World's End (4 page)

"Three Sphinxes?" inquired Alfonso.

The driver nodded and Alfonso climbed in. Alfonso still hadn't converted any of his money into Egyptian pounds, so he simply handed the driver a five-dollar bill. The driver looked very pleased.

The minivan lurched through the parking lot and onto the streets of Alexandria. The driver savagely mashed his horn while singing along to the Egyptian pop songs that blared from the radio. In no time, they had exited the city and emerged onto a pothole-ridden desert road. The road offered a wonderful array of sights—a gang of Bedouin children playing soccer with a coconut, four women dressed entirely in black riding a single camel, and a one-armed man sharpening knives in the shade of a broken-down airplane. They drove for about an hour until, quite unexpectedly, the driver slammed the minivan to a halt and motioned for Alfonso to get out.

"Three Sphinxes?" asked Alfonso.

The driver nodded again.

As soon as Alfonso had planted both feet on the ground, the minivan sped away. Alfonso looked around and, at first, saw nothing but brown rocks and dirt that stretched out for miles. The only sign of life was a yellow car with a taxi sign, which lurched into gear and pulled up alongside Alfonso. The driver unrolled the window, letting out a welcome blast of air conditioning.

"Welcome," said the man. He had a full black beard and he wore polarized sunglasses. "You are American, yes?" he asked, in fluent but halting English.

Alfonso nodded.

"You will enjoy the Three Sphinxes," he said. "Not many tourists visit, but those who do enjoy seeing it very much. Please, come inside."

Alfonso hesitated and looked around.

The taxi driver laughed in a friendly manner. "There is no one else," he said. "And why should there be? There is barely enough business for me!"

Another cool air-conditioned breeze reached Alfonso. He stepped into the taxi and let out a sigh of relief as he sank into the spotless leather seats. The driver handed him a bottle of cold water and they sped off into the desert.

"Where are you from?" asked the driver.

"America," replied Alfonso.

"But where exactly? We have tourists coming from all over!"

"World's End," said Alfonso.

The driver quivered, as if a chill had just passed through his body. He stared at Alfonso through the rearview mirror.

"World's End?" he said in a soft but now serious voice. "Is this the World's End in the state of Minnesota or the one in Alaska?"

Alfonso was astounded. Very few people knew that there was a town of this name in either place.

"It's the one in Minnesota," replied Alfonso tentatively. "I'm amazed that you have heard of either of them."

"Don't be amazed," said the driver with a kind smile. "I am a fan of geography—especially of the great northern regions, which are so often blanketed in snow and ice."

After this strange response, the driver said nothing more, and drove deeper into the desert. Alfonso couldn't see any road, but the driver seemed to know every inch of the land. The landscape was dotted with countless boulders and other good-sized rocks that blended into the ground, but the taxi avoided them all.

Several minutes later, the taxi swerved to a stop. Alfonso opened the door and stepped out. Only then did he see that the taxi had stopped about thirty feet away from the edge of a sheer cliff. Far below lay the Mediterranean. It shimmered a deep blue and stretched hundreds of miles to the horizon. To his right, near the cliff's edge, stood three tall sculptures, each about the size of a house.

"This is the place," confirmed the driver, who was still inside the taxi. "Be careful of the cliff, my young friend. The water is quite dangerous. The currents are powerful, and many unfortunate souls have drowned." With that, he settled into the driver's seat and began taking a nap.

Alfonso walked slowly to the edge of the cliff and looked down, several hundred feet below, to the Mediterranean. The water looked cold and inviting after the dusty minivan ride from Alexandria. He looked to his right and stared at the Three Sphinxes. Just as the hotel manager had described, the first sphinx was crying, the second one was laughing, and the third one was sleeping. Alfonso carefully studied the Sleeping Sphinx. It had the muscular body of a lion, two large ears, a small human face, and a set of eyes that appeared to be firmly shut.

Upon closer inspection, Alfonso noticed that the Sleeping Sphinx's left eyelid was cocked open just slightly, as if it were trying to see something out of the corner of its eye. Instantly, Alfonso recalled the words that his father had written in his book: "Which one of them has the watchful eye?"

Alfonso tried to follow the gaze of the watchful eye, which seemed to be directed toward the edge of the cliff. Alfonso walked along the cliff until, quite by chance, he noticed an unusual-looking flat stone jutting over the edge. Alfonso walked over to examine the stone and discovered that it was actually the top step in a frighteningly narrow and steep staircase that wound its way downward to the crashing waves below. Alfonso was soon trotting down the staircase at a brisk pace, overcome with excitement.

The staircase descended directly into the sea. Alfonso paused just above the crashing waves and looked up at the Sleeping Sphinx.
Success.
The half-open eye was fixed on a spot in the middle of the waves, about twenty-five feet offshore. It looked no different from any other patch of turbulent water, except for one brief moment, in between waves, when Alfonso thought he saw something round and man-made, like a pillar. He stared at the spot for several more minutes as the spray from the waves drenched him.

He saw it again.

It looked like a pillar, but it was difficult to be certain.

