The Lost Tribes, page 5
Ben was unimpressed. “Where’s the good stuff? The monsters?” In the center of the room stood a glass chamber containing a white marble altar. Eight symbols were carved into the circumference — duplicates of the one on the ancient book. A scale rose out of the stone. A parchment opened on the screen:
In the year 10,500 BC, a guardian of great power was placed in the East. Honed of mystical materials, her treasure now lies buried and forgotten under the sand. Open her and rewards beyond your imagination will be revealed. But you must first find the keys. Like the eight original tribes, they have been scattered across the earth. Return them to their proper place. Before you lies the path to your destiny. Choose wisely.
This was promising. When Ben clicked on the scale, two enormous doors materialized at the end of the room. The polished metal surface was covered in symbols Ben didn’t recognize. Half of a balance scale was carved on each side holding a feather on the left and nothing on the right. Flanking the doors stood statues of Anubis and Toth — the god in charge of the weighing and the Goddess Ammut — part crocodile, part lion, part hippopotamus. Ammut ate anyone who didn’t make the cut. Above the doors crouched a woman, her wing-covered arms outstretched to either side.
“That’s the symbol for Ma’at,” Grace said. “This must be the entrance to the Hall of Truth.”
“The place where the souls of Egypt’s dead went to be judged,” Ben confirmed. “Bet you didn’t think I was paying attention in class.”
“You weren’t. You got a C- on the test. Besides, it says that right above the door.”
“I got a higher grade than you did!” Ben laughed. “Burn!”
“You didn’t need to go there,” Grace muttered, her cheeks flushed.
The symbols translated into English as soon as Ben passed over them with his cursor.
“Enter those who have proven worthy.”
A current of electricity jolted through Ben. In ancient Egypt, hearts of the dead were placed on the right side of the scale. If the scales balanced, you went on to a great reward — the afterlife. If not, you were dinner for Ammut and your death was final. If Ben solved the game, would the scale judge him to be worthy?
“Earth to Ben. Did you find something or are you daydreaming about slaying monsters with your supercharged basketball? I clicked on the doors but they don’t open. Guess we have put a heart on the scale before it will let us in. Got one we can use?”
Ben snapped back to attention and sighed.
“I guess that means ‘no.’ “Grace chuckled. “Means we’ll have to find a heart somewhere else. Mine’s taken.”
The Eye of Ra glowed red in the center of a large stone medallion.
Eight statues rose out of the floor and flanked the Guardian doors like royal guards — four on each side. Their arms wrapped around stone jars large enough to hold a giant. The tops were crowned with round disks embossed with ellipses and circles — like maps of a solar system. The blank obsidion faces of the guards showed no clues as to gender, race or even species.
“I don’t know about this. Is it going to be scary?” Grace frowned and squinted as if trying to block out any unexpected, horrific sights.
“Yeah!” Ben said, “If I know my uncle, this is going to be intense! What do you think is behind that big door? Zombie mummies?”
“I’m kind of hoping for something useful — like a treasure chest, a puppy, or an essay I can turn in for English.”
“That would be tragic.” Ben sighed. “What’s up with those gigantic jars?” They look like canopic jars but without the animal heads on top.”
“If those are canopic jars, then you know what’s inside,” Grace said.
Ben’s heart kicked up a notch. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Eight jars means two monsters to defeat. Two sets of lungs, livers, stomachs and intestines. Maybe that’s why those metal doors are so big. Must be hiding one huge surprise.”
“Lungs and livers don’t sound like treasure to me. Your uncle promised your mother no violence. Do you think he lied?”
Ben’s joy evaporated. “No. Guess we’re back to a history quest.”
Each jar contained weird symbols and a grid pattern that looked like maps. Two parallel rods wrapped around them like serpents. Strands of gold, silver, copper, and pewter hung from the rods like fringe.
Grace frowned. “It’d be nice if we had some instructions. Did the game come with a manual?”
