Prologue

        

The air was hot and dusty in his mouth, and dry as the parched earth at his feet. His wide-brimmed hat was pulled low over his face in an effort to provide some shelter from the blazing sunlight, while his skin was plastered with sun-tan cream that he was sure was having absolutely no effect.

Before him, the machine continued to drill its way forward, delving ever deeper into the bowels of the mountain. It was churning up a big cloud of dust, which blew into his face and added to his discomfort.

Sighing, he turned away. He had lost interest in this dig; in fact, he had lost interest in archaeology. He gazed out over the South African lowvelt, the many fields and townships, which dropped away spectacularly from mountaintop. But he wasn’t thinking about the view. He was thinking about his home, far away, and his daughter.

An abrupt silence brought him back to his surroundings. The drill had stopped. The silence stretched out, as though the mountain was still reeling in shock from the disturbance.

Then a cheer rent the air. The driver of the drill, whose name was Bryan, had leapt out, whooping. “We’re through!” he yelled. “We’re through at last! How’s that, Graham?”

“Great,” said Graham, unenthusiastically. An image of his wife appeared in his head once more, and he felt a pang of longing.

Behind him, a door opened in the prefabricated on-site hut, and Janice came out. Behind her, the thick-set Boxley brothers had to turn sideways to fit through the door. Graham curled his lip in distaste. The Boxleys were Bryan’s bodyguards, as if he was likely to need them, and they seemed to have exchanged their brains for muscles.

“Are we ready to go in?” asked Bryan, excited.

“Can’t wait, can we?” asked Janice, smiling flirtatiously at Graham. Graham turned away; she knew he wasn't interested.

They let Bryan go first; after all, the whole expedition had been his idea. He had heard legends of an ancient cave buried inside this mountain range, and had inspired Graham and Janice, two other archaeologists, to accompany him. At first the three of them had been excited, but as time had worn on and they had come no closer to finding the cave, all of them but Bryan had begun to lose interest. Now Graham thought that he could hardly bear the thought of another pointless trip into a dark, airless and uninteresting cave that was probably nothing like the cave of legend that they sought.

Bryan entered first, ducking through the narrow entrance the drill had carved. Though he was the shortest of all of them, he still scuffed the side of his bald head on the top edge of the hole. After cursing loudly, he turned to the others. “Hurry up!” he called.

Graham stepped to the edge of the opening and clambered laboriously down, Janice following nervously behind him. The Boxleys stayed outside, standing guard against some threat known only to them. Inside was a tunnel, stretching in both directions into total darkness. It was stiflingly hot. The air smelt of air that had been trapped in one place for thousands of years, if not more. The sunlight, which had been so boisterous outside, seemed somehow uncertain here, as though it knew it shouldn’t be here.

“Look!” whispered Janice, breathlessly. Graham looked where she was pointing, and stared for a few seconds, unseeing. Then he realised what she meant. There were faint scratches on the wall, almost invisible with age. Somewhere deep within him, his interest was sparked, despite himself. They didn't look natural. Perhaps this was the right cave.

He pulled a torch out of his belt and switched it on, angling it so that it cast deep shadows into the scratches, making them easier to see. Janice gasped, and Graham's interest increased. They were definitely man-made scratches; some sort of artwork, maybe. He could make out the outline of a winged man, like an angel. His arms and wings were spread wide, and jagged lines ringed him. He wondered if they symbolized something.

“It's beautiful,” Janice whispered. This was stretching a point, Graham thought. There was a certain artisticness about the picture, but it looked sketchy and unfinished, unless it was just faded with age.

“We should show Bryan,” he said, his voice echoing in the passage.

“Where'd he go?” asked Janice.

Graham motioned down the tunnel in the direction Bryan had gone, and the two of them set off in pursuit. They walked slowly, respectfully. The tunnel sloped downwards gently, leading them deeper and deeper into the mountain. As they walked, they passed more scratchings on the wall. The further they went, the newer and easier to see the scratches became. Graham took a camera out of his belt pouch and started photographing the pictures they saw, so they could study them later.

