Chapter Eighteen:
Four Corners

It was a ghost town.

It had breathed its last in the first decade of the new century when its residents having moved to greener pastures and its stories weaved into legend or forgotten. While it lived, it battled dust storms, outlaws and ranch wars. It was home to settlers of every colour and somehow managed to avoid the racial unpleasantries that affected so many communities in the Territory, as it was known in those days. Most of all, it was home to outcasts, pulled together by circumstances to be better.

The town was called Four Corners.

Buck had set down here once before and felt struck by a sense of deja vu although for the life of him, he did not know why. In any case, it always stayed with him, that this town with its boarded-up buildings, dust covered boardwalks and tumbleweeds rolling down the main streets like its final citizens, had once been something important.

When Chris had demanded they get in the air as soon as he got clearance to take off, he decided Four Corners would be the temporary refuge they needed. Buck was still rather surprised they managed to do it, considering how busy the airstrip was that morning. The flight took less than an hour and he put down in the main street of the town, flanked by rickety and dilapidated buildings on either side. Still, they were assured of cover from anyone who might spot them from the air, or on the ground. The freeway was some distance away from the place but Buck saw no reason to take chances.

"Where the hell is this Buck?" Chris had to ask as he peered through the window into the dust blown scene outside.

"Town called Four Corners," the pilot explained as he emerged from the cockpit. "Got engine trouble a few years ago and had to put down here. I was flying this old O2U and I had a loose fuel line. I knew I wouldn't make it to an airstrip to fix it so I searched for some place to land and came across this place."

"Charming," Ezra remarked peering out through the window. "Mr Wilmington, I hope you treat your paramours much better than this when you take them out."

"Ezra," Buck tossed him a smirk as he walked by, "my women don't care where I take them, as long as I just take them."

"Oh God," Alex uttered in disgust. "Who are these women who date you?"

"He finds them at the local Five and Dime," Vin quipped, from the seat next to her.

"Well we all can't hang out on rooftops like you, kid." Buck smirked, giving Alex a playful wink. The duo had developed an interesting friendship since Alex had been forced to treat him after they rescued her from the Erran.

"It's a good spot," Nathan complimented standing up. "No one around for miles and we can figure out what we do next without those crazy bastards chasing us down like dogs."

"Exactly," Chris agreed. "Thanks to JD, we've finally got a chance to get ahead of them." He gave JD a smile as the young man exited the cockpit. For the last three months, Buck had been teaching JD how to pilot the Darlin' Millie . Thanks to JD's amazing memory, he learned remarkably fast and while not capable of flying on his own yet, retained enough to occupy the co-pilot's seat.

"What are you planning Chris?" Josiah asked as the big man stepped out into the aisle between the row of seats.

"We have all the pieces," Chris answered, having decided on a course of action the instant he learned JD had brought them the remaining Pillars and the Heart. "I say we find the Tablet ourselves and destroy it."

"Destroy it?" Mary stared at him. "You can't be serious."

"I agree," Orin said surprising them all by his agreement with Chris's extreme solution. From the beginning of this entire affair, the scholar had been the one most resistant to any harm coming to the artefacts. However, with the bodies piling up and the lengths the Erran were willing to go, to reach their goals, to say nothing of the danger to Mary and Alex, he had reason to reconsider his point of view. "Destroy it."

"Dad..."

"Mary," Orin stood up as the gust of wind penetrated the inside of the fuselage after Buck had unlocked the main door of the craft. The cool air from the upper altitudes was immediately replaced by the warmth of the New Mexico sun. "I have spent fifty years hiding from the Erran, watching my best friends die, one after the other. The Erran have shown they're willing to kill anyone to get what they want, from innocent bystanders to the people I care about."

The Professor glanced at the faces around him before facing her again.

"This ritual of theirs will almost certainly need you or Alex to complete. I'm not risking any more lives on some high-minded principle about historical preservation. Without the Tablet, they can't perform their ritual. It's that simple."

"Mary," Alex added her voice to it because one of the Pillars was hers by birthright. "I want it destroyed too."