“Get real,” Ben said. “You’ve met my uncle. Think he’d would make it that easy?”
After five minutes of searching Ben couldn’t find anything else. No secret passages. No hidden sarcophagi. Ben would have even welcomed the evil skeleton popping up for a visit.
“Hey, Grace!” Ben said, with a sudden start. “Go back out into the hallway.”
“Why? Think we missed something?”
“The book, remember?” Ben clicked “Legend” on the game panel and zoomed back to the ancient book. The blank pages were now filled with drawings. Handwritten notes appeared in the margins: star charts, colored dots, strange box shaped markings, numerical codes, and squiggles that looked like the waves of an ocean. But they didn’t make any more sense than hieroglyphics. Ben passed the cursor over the new symbols. There was no way to translate.
“Darn, it’s a code,” Grace said.
Ben groaned. “Ya think?”
“Yes, Sherlock, I do. I can breeze through cryptograms, but I have trouble with breaking codes. We need help and I know someone who loves them. Got kind of a ‘Beautiful Mind’ thing going on without the seeing imaginary people part.”
“Who?” asked Ben. “And if you say April, I’m reporting you to Homeland Security.”
“She’s a really nice person if you give her a chance.”
“Who, Grace? Who?”
Grace scrunched up her face as if saying the name would make her explode.
“Who?” Ben yelled.
Grace winced and ducked. “Serise.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ode to Joy
“The Bible says make a joyful noise, it does not say it has to be a pleasant one.”
Author Unknown
“You got math homework, Mister?”
“Yeah, but it’s not due until Monday.”
“In this house, it’s due the day it was assigned! I’ll expect to see it by evening — no games until you’re done. Oh! Hi Grace, didn’t see you.”
“Mom!”
“I said now!”
Exiled to the dining room table, Ben stared at the formulas in his math textbook. They were as bad as deciphering hieroglyphics.
A few feet away, April pounded a Steinway so big it took up half the living room. The sheet music said “Ode to Joy” but her rendition was full of variations Ben was sure the teacher had not intended. As April dipped and bobbed her head like a concert pianist, the beads on her braids began to glow.
Motion activated beads? What dumb corporation thought of that?
“What’s that awful noise you’re making?” he asked.
“Jazz,” April whispered. “Mr. Windom said I could try improvisation.”
“I thought you were conjuring up ancient spells to raise the dead.”
“Mom! Ben’s insulting me!”
“That’s great,” answered his mother from the kitchen.
Huh?
“Absolutely! Mahjong on Sunday. I hear the boys have something special planned for themselves,” his mother continued.
Ben stuck his tongue out at April, clutched his throat and flung his head to the table in a mock death throe.
April ran into the kitchen. “Mom!”
Ben laughed, happy to have peace and quiet. But he knew it wouldn’t last long. The operative question was, How to get April off that piano?
Within minutes he crafted a solution that would benefit him and the world in general. Put April in a high security prison with her piano books and the crime rate would drop to zero.
“Ben!” His mother said, storming into the room.
“Uh oh.” Ben braced for impact. “Mom! She’s lying. I didn’t do anything.”
“I am not your personal referee. One day the two of you are going to have to learn to work out your differences without me.” Her eyes flashed like Mt. Vesuvius before the volcano buried all of Pompeii. “By the way, Ben, there’s no such thing as a spell to raise the dead. And April, I told Mr. Windom no jazz until you mastered Beethoven.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” they said in unison.
April stomped back to the piano and banged out “Für Elise.” She butchered the notes over and over again, searching for the right tempo.
“A metronome would help,” offered Ben. “And some talent.”
“Mr. Windom called you tone deaf,” April replied. “So you couldn’t carry a tune even if you had a pickup truck.”
At a loss for a snappy response, Ben ignored her. That did the trick. April pounded the piano keys with extra force to punctuate her frustration.
Savoring his victory, Ben returned to his homework. His math diagrams looked like a game of hangman. What was the point? His jump shot would rule the world one day. He’d just hire an accountant.