All the pictures showed winged people. They passed one showing a man using his wings to lift what looked like huge boulders into the air. Just past this was what looked like a depiction of Moses parting the Red Sea, except that Moses was shown here with huge, feathery wings.

As they walked further, the pictures took a different turn: they became suddenly more chaotic, more violent. Now they showed winged people swooping down upon each other, hurling what looked like handfuls of fire or bolts of lightning at each other, while behind them forests burned and died. Graham guessed this was symbolic of some war or other, though it was a very fanciful depiction.

The passage ended with an archway leading through to a fairly large, circular room. Graham and Janice ducked through, to find Bryan facing away from them, examining the artwork in here.

It was yet another depiction of a winged man, but bigger and more detailed than all those so far. The man himself was life-sized, and stood with his arms extended as though in welcome. His face had been left blank. His wings, however, where magnificent. They were spread over the most of the walls, each feather perfectly scratched out. Around him, crowded against the archway, were other figures, each with their own set of wings. It took Graham a few seconds to notice that these wings all merged into the central figure's pair, as though they were merely an extension of himself.

“This is amazing,” Janice breathed. “All these pictures. I'd never dreamed it would be...” She tailed off, unable to think of the right word.

“What do you think of that, though?” said Bryan, motioning towards something Graham and Janice hadn't noticed. Beneath the central figure in the picture lay a stone block, possibly an altar of some sort. Janice gasped, this time with revulsion, because atop the block, grinning widely, sat a human skull. It was chalk-white, seeming to glow in their torchlight. Its teeth were white and perfect, yet strangely sharp. Its eyes were pools of darkness.

Graham didn't react. He'd seen skeletons on digs before, hundreds of times. Bryan also showed no surprise at the skull; if anything, he seemed fascinated by it.

“We'll take it back to the lab,” he said. “We can examine it, find out how old it is.” His eyes were hungry.

“I'm not sure we should,” said Janice, unexpectedly. The others glanced at her. “It's just a feeling I have. It looks creepy.” She shrugged.

“Oh, come on,” said Bryan impatiently. “You're an archaeologist. You look at skeletons all the time.”

“I know, but...” she glanced imploringly at Graham.

Graham brushed a hand through his moustache. “We should take it to the lab,” he said, decisively. “We came here to find out about this place, after all.”

“But-” Janice began.

“Then,” Graham interrupted, “we'll bring it back and leave it here. It'll be like we never moved it.”

Janice still looked unhappy, and so did Bryan. “We can't do that,” he said. “We need evidence of what we've found here!”

“We have photographs,” said Graham, holding up his camera.”That'll be enough.” He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, picked up the skull and pushed it into his rucksack. The zip closed over the dead, grinning face, and the matter was settled.

Simon Gold

Simon Gold awoke with a start.

For a few moments, he wasn't sure where he was. His heart was pounding. He tried to look around, expecting at any moment to feel lightning jolt through his body. But he couldn't move. Something was clinging to him, strangling him. Panicking, he sat bolt upright and threw the blankets from him.

After a few moments, his reason caught up with him. There was no enemy. It was just his old nightmare. Strange, really. He hadn't had that dream in over a year.

He glanced at the alarm clock. Half six. His dad would have come in to wake him in half an hour anyway; he might as well get up.

The house was cool as he crossed the spacious landing. The heating mustn't have come on yet. He paused. The thermostat was back where he'd started, by his bedroom door. He reached out for it instinctively, as though he could reach it from where he was. Then he sighed inwardly, walked back across the landing and turned it up, then crossed the landing for a third time and descended the stairs.

A letter lay on the doormat. He frowned, thinking it was rather early for the postman to have come, and stooped to pick it up.

He froze, still bent over, glaring at the envelope. It had no address; it simply said To Simon. The handwriting was a messy scrawl. His face hardened. He recognized that style.

He straightened up, walked calmly into the office and dropped the unopened letter in the shredder. It growled, like an animal objecting to the taste of its food. Well, he thought, anything would object to something written by that man.

He heard footsteps on the staircase behind him, and through the office doorway saw his dad coming downstairs. “Hi,” he said, his voice bright.

