The Circle of Gold -The Book of Time 3 by Guillaume Prevost

Author:Guillaume Prevost
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

18 The Church of the Seven Resurrections

Sam was still clinging to Alicia when they landed — on a marble floor somewhere, under the glare of electric lights. She lay hunched over, unable to control her nausea, while Sam looked around to get his bearings. Not only were they in some cold modern building, they were surrounded by glass display cases, costumes, paintings, and posters… . Was it some kind of museum? As he retrieved the Meriweserre bracelet from the stone statue, which rose from a hole cut in the marble floor, he wondered which of the six coins had brought them here. Not the Chinese one, of course; nor the Bran Castle coin or the Thebes coin from 1980. That left only Rudolf’s gray coin, Chamberlains plain metal one, and the blue poker chip.

Whichever coin it was, it clearly hadn’t brought them home. Though the stone statue in front of Sam looked exactly like the one in Faulkner’s Antique Books, the room was nothing like Allan’s cramped basement space.

“This … is … dis … gus … ting,” spluttered Alicia. She was still kneeling head down, fighting the spasms that wracked her body.

“It’ll pass,” said Sam soothingly as he stroked her hair. “I was like you in the beginning, and then it got easier.”

“I don’t care … if it gets … easier … I just want… it to … stop!”

Sam waited for her to finish retching, then helped her up.

“Where are we?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“No idea. Not home, unfortunately!”

The objects on display included a collection of painted pottery, African and Asian statuettes mounted on stands, and cases displaying flint blades, frieze sculptures, and ancient manuscripts opened to brilliant illuminations. Along the walls stood mannequins in clothes from different eras: a samurai with armor and sword; a warrior wearing a colorful coat and sumptuous feather headdress, possibly Aztec; a knight in armor with enough equipment to conquer Rome all by himself; and a mummy lying in a mock sarcophagus. The place might be a museum, but it wasn’t very well organized.

“Look at that!” exclaimed Alicia.

She was pointing to a door whose engraved panels bore a pair of black horns with a golden circle between them: the Arkeos logo.

“That can’t be good,” muttered Sam.

He cautiously opened the door. It led to a room with a domed ceiling lit by banks of overhead lights. Photographs hung on the walls, and a large model of a building stood on a table covered with black cloth. When they were sure nobody else was in the room, Alicia and Sam walked over to the model. It represented an architectural complex whose general appearance was clearly inspired by the Hathor sign: An outer ring of buildings formed a shallow U that enclosed a central unit under a glass dome. Each of the outer buildings was in an architectural style derived from a different period of history, each with its appropriate label: “Pyramid Passage,”

“Regeneration Temple,”

“Eternity Pagoda,”

“Cathedral of the Last Metamorphosis,”

“Pandit’s Private Residence.” The glass dome covered

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