“Ben,” his mother yelled from the kitchen. “If you would stop spending every waking minute thinking about basketball you would know that the hypotenuse is the side OPPOSITE the right angle. If you want to figure out the length just take the square root of the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The Pythagorean theorem is easy if you would just focus!”
Why can’t she speak English? He powered on his calculator.
“And take your hands off that calculator! Use your brain!” she continued. “You’ll need to know math so you can manage all those contracts you think will be dribbling your way.”
April stuck her tongue out at him.
“April, stop making faces at your brother.”
Ben grimaced. Either his mother installed secret cameras or she had X-ray eyes.
He escaped to the solitude of his backyard. While Grace was stuck contacting Serise, Paradise Circle’s know-it-all diva, his assignment was easy — get help deciphering the game clues from Carlos Lopez. Ben had spent endless summer nights lying on his back with all the other Paradise Circle inmates while Carlos’s father, an astronomy geek, pointed out the stars. Big Dipper, Little Dipper, North Star. Who could tell the difference? To Ben space just looked like a giant piece of black construction paper with holes poked in it. Shine a super giant flashlight through it and voila … stars! So if anyone could figure out the star patterns it would be Dr. Lopez’s son.
Tap, bounce, bounce, bounce … crash!
Carlos maneuvered his short, stocky legs toward a hoop attached to a pole in his backyard.
Crash!
Ben had high hopes when Carlos moved next door and doubled the cul-de-sac’s population of resident boys. As luck would have it, Carlos was a nerd not a jock.
Thud! Crash!
Ben glanced from Carlos to the paper and back again.
“Want some company?”
“Sure, come on over,” Carlos shouted without taking his eye off of the net.
Bounce. Bounce. Crash!
Ben climbed over the deck railing and hopped the short fence. “I need a favor.”
“Can’t give you the answers to the math homework. Your mom called my mom.”
Ben frowned. His mother had the entire neighborhood on alert. “That’s not what I need. I’m working on a puzzle. Thought I could trade you some basketball pointers if you help me decipher a code.”
“Yeah, sure. Saw you practicing in the gym the other day. Dude, you crushed the competition. What happened? You used to play worse than me!”
Ben shrugged. “One day I was horsing around and everything just started to click. Know what I mean?”
“No, actually, I don’t.” Carlos studied the ball as if concealed the secrets to pro basketball. “Okay. What am I doing wrong?” He released the ball and clenched his fists in anticipation.
Thud! Crash!
Ben caught the ball as it bounced off the roof of the garage and returned to Carlos. “You’re not lining up your shots.”
“Isn’t that the same as aiming at the basket?” Carlos asked.
“Sort of. But you have to visualize the hoop, determine the angle of trajectory, and then control the speed of release.” Ben released the ball. It fell through the opening of the hoop with a whisper soft “whoosh.”
“If you can explain basketball that way, then how come you can’t figure out the math homework? It’s kind of the same thing,” Carlos said, shaking his head as he rebounded. Then he stopped cold. “Hey, you lifting weights?”
“Huh?”
“You’re getting muscles. You lifting weights to get ready for the season?”
Ben pushed up the sleeves of his Laker’s jersey. Sunlight glinted off bulges he hadn’t noticed before. He balled up his fist, made a muscle, and poked at it. Firm like a rock. Ben was ecstatic. “Just shooting hoops. Didn’t know I’d get results so fast!”
“Must be all the hours you put in this summer.” Carlos held the ball in front of his face and eyed it as if it were a precious jewel. He adjusted his hands, one on the bottom, one on the top, and crouched to line the ball up with the net.
“Now imagine an arc,” Ben said, still admiring the new definition in his arms and flexing his muscles over and over again. “Think smooth curve that ends in the net … like a rainbow. You’re a nerd so think math and science formulas; parabolas, potential energy, gravity.” Ben watched as the ball released into the air.
Crash!
The ball rolled to a stop near a blue backpack on the lawn. Carlos took it everywhere.