His dad blinked. “Good morning,” he said. “What're you doing up this early?”

“Couldn't sleep,” said Simon, shrugging. “I had a bad dream.”

Simon walked through the door from the office to the kitchen, while his dad entered via the door from the hallway. “Close your door, would you?” he asked, closing his own. “It's cold this morning.”

Simon reached out for the door handle, then realised that it was still several feet out of his reach. He frowned. That was the second time today he'd tried to do that. What was wrong with him?

He shrugged, closed the door properly and sat himself down at the table. His dad poured them both bowls of cereal and sat opposite him.

Simon stared at his bowl for a few minutes. “Dad?” he asked, thoughtfully.

“Mm?” replied his dad, his mouth full.

“Have you heard from Uncle David? Recently, I mean?”

His dad shook his head and swallowed. “I haven't heard from him for years. Why?”

“Just wondering,” said Simon, trying to keep his voice casual. “I was thinking that he always used to take me on holidays, and I wondered if you knew why he doesn't speak to us anymore.”

His dad hesitated, considering him. “Erm... I don't really know,” he said. “Maybe he's just gone off us. He never really spoke to me very much anyway. It was only you he was interested in.”

He stood up, having finished eating. “I'm going to wake Peter,” he said. “You don't need to rush that,” he said, motioning towards Simon's barely started meal. “You've got plenty of time.”

Simon smiled and scooped up another mouthful. Then he sighed and put his spoon down. He didn't feel like eating. Then again, he knew from experience he would be hungry later if he didn't eat now. He sighed again and began eating slowly.

He went back out into the hall just in time. There was a letter lying at the foot of the stairs. It said, in a messy scrawl, To Peter. He scooped it up hurriedly, just as his dad reappeared at the top of the stairs with Simon's brother Peter in tow.

“What's that?” asked Peter, curiously.

Simon shrugged. “Junk mail,” he said.

“Gets worse every day,” his dad commented. “I'd throw it away if I were you.”

“Oh, I will,” Simon said, screwing the letter up behind his back. “Don't worry about that.”

Rachel Dawn

Rachel also woke early that morning, although for a while she didn't realise. In fact, she was out of bed and downstairs before she had even looked at the clock and found out what time it was. By that time, however, it would have been pointless to go back and try and get some more sleep.

Breakfast was rather disheartening; the last few cornflakes in the pack and milk that was verging on sour. Of course, her dad hadn't remembered to leave her enough money to buy groceries before he ran off to who-knew-where, he never did. She sighed, and glanced outside. It looked like a nice day. Maybe eating outside would cheer her up.

The garden seriously needed work on it; it was cluttered and the weeds would soon be growing taller than the house. Still, the day was warm, even though the sun hadn't risen yet.

She put her bowl on the table, grabbed a wooden chair from halfway down the garden, where it had been lying for so long the weeds had grown between the slats, and started eating.

The milk was definitely funny, she decided. Still, she forced herself to eat it; she knew from experience she'd be hungry if she didn't. In fact, she found that having a full stomach did make her feel better. She wondered if there was anywhere she could get money from. Her friend Amber would be the obvious person, but she was on holiday. Maybe she could ask Peter at school. That would be embarrassing, but she had to get money from somewhere. She did babysit for a couple just down the road, but they only went out once a week. She'd tried to get a paper round as well, but the village was so small it only had one and that was taken.

Her thoughts wandered as she stared around the garden. It was a nice garden, or would be if anyone looked after it. It had ramshackle wooden fences on two sides, but the side opposite the house had nothing but a metal rail so as not to block the view. The house sat on a cliff overlooking the sea. She wandered down the garden and leant on the rail, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair. The sky was light over the horizon; dawn was approaching. She liked the dawn, maybe because it was in her name: Rachel Dawn.

She stood and waited for it – she had plenty of time, after all. And she was glad she waited, because it was magnificent.

The sun seemed to leap into the sky, a dazzling flame that burned the clouds away and turned the sea the colour honey. She smiled, basking in the light. A new day had arrived. What did it matter if the milk was a bit off, if there were still sights like this to see?

