Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King by Alan Grant (best english novels to read .txt) 📗

but a tube had ruptured on the milking machine. No chance of making it to town before the ironmonger closed. Indeed, if old O'Bannion was running true to form, the shop would be closed already and the first pint of stout balanced in the old man's hand.

Milligan decelerated fiercely as the little four-wheel-drive car roared toward a right-angled corner. He swung the car around, the left-hand wheels briefly losing contact with the road. Then all four tires gripped again and he hit the accelerator hard. A couple of late-season tourists scrambled up onto the verge as the 4X4 shot by, and Seamus waved regally.

Visitors to the tomb, he thought, disappointed to find the season's over and it's closed until spring.

He threw a glance over his left shoulder toward the stubby green mound that was the Newgrange burial chamber, the largest Neolithic structure in all Ireland. Milligan had lived here all his life, farming dairy cattle in this fertile bend of the River Boyne, yet he'd never set foot inside the vast grave.

At least, he reflected, some think it's a grave. Others claim it's the place where the living could speak to the dead, and the future was revealed to the witches. When I was a child, they whispered it was where the demons had gone to live when men stole their world.

Milligan had seen it from the outside, huge white stones laid along its perimeter, their surfaces scrolled with ancient, mystifying symbols.

Once each year, at the winter solstice, a single beam of light entered a receptacle above the doorway. It streamed down the long, narrow passage to the center of the mound and lit it up like summer. For three hundred sixty-five days of the year, the interior lay dark and silent, guarding its secrets well. But for a few brief minutes the sun illumined the intricately carved lining stones, before they returned to darkness for another year.

Milligan was past the turf-covered mound now, onto a long, straight road hedged with hawthorn, elder, and the odd rowan tree. He heard a sound behind him, like the engine of a car impatient to overtake. He risked a glance back, and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

A thin fountain of viscous red liquid was jetting from the center of the mound into the overcast sky.

Lava, Milligan thought. Only it can't be lava–not here!

Where it fell to the ground, flames sparked up as vegetation caught fire and blazed fiercely.

At the last moment, Milligan noticed that his 4X4 was veering sharply. He tried to correct the steering, but he was going too fast. A front wheel caught the edge of the verge, and the vehicle somersaulted off the road and through the air.

There was a ripping of metal and splintering of wood as it smashed into the trunk of a rowan tree. The old folk called it the witches' tree, and claimed no evil spirit could stand in its presence.

Seamus Milligan lay on the verge, his head twisted unnaturally, his neck broken in the fall. He wouldn't see the fires converge into one huge conflagration that would soon sweep over his farm and spread out until half the valley was in flames.

Sunset in Cairo, a riot of purple, red, and gold gleaming off ten thousand mosques and minarets. The streets resounded with the roar of traffic, mingled with singsong chants calling the faithful to prayer.

Outside the city, up on the Giza Plateau, the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids stood in sand-strewn silence, as they had for at least four thousand five hundred years. The only sound was the occasional grunts of camels as they were led home to their quarters for the night. The tourists would be back tomorrow.

Professor Simon Ferzal, Director of Research at Giza, led his party along the side of the old canal, long empty and dry, knowing they'd get the best view of the Great Pyramid silhouetted against an awesome sky.

"When it was built, of course," the professor said, "the pyramid had a golden capstone. It would have reflected light like this for hundreds of miles, marking Giza as a truly magical place."

"Magical?" Cindy Barnes queried. She and a delegation of American investors were visiting Giza, with a view to sinking money into a noninvasive expedition that would produce the very first sonar mapping of the entire plateau. Rumors of hidden chambers, buried secrets, and hoards of gold that made the treasure of Tutankhamen's tomb pale in comparison, had abounded for years. The American mystic Edgar Cayce had predicted that a chamber would be found containing the written works of fabled Atlantis.

Previous sonar surveys had located several unknown tunnels, caves, and chambers running through the plateau's limestone bedrock. Barnes and her team were willing to bet that there were more.

Of course, they'd receive no payment if they struck lucky–not directly, anyway. The Egyptian government would own whatever was found, and it would be made publicly available as soon as the experts had finished their analysis. But Cindy's husband, Don, was already working on the book; TV and movie rights were secured, and a little professional marketing would help them and the government share equally in the photographic rights.

Now, Cindy Barnes frowned. "I thought the ancient Egyptians were the apex of technology for their times, Professor. Why would they bother with magic?"

Ferzal waited a moment before replying. They'd reached a flight of steps, and he signaled to his aide to light the way with a powerful spotlight. Graciously, the research director took Cindy's elbow and assisted her up the stairs.

"My ancestors were technocrats indeed," he said in his impeccable English, lifting his gaze to the massive bulk of the pyramid. "They were able to quarry, move, and lift an estimated six million tons of stone to produce the Great Pyramid alone. Yet at the same time, they lived mired in a world of ritual and superstition. There was a god or goddess for everything, from domestic cats to the universe. All had to be propitiated, or disaster