A beautiful woman with large, exotic, Bedouin eyes stepped forward. Her hair was covered, but she wore army fatigues. "We are honored and have heard much through the underground networks about the Neteru team and its legendary Neterus. You all give us hope . . . you even travel with your parents and children. Families beyond soldiers." She turned and gazed at Damali and then suddenly hugged her. "You have done what we all hope to do, live unmolested like normal people, if there could be peace."
"We all hope for that," Damali said, returning Habiba's warm embrace, and squeezing Ayana between them. "You are not alone. Everybody who's sane in the world wants that."
Carlos glanced around and then settled his line of vision back on Tobias. "Is the water source safe? Because if so, we need to water our teams, close up some of these demon nicks before we have any internal group problems, and figure out how to keep nonwarriors safe. Don't know if you heard, but we're looking for an ancient manuscript down here, and gotta go into Jerusalem into the tunnel system there."
"I can show you the tunnels in Jerusalem--but the city has been severely bombed, things are not what they once were there. It is dangerous, crawling with confused troops. Contagion is rampant. It would be best to take a small search party, rather than a full squadron to draw unwanted attention. However, I have never personally seen a manuscript here." Tobias pointed to the tunnel interior, sending his gaze around it with a puzzled frown. "The walls are iron ore . . . there isn't a place where it looks like someone dug into the walls to hide something old and fragile."
"The water is untainted, though. First things first," Habiba said, going to the edge of the reservoir and dampening the tip of her khimar. "Let the little one and your civilians drink." She came close to Damali and wiped Ayana's dirty face, but Ayana took the edge of the wet khimar and wiped Damali's pearl.
"Pearl doesn't like to be dirty," Ayana said quietly. "She doesn't like fighting and loud noises, and me neiver. But she wants to tell Aunt Damali where the book she's looking for is ... you're nice and you're pretty."
With a look back at her mother and Damali, Ayana went to the female Guardian's arms.
"She's a seer," Habiba said in an awed rush. "Yeah, a real serious one, too," Damali said proudly, taking up Inez's hand. "This is her mother." She nodded to Delores, who was leaning on Monty. "That's her grandmother."
"Three generations, all alive?" Habiba said, surprised, causing the Middle Eastern team to murmur appreciatively. "You are blessed."
"We are, indeed," Damali said, kissing Ayana's cheek. Ayana gently tugged on Damali's hair. "Aunt 'Mali, Pearl wants to tell you somepfin, but she needs more water."
Damali smiled as the youngster took off her necklace. "She's too dirty, boo. You can't dip her in the drinking water . . . then all that demon gook will make people who need freshwater sick." "Pour some on her den," Ayana said, frowning. An Israeli Guardian from the rear tossed a canteen forward and those closer to Habiba passed it forward to her.
"Out of the mouths of babes," Damali said, holding her necklace over the ground so that a clear stream of water could wash over it.
Within moments the pearl coughed, gagged, and sputtered. "Damali, oh, have mercy . . . that was horrific!"
Habiba and Tobias gathered in closer, mesmerized as their team members craned their necks to watch with the others.
"Yeah . . . that was pretty bad," Damali admitted. "I'm sorry you had to be a part of it."
"Quickly," Pearl said in a breathless wheeze, "gather your sisters around the water. Raise Atlantis down here."
"I don't understand." Damali glanced around at the female Neteru Guardians, and they stepped forward at the ready, but not sure what they were supposed to do.
"The lights, the lights," Pearl squealed anxiously. "Bring the lights together over the holy water, so you can raise what has been submerged!"
Reading each other's thoughts quickly, the Neteru Guardian females joined hands in a semicircle around Damali.
"The Scot," Pearl called out. "The stoneworker, Heather. You must raise the stone at the center. Ask the other Scot for help."
"Yo, Dragon Rider," Carlos called out. "An assist on some stonework."
"I will raise Stonehenge, if you need that, too, just say the word." The group opened so Dragon Rider could get through. She landed a hand on Heather's shoulder and Heather turned to hug her.
"Thank you," Heather said, giving her a quick hug before going back into formation.
Marlene walked close to the edge of the cistern, staring into the pool, her walking stick in one hand starting to glow, and the canteen that had been passed to her in the other hand held midair. "We ask the ancestors for permission to begin," she said, pouring libations as she began to wave a white-light wand of energy over the water. "We ask for protection, guidance, and strength as we complete these important missions, Ashe."
Marlene lifted her stick at the same time Damali lifted her Isis. White light passed between both women, one a pillar to the past, one a pillar to the future, with each color of the chakra system slowly covering the Guardians between them. Each woman's aura expanded, spilling over the edge of the pool into the water, and soon both Heather's and Dragon Rider's eyes rolled into the backs of their heads. Small beads of perspiration dampened their foreheads and made their clothing stick to their bodies. The sound of stone grating against stone filled the tunnel, as though their efforts were moving a huge slab off something.
Soon the surface of the water broke with a large, square-shaped object that floated to the edge of the cistern as the colored lights dimmed.
Carlos stooped down and fished the badly tarnished object out of the water, holding what seemed to be a black box in his grasp. He set it down on the rock floor and stared at it, burning away the black tarnish.
Pure silver gleamed as thousands of years of stain slowly melted from the deep, Kemetian etchings to reveal a sealed box that had been soldered shut, containing the same markings as on Damali's Isis blade.
"Open it," Damali said, squatting down with Carlos. "Somebody went to a lot of trouble to seal that manuscript in a box, surround the waterproofed box with blessed symbols, and then hide it in holy water for a coupla thousand years."
"You telling me," Carlos said, trying to sense where the precious contents were and therefore where he could go in. "This has Akhenaton written all over it, a Neteru King's silver mind box." Team members gawked but no one said a word as Carlos found the solder seam and slowly, gently, sent a penetrating silver gaze around it. Wiping his forehead with the back of his forearm, he carefully lifted the top. Inside was a large scroll made of papyrus on a silver rod with indecipherable hieroglyphics.