She stayed there for a long time, staring into that wonderful new dawn. Then she went to school, which she thought was a bit of a let-down, really.

Asma Mahlangu

Another person who rose before dawn that day was named Asma Mahlangu. This was not unusual – in fact it happened every day – but normally only because her mum woke her. She seemed to have an instinct that made her want to do nothing but lie down and sleep. Today, however, she was the first in her family to wake.

She squeezed herself out from between two of her sisters, climbed over one of her brother's legs and squeezed out into the main room of the house. This was where her parents slept, and where the family lived, cooked, ate, talked and did almost everything else. There were no other rooms. There were only two.

Quietly, Asma prodded her mother awake. She whispered a word of thanks and went into the bedroom to wake her sisters. Asma herself grabbed her clothes from where they were neatly folded in a corner, pulled them on and ducked through the door.

She walked barefoot. The ground was covered in thick, red dust, and if she got her shoes dirty she wouldn't be allowed into school. She walked quietly past a few more houses, all built of the same ramshackle collection of pieces of wood and detritus as her own, and made her way into the forest where she could pee privately before the men got up.

She was back home before her sisters had left. She waved at them as they passed, and they smiled back. They didn't speak, not wanting to waken anyone else up.

Asma glanced at the sky. It was only just getting light; dawn was a long way off. She sighed and picked up a water-pot from outside her house. She had a long walk ahead of her.

The ground was cool beneath her feet, but not cold. She walked once again into the forest, her feet following the well-trodden path that led, eventually, to the river. As she walked, colour seeped into her surroundings, turning them from deep blue to dusty red and brown. She heard something rustle in the ferny undergrowth and stopped, her eyes flicking to either side, more cautious than worried.

A hare darted across the path and vanished back into the undergrowth. Asma relaxed. She had to admit she had been worried. She'd never met anything dangerous herself, but there were stories of leopards hunting in this forest, and of course there was the tribe nearby which sometimes attacked people without any obvious provocation.

Eventually she heard the sound of running water, and a few minutes later she was bending down at the river-bank and filling the water-pot. She took a sip. It was cool and refreshing, though with a slight taste of mud mixed in with it.

Only now did she notice how hungry she was; like a deep ache inside her, as though some creature lay curled up in her stomach, gnawing at her insides. There was nothing she could do about it right now, though, so she put it from her mind.

The sky grew lighter still. The first rays of sunrise peered over the horizon, as though it was checking the coast was clear. Then it leapt into the sky like a great lion pouncing. The sky glowed a brilliant orange and the grass on the far bank shone like gold.

“Interesting, is it not?” said a clipped voice behind her. She turned, startled. She hadn't heard anyone approach, yet a girl stood between the trees, dressed in clothes of some bright red fabric. Her hair was short, black and curly, unlike Asma's flowing mane of chestnut, her face was more angular and her skin was a few shades darker. She held some sort of stick or staff clasped in her folded arms, with an ornately carved top.

Asma nodded in answer to the girl's question, although she wouldn't have used the word “interesting” to describe the sunrise. In fact, “interesting” was probably more fitting to describe the girl. Interesting, and worrying. How had she sneaked up on Asma like that, and why? Her red clothes marked her out as coming from one of the tribes, and Asma's parents had warned her they were dangerous people to meet. Yet the girl wasn't acting dangerous. Was she likely to attack Asma? What if Asma had accidentally walked into tribal territory? Asma examined her face discreetly, but it was blank.

“Interesting,” the girl said again. “This same sunrise will be seen all around the world.”

Asma nodded again and smiled. Sometimes she wished she could speak, but right now she was glad not to. Something about this new girl was discomforting.

“I am Abeni,” said the girl, holding out her hand. Asma touched it lightly, then let go, bringing her hands up and spelling out her own name.

Abeni turned her head sideways and eyed her. “Do you talk?” she asked, sounding slightly irritated. Asma shook her head, and Abeni inclined hers, possibly out of respect. As though that was all she'd wanted to know, Abeni turned and strode silently into the trees.

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[John Morris]

Its on my reading list Greenie