To Alex, the Tablet had always been a ghost story, a curiosity to occupy her father's time when he wasn't being a father to her or a doctor to his patients. Now she understood why it had preoccupied his mind so much and what had driven him to keep secrets from her, when their relationship had always been an open book. While she understood his desire for secrecy, she hated being shut out from the truth, especially since her existence depended on knowing the danger lurking in wait for her.

"They took my father from me, Mary," her eyes became as hard as flint. "Even if I don't believe the Tablet is capable of doing what they believe it can do, I want it destroyed so they never get a chance to try. I want them to live whatever is left of their miserable existence knowing the one thing they've been waiting to do for centuries, is beyond their reach. I want them to live with their failure ."

Vin squeezed her hand and she looked down at him, feeling a little ashamed at the hatred that suddenly surfaced in her heart at what the Erran had took from her, but not enough to feel regret.

"Alright then," Chris said exchanging glances with Vin and his men, deciding no further discussion needed to be made on the matter. "We'll get to the Tablet first and then we destroy it.'


The saloon like the rest of the town had been abandoned long ago.

It was covered in a thick layer of dust, with cobwebs hanging suspended from the wagon wheel chandelier and the corners of the room. The wallpaper, yellowed and stained clung to the walls in noticeable furls, revealing wood and plaster beneath. What pictures still remained hanging on the wall, were crooked, their frames split or broken or their glass face shattered and cracked. There were still a few intact tables and chairs left, in equally poor conditioned and the bar of chipped and faded wood, offered half-hearted welcome to travellers that would never come.

"Interesting place," Ezra said scanning the room with its broken shelves, empty bottles and filth covered glasses. He imagined this establishment sixty years ago, full of cowboys, gamblers, saloon girls and outlaws, with the piano with its missing keys, sitting in the corner, playing clunky music to undemanding patrons.

"Yeah," Buck nodded looking around the place with similar interest, once again swept with an odd feeling of nostalgia. "Must have been a hell of a joint once upon a time."

"Must have been," Josiah agreed, finding a seat next to one of the dirt covered windows, so he could keep an eye on the street.

"I'm going upstairs. I want to keep an eye on the area, just in case." Vin indicated the rickety steps leading to the upper floor of the building. He was carrying his Tommy gun with spare cartridges and his rifle. Even if Buck's choice of hiding place was inspired, Vin wasn't about to let his guard down. Too many times, the Erran had caught them off guard and considering what they were about to do, he wasn't taking any chances in the unlikely event they were discovered.

"I'll join you Mr Tanner," Ezra offered, interested in seeing the rest of the place while at the same time offering the sharpshooter some back up. There were some situations Ezra was happy to take a gamble, but the possibility the Erran may appear unexpectedly was not one of them. "After our dealings with these fanatics, I am inclined not to underestimate their resourcefulness."

"Nathan, why don't you and me take a walk around town, just in case." Buck suggested, glancing through the swing doors into the street outside.

Mary approached the dusty felt covered table surrounded by Chris, Alex, Orin and JD. Lying against the table, were the Four Pillars and the Heart of Enki, together for the first time in four thousand years. She thought of the Erran, who had been waiting just as long to be able to complete the task they were about to undertake and imagined the fury of the cultist at being usurped by the people in this building.

"So how does it work?" Mary asked Chris, unable to deny the depths of the man fascinated her. While he was undoubtedly a chauvinistic ass, he revealed surprising depths in being able to navigate the ancient world without formal qualifications, using nothing but instinct and research. At the moment, he was leaning across the table, slicing up candles with a pocket knife, after marking the stems with a ruler.

"Well according to the notes JD took before Doctor Styles's library went up," Chris said meeting Alex's eyes to see the lady's lips turn into a slight pout at the mention of the destruction, before continuing what he was doing again. "The Pillars have to be inserted into their slots in the Heart."

"And the candles?" Orin asked, similarly fascinated. While he knew about the legends surrounding the artefacts, the specifics about how the Pillars and the Heart went together eluded him.

"Well according to the texts, I managed to transcribe," JD explained. "When the Pillar is open the Heart will come alive with the Four Fires of Creation and reveal where the Tablet's final resting place is."