“Ya think you could stuff one more thing in that backpack?” Ben asked.
Carlos shrugged and took the ball from Ben. “You never know when you’re going to need something.”
“But you pack like you’re going on an expedition,” Ben said. “The only thing you’re missing is a sleeping bag.”
Carlos’s eyes lit up.
“You don’t have one in there, do you?” Ben lifted the pack and tried to use it like a dumbbell. It looked like it weighed a ton, but was surprisingly lightweight.
Carlos grinned. “One day you’ll be thankful I’m so prepared. So what was that code you wanted me to look at?” He aimed, then crossed his fingers as the ball took flight.
Crash! Thud!
“Oh, yeah.” Ben caught the ball as it bounced off the gutter and tossed it back to Carlos. “I almost forgot.” He pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket and pointed to his crude drawings of the medallion and its cryptic symbols. “It’s from a game my uncle gave me. Grace and I thought you would know what they were.”
Carlos raised his left eyebrow. “What kind of game?”
“A digital treasure hunt. If I solve the puzzles by next week I can go on an expedition. My uncle said there would be a surprise ending. Though maybe this is just a super secret way of slipping in some math and science practice.”
“Overrated,” Carlos sighed, rolling the basketball in his hands.
“Math and science?” Ben asked.
“No. Expeditions. No working bathrooms. You sleep on a cot in a hot, stuffy tent while a bunch of science geeks dig stuff up one millimeter at a time. Why didn’t you ask for something fun like a trip to King’s Island? I heard they’ve got a new roller coaster. Then you could get out of town and have fun at the same time.”
“I know your parents dragged you all over the planet,” Ben said, “but this would be my first adventure.”
“And you wouldn’t mind hanging out with your uncle? He’s kind of intense. I bet he could make a lemon pucker.”
“He’s not so bad,” Ben lied. Uncle Henry was a lot of things, but he was also family and Ben wasn’t going to insult him in front of Carlos. “Mom says he just needs to settle down and start a family.”
“No offense but who’d be crazy enough to marry him?” Carlos traced the star patterns with his index finger.
Ben sighed. “I don’t think he’s the settling kind. Doesn’t even have a house. Mom calls him a restless soul. Either way, this would be my chance to show him I’ve got what it takes.”
“Did you tell him you were going out for the basketball team?”
“He wasn’t impressed,” Ben confessed.
“Really? I thought he’d be into all that macho sports stuff. Okay. I’ll help if you let me play. Dad’s in Peru digging up some petrified dead thing and Mom’s in a sour mood. You’ll solve it faster if we work together.”
“Deal. Grace is getting help from Serise.”
Carlos scowled. “Serise?”
“She’s not playing. Grace is just getting help with the codes without saying what it’s for.”
“Then I’m in,” said Carlos, giving a thumb up.
Ben laid the paper on the patio table and blocked the sun’s glare with his hand. “There’s an old book with star charts and weird box codes. Think they might be related?”
“They do look like star patterns,” Carlos said. “But I don’t recognize them and, trust me, Dad’s made me memorize them all.”
“What about the numbers? Could those be another code?”
“Maybe. But it looks more like GPS data. I might be wrong, but I think they’re coordinates for locations on Earth.”
CHAPTER TEN
Queen of the Universe
If a man sought a companion who acted entirely like himself, he would live in solitude.
Nigerian Proverb
“Hey Guys!”
Ben grimaced and turned toward the familiar voice walking up the driveway. Serise Hightower, self-titled Queen of the Universe, could barely move in her tight jeans and wedge-heeled shoes.
“Like my watch?” Serise thrust out her wrist. “Mom got it when she was in New Mexico. It’s Sterling silver. VERY expensive.”
She beamed as Grace and April took a closer look. Turquoise stones were embedded in the silver band. Serise had painted matching flowers on her nails. But the watch and nails weren’t nearly as obnoxious as the maroon and purple highlights and feathers in her jet black hair.
