Methuselah. You think I’m going to fight this lion again just to get at that thing around his neck? That’s too crazy even by your standards.” Murphy paused, sensing his opportunity slipping away. “Besides, what’s in the tube?”

  Methuselah started his cackling laugh again. “Oh, Murphy, I’ve put the fever in you good tonight. You can’t resist. I know you too well. You’ll go back at him; you can’t stop yourself. And this time … heh-heh-heh, your curiosity’s going to get the cat to kill you for sure.”

  Murphy looked at the knife in his hand and was tempted, but he folded it back and pocketed it.

  “Ooh, ever the good Boy Scout, Murphy. Going to make it a fair fight.”

  Murphy shook his head as he walked over to the pole nearest the downed lion. “No, Methuselah, not exactly fair, but I can live with it. I’d never kill that lion any more than I’d kill you tonight, and Lord knows you’ve given me more pause for thought than he has. But that won’t stop me from taking advantage of him when I get the chance.”

  He picked up the heavy bag that was weighting down the nearest pole. He needed both arms to hoist it, but his bleeding shoulder made him shout with pain, and he almost dropped the bag on his foot. Instead, he dragged the bag over to where the lion was still tearing at the rope netting that hopelessly tangled his paws.

  “This is definitely going to hurt you more than it hurts me,” Murphy grunted, and he dropped the heavy bag right on the lion’s head. The lion dropped in an unconscious heap.

  Murphy watched the stilled beast take several shallow breaths before he reached slowly for the leather cord that held the red tube to its neck. He held his own breath and yanked the tube free of the lion’s mane.

  He grasped his prize. It was so light, he feared it was empty. “What gives here, Methuselah? This better be something besides a cigar.”

  At first, Methuselah did not say anything in response. Then the metal door rolled up. “You won, Murphy, now get out. Enjoy your spoils of this war on your own time. However, I will tell you these three things, because a warrior in victory does deserve some respect. First, like I told you, this one is hot, really hot.”

  “Hot as in stolen?”

  “Never mind how I got it. Like the others I’ve given you, there’s no angry owner going to come hunting you. But there is somebody who will want to come after you once they know you have it. I don’t know who they are or why they’re so interested, but I cover my tracks very well, as you know, and I’ve picked up several hints that somebody is desperate to get this, and will stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to get it.”

  “But get what? What’s in here?”

  “That’s the
second thing. The tube doesn’t have the artifact. The tube has the key to finding the artifact. And what the key is and what the artifact is you’ll have to figure out for yourself. But I think you’re maybe one of a handful of people alive who can figure it out. And I also know that if you do figure it out, it will get you the find of your life. If you live.”

  “But Daniel, it’s got something to do with Daniel?” Murphy was getting exasperated now.

  “That’s number three, and then that’s all I’ll say. The connection’s not going to be obvious to you, but I swear to you, I’m certain it’s the real thing, and it will make you the reigning king of your precious Bible circle. I guarantee it. Now get out.”

  “Come on, Methuselah, you can’t leave me hanging like this. What is it?”

  “Can and will, Murphy. Get out. I’m a sore loser and you know it.”

  Wincing with one last painful look over his wounded shoulder at the lion, Murphy walked toward the door, clutching the tube tightly. “Good-bye, then, you crazy coot. And thank you, I guess.”

  Just before Murphy was through the doorway, Methuselah growled, “Murphy, don’t get overconfident with your Bible-boy heroics. I’m telling you to be careful with this one. If somebody’s going to kill you, I want it to be me in one of our little contests.”

  Murphy looked up at the platform. “Ever the sentimentalist, Methuselah. Thanks for the warning, but so far, the way I’m scoring, it’s Christians one, lions zero.”

  TWO

  Babylon, 604 B.C.

  THE SCREAM PIERCED the Babylonian night like the howl of a great beast in mortal pain. It rang through the stone corridors and could be heard even beyond the palace walls, in the moonlit market square, in the mazelike alleys where the beggars slept. Even the waterfowl at the edge of the great river squawked in disturbed response to the cries, then burst into flight over the mighty banks upon which the city was built.

  The scream was followed by a silence that was, if anything, even more chilling.

  Then the thrashing, the writhing, the uncontrolled rolling of eyes that were shedding real tears over the most horrible of dreams. Unearthly surroundings, swirling chaos, images and noises from a realm between wakefulness and sleep.

  The ruler of the greatest power on earth was powerless to resist this relentless assault from within his own mind.

  A dozen of his elite royal guards, strongmen whose powerful legs were pounding the great stone flags, shouted orders back and forth. The light from hastily lit flaming torches illuminated helmeted faces constricted in fear as they raced to confront whatever dire threat they had failed to foresee.

  Short swords drawn, the guards poured into the king’s bedchamber, eyes frantically searching the flickering shadows for the gleam of an assassin’s dagger. The bedchamber shadows revealed no threatening figure, but there was no sense of relief, for each of the guards would rather have faced an assassin than turn his terrified gaze upon the body of the king.

  Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of the Babylonian empire, conqueror of the Egyptian army at Carchemish, destroyer of Jerusalem twice in a decade, whose name struck fear into the hardest of hearts, now sat bolt-upright on the great ebony bed, eyes wide, mouth trembling, the skin of his torso a ghostly pale. The royal pillows were soaked with sweat.

  “My lord.” Arioch, commander of the royal guard, took a step closer, knowing that to approach too near the king’s person was to invite death. But he had to be sure. The king’s body appeared unmarked, and surely there had been no time for an assassin to make his escape. Had he been poisoned, then? The king’s breathing came in ragged gasps, a hand fluttering at his heart. Though stunned, he didn’t seem to be in pain. If it had been poison, he would be clutching his belly in agony by now.

  Steadying himself, knowing he had to calm his panicking men by example, the captain waited.

  “A dream.”

  The king’s voice was a whisper. The usual thunder reduced to a breath of wind.

  “A dream, my lord?” The captain’s eyes narrowed. This could still be dangerous. Sent by a sorcerer with true knowledge of the black arts, a dream could kill as surely as a blade.

  “Forgive me, sire. What manner of dream was this?” The king whirled to face him. “For surely it was most terrible,” he added quickly.

  The king closed his eyes in thought as if trying to recall a forgotten name or bring the face of a long-dead friend to mind.

  “No,” he said finally, grimacing in anger. His voice rose to something approaching its normal timbre as he grasped the earthenware wine jug beside the bed and dashed it to the floor. “I cannot tell. I remember nothing!”

  “Speak!” The king gripped the arms of his golden throne, his fingers kneading the elaborately carved lions’ heads as he surveyed the men standing before him.

  They were a strange sight. Two Chaldeans with shaved heads and hooded eyes, naked except for linen loincloths and the sacred amulets hanging around their necks. A black-skinned Nubian with a cheetah’s pelt around his thin shoulders. An Egyptian, whose simple cotton shift was offset by a startling ring of black kohl around his eyes. And a Babylonian, a priest of Marduk himself, bringer of plagues.

  “Bring me the best of the sorcerers this day” had been his decree. “Gather them from the four corners of Babylon, for my spirit is anxious. I must know the meaning of my dream.”

  They stood in a half circle below the king’s throne, faces gleaming with the sweat of fear as the king bellowed once more.

  “Speak, you dogs, or I promise your worthless carcasses will be food for jackals before the sun sets.”

  They had no reason to doubt his words. Since his dream, the king had thought of nothing else. His nights were an agony of sleepless agitation and his days were spent in a fruitless quest to recall the smallest fragment of the vision.

  Now it was up to the soothsayers to recall it for him. If they could not, the stiff line of soldiers ranged behind the king’s throne, short spears held at the ready, made it clear what the consequences would be.

  As the silence stretched on agonizingly, Amukkani, leader of the Chaldean sorcerers, cleared his throat and attempted an ingratiating smile.

  “Perhaps my lord has been granted a vision from Kishar himself-a vision only you are worthy of. Perhaps the god has taken away your memory so that you may not tell it to ordinary men.”

  He bowed low as Nebuchadnezzar fixed the Chaldean with his piercing black eyes. “What is the sense in that, you fool? To give me a vision and then to take it away. If it is meant only for me, then I must know what it is!”

  The king fingered the oiled ringlets of his beard and turned to Arioch. “Be sure your spears have sharp points. These so-called wise men are as slippery as eels.”

  The commander of the guard grinned. Like most Babylonians, he feared the power of sorcerers almost as much as demons. It would be good to see them skewered on the end of a spear. Sensing that time was fast running out, the Egyptian gasped theatrically, as if a sudden thought had come to him. “My lord! I see it! My mind is filled with light, as if a thousand torches burned. And there in the midst of the fames is a river of fire, and upon the river–”

  “Silence!” the king’s voice boomed. “Do you think to trick me? Do you think I am one of the foolish old women who pay you to tell their futures? When someone tells me my dream, I shall know it. And I shall know when some mangy cur pretends to know it. Enough! A bellyful of iron will put an end to your lies!”

  He raised a hand, signaling the spearmen to prepare.

  “Wait! I beseech you, lord.” The second Chaldean had stepped forward, as if in his terror he were about to lay hands on the king. “Spare us and I swear you shall know your dream.”

  Nebuchadnezzar let his hand drop. He regarded the speaker with an amused smile. “None of you has told me anything except lies and evasions. If I spare you, what will that profit me?”

  The Chaldean swallowed, his mouth dry. “We cannot tell you your dream, lord. That is true. But I know of one who can.”

  The king leaped to his feet and the soothsayers cowered as one. “Who, then? Who is this man?”

  “One of the Hebrews, lord,” the Chaldean continued. “Brought from Jerusalem.” He stood straighter now, half believing that he would live to see another sunrise.