"And that translates into candles?" Alex asked sceptically. Of everyone here, she had the greatest difficulty believing in all this superstition. While she accepted in the mania that caused the Erran to behave the way they did, her understanding of the world was steeped in the sciences. She knew her father worried about the threat the Erran posed to her and Mary, but she could not bring herself to believe William Styles actually thought the Erran could succeed in unmaking the world.

"I think so," Chris explained handing the candles out, now that he had finished preparing them. "We usually find that with a lot of these interpretations, it's the most obvious explanation that fits, once you get past all the fancy riddles."

"I'm afraid Chris is correct," Orin agreed. "People tend to forget when they're interpreting ancient texts, especially those ritual based, the original writers are trying to pass on information, not mask it."

"Okay," Chris straightened up. "We're ready."

Mary took a step back and watched as Chris, JD, her father and Alex, take up a different corners of the table before lighting a candle with the silver lighter Chris handed them. One by one, they allowed the wick to burn a little, melting enough wax to let a drop spill onto the table so they could secure the candle in the space in front of them. From where he was playing sentry, Josiah watched with interest, even though his eyes darted every now and then to the window to ensure no one was coming.

"You first Sir," Chris gestured to Orin.

Orin studied the Heart lying against the table with four slot for each Pillar, awaiting insertion. The old man swallowed, scanning the three faces around him and Chris knew, without having to hear Orin say it, he was morning the absence of the friends who should have been here to fulfil his ritual with him. Thinking of the six men who were such a big part of his life, Chris couldn't imagine what it must be like to be the last one of them still standing.

Orin slid the ornate tip of the Pillar towards the slot and to no one's surprise, it fit perfectly with a soft click, almost as if it had been oiled recently for the purpose. Perhaps the Erran had made some effort to prepare it when the Heart was in their possession. It did not matter, the Pillar hit into the Heart, finally achieving the purpose for which it was created when civilisation was new and the world was young.

Straightening up when it was done, he turned to Alex and nodded. As William's daughter, the Pillar was his legacy to her, for all its perils and history. The soon to be doctor did not speak but like Orin, Chris saw her brown eyes fill with sadness, and wished Vin was here to offer her comfort. Although it was only a few days since he met her, Chris liked the girl and like how happy she made his best friend. Nevertheless, despite her sadness at her father's absence at this moment, Alex performed the task, sliding the Pillar William Styles had taken such great pains to hide, into the slot waiting for it in the Heart.

Once that audible click was heard, Chris knew it was his turn.

He thought of Hank Conley and supposed if there was some consolation to be had in all this, Sarah was out of the Erran's reach forever. Faith was not something he subscribed to but Chris had to believe she and Adam were some place better. If she were here, he knew she would want him to stand for Hank Conley, no matter how acrimonious their relationship had become. In some ways, he weathered the loss of his wife and child a great deal better than Hank, who had apparently deconstructed in his absence. Learning how Hank had died made Chris wish he had reached out to the man and perhaps help him through his grief. But it was too late now. The man was gone, like his daughter and grandson and all Chris could do was play his part in this ritual.

Upon sliding the third Pillar into the slot, Chris raised his eyes to JD who would play proxy for Donald Avery, the first to be killed by the Erran and the only one whose family was unaccounted for. He wondered if Avery's wife had recognised the danger her daughter was in and chose to disappear into the ether to avoid the doom that Mary and Alex now faced. Chris supposed they would never know. If all went well, the Erran would never have a reason to seek Donald Avery's daughter out. JD leaned forward and slid the Pillar into place.

As the last click was heard, the Heart suddenly spun around once, as if the insertion of the four Pillars had set into motion a mechanism inside the object. As it spun, it gleamed against the flicker of candlelight. Then with a soft whirr of ancient gear being forced into movement, the Heart opened wide, like the petals of a flower, in four equal segments. As it did so, simultaneous clicks were heard from each one of the Pillars and the cryptex splayed open, spreading out a length of parchment no more than a foot long, each with markings of charcoal and oil.

Taking place so quickly, no one in the room had time to do anything but stare in awe as the Heart finally carried out the task for which it was created. As the golden petals opened, it revealed a piece of amber cut like a jewel. No sooner than the honey coloured stone appeared before them, it was hoisted upwards on a small length of metal, extending like a collapsible spyglass. The gem was lifted no higher than the length of the candles surrounding the Heart but it was enough.

The amber caught the glow of all four candles and produced a small beam of light that rested on one of the parchments, as if it were a finger pointing all eyes to the destination it wished to reveal.

"Oh my God," Orin exclaimed, realising what the markings on the newly exposed parchments were.

"What is it dad?" Mary asked, gripped by what she was seeing.

"It's a map," Orin declared, leaning over the parchment in front of him.

"They're all pieces of one map," Chris added, making a further observation. "JD, take note of where the light is pointing to. That's where the Tablet is."

"Right Chris," JD nodded, his photographic memory already committing the image to his mind, however, he still marked it on the parchment with a pencil. X marks the spot, he thought absurdly.

"Can we tell where it is?" Alex asked, feeling completely out of her depth. Her expertise was in the biological sciences, not the histories.

Chris was already scanning the different pieces of the map, trying to see if he recognised anything familiar. From a historical point of view, he suspected it was somewhere in Asia Minor, but they would need to piece it together to know definitively where it was. "I'm guessing it would be somewhere in the Middle East, depending on how far the ancient Erran managed to travel."

"Agreed," Orin nodded. "I doubt they would take the Heart outside the boundaries of the Sasanid Empire, but that's still a considerable area. Their empire stretched from Ephesus to India."

"Large area to pinpoint," Josiah rumbled from where he was.

Chris did not respond; his steely gaze was fixed on the pieces. Once JD had marked the spot on the parchment extending from Alex's Pillar, the leader of the seven quickly collected them and took them away from the table.

"What are you doing?" Mary asked, following his progress to where Josiah was seated.

"I need the light," Chris answered, not looking at the others. "Josiah, see if you can't clean that window. The charcoal they used for ink back in the day is pretty faint. I need to see this clearly."

"You recognise where it is Mr Larabee?" Mary asked.

As Josiah wiped down the window with his handkerchief, removing years of dirt in a matter of seconds, more light poured against the table where Chris had spread out the parchments. Dust danced like embers in the light as the illumination gave him the clarity he needed. As they surrounded him, careful not to crowd in and cast shadows, Chris studied the markings on each piece of parchment. He always had an eye for ancient maps and before JD came along, relied upon this skill to find the artefacts Orin sent them to hunt.

"I think so," Chris said not looking up, manipulating each parchment as he started to see the larger picture, sliding it gently across the old wooden table, to avoid damaging any of them. "This here," he gestured to what might have been a lake. "I think that's Lake Hammar, which is about 400 miles from the Persian Gulf."

JD came over to Chris and leaned over the man's shoulder. "You're right. It is." The young scholar exchanged a look with the Professor, both impressed by Chris's ability to see what they couldn't.

"If that's Lake Hammar, then the Cradle, when the Table is being kept," he indicate the pencil mark he had made, "is Eridu."

"Eridu?" Alex asked, "Where is that?"

"Southern Mesopotamia," Orin explained. "That actually makes sense, Eridu is considered to be the oldest city in the world and its only seven miles from Ur, where we found the Pillars fifty years ago. It also supposed to be the city founded by Enki, the Sumerian supreme deity."

"So, we're going to Persia?" Mary was smiling, already delighted by the idea of going to an ancient city.

"It isn't simply a matter of going to the city," JD told her, remembering how he had managed to trick the Shah into showing him the location of the Pillars and the Heart in the Erran leader's possession.

"What do you mean?" Alex asked, wondering what other turns this whole escapade was going to take next.

"Before your dad's library got burned up, I had a look at some of his research. He had texts that aren't even in our university, Professor Travis."

Orin nodded in understanding. "It became Will's obsession. I think once he learned about the ritual to raise Tiamat, to unlock the power of the tablet, he was obsessed. He used the fortune we brought back from Ur to track down everything he could about the Tablet."

"One of those was an Akkadian translation of the Ninurta and the Turtle, it's a poem chronicling the legend of Enki. Anyway, in this poem, it lists these trials that have to be overcome before anyone can get their hands on the Tablet in the Cradle."

"Trials?" Mary didn't like the sound of this. "You mean..."

"Probably traps," Chris finished off.

Alex groaned. "Oh, I just know I'm going to get dirty again ."