Alfonso was not a particularly strong swimmer, and even the strongest of swimmers would not jump into this water. In all likelihood, the waves would drown him before he even reached the pillar.

Alfonso retreated two steps up the staircase and stopped. His mind suddenly felt cloudy and muddled, and his legs became heavy. Sleep was descending on him. Alfonso could almost feel himself being pulled, against his will, toward the water. "Oh boy," he muttered sleepily. "This could end badly..." But there was no fighting it. His eyes fluttered drowsily and Alfonso entered a sleeping trance.

"Wait!" cried a voice from up above. It came from the taxi driver. The man looked frantic. But he was too late to stop Alfonso. Alfonso turned back to face the water, waited for an opening between two waves, and then jumped in.

The fierce pull of the sea gripped him immediately and within a matter of seconds, Alfonso was surrounded by whitecaps. The current pulled him out to sea and toward the mysterious pillar. He woke up, gasped, swallowed a mouthful of salty water, and fought desperately to swim back to shore. The current, however, was too strong. It swept him toward the pillar and he lunged for it. Alfonso's fingers scraped at the surface, searching madly for a crevice or handhold of any kind. They slid along the algae-covered pillar, which was about a foot underwater. A vicious wave crashed over him, and he lost his grasp.

Alfonso could feel himself weakening as he fought the current. There was no way he'd be able to return to shore. With all the strength in his body, he lunged again for the pillar, but couldn't find any traction. In desperation, he kicked his legs. They scraped against something hard and sharp and Alfonso's left leg erupted in pain. He swallowed salt water and choked. He was already several feet away. If only he could fall back asleep, perhaps everything would be okay. But that wasn't going to happen. Alfonso had never felt so awake in his life. Gritting his teeth, Alfonso blocked out the pain in his leg, took a deep breath, and dove downward with all of his might.

Underwater, he saw the pillar more clearly. It was perfectly round and about four feet wide. The portion closest to the surface was covered in algae, but below that it was colored a light brown, like limestone. Rusted iron ingots lined the pillar all the way to the ocean floor, which was perhaps thirty feet down. One of those spikes had hit his leg. He swam toward an ingot and grasped hold of it.

Suddenly, a faint light drew his attention. It came from the sea floor. He let go of the pillar and dove down toward the light. It came from an underwater cave that was nestled into a massive pile of rocks on the ocean floor. The opening was small, no more than a few feet wide, and the water there glowed a rich turquoise blue, in contrast to the dark open water where he was swimming. The pressure in Alfonso's lungs grew painful.

He swam as fast as he could into the mouth of the cave. It became a tunnel that burrowed downward and then up toward a bright light. Alfonso kicked ferociously. He burst through the surface and greedily sucked in air. When he finally managed to catch his breath, he discovered that he was floating in a remarkable stone cavern that glittered fluorescent blue. Reflected light shone everywhere, as if the walls were made of stained glass, even though they were clearly made of stone.

Alfonso looked up at the ceiling. It had been shaped into a smooth, round dome. This chamber was obviously man-made; somebody had carved a giant symbol into the ceiling. It looked like this:

 

 

Alfonso recognized it at once. It was the symbol of Dormia.

A
LFONSO PADDLED WEAKLY
to the far end of the cavern, where the water ended in a small pebble beach. He slumped to the ground and lay motionless on his back, enormously relieved to be alive. He stared at the walls and ceiling of this underground cavern and marveled at how they glowed from below, as if the ocean floor were pulsing with electric light. His eyes then centered on the symbol of Dormia.
Who had carved this and why?

Alfonso stood up and double-checked that the sphere was still in his pocket. He glanced around the small cavern and noticed an entranceway nestled in the darkest corner. The stone inlay was covered with intricate geometric carvings, and the entrance opened into a long tunnel that appeared to be lit with a long procession of oil lamps. Alfonso couldn't imagine who had lit these lamps or where the oil had come from, but he was too overwhelmed to think critically about any of this. One thing was clear: he was going to enter the tunnel. There was simply no way that he was going back into the water.

The air in the tunnel was cool and damp, like the basement of a house. Combined with his wet clothes, it made Alfonso shiver. He walked cautiously along the passageway as it angled slightly upward. Once or twice he thought that he might have heard footsteps behind him, and he stopped abruptly in order to listen, but he was repeatedly greeted by silence. His mind undoubtedly was playing tricks on him.

After he'd walked for about ten minutes, the tunnel emerged into a rectangular room with fifty-foot vaulted ceilings. The room was as long as a city block and empty except for a series of twenty stone shelves embedded in a far corner. A few oil lamps illuminated the room, although the floor remained hidden in shadow. The walls of the room were engraved with a large pictograph, which was repeated many times. The pictograph contained three ornately detailed images: a silver pen, a vine containing many clusters of berries, and a bolt of lightning that was striking a tree.

Alfonso walked across the room to the stone shelves. Each shelf was stacked with a dozen or so wooden boxes that were a foot long by a foot wide. The boxes were made of sturdy rosewood that gleamed when Alfonso brushed away the thick layer of dust that covered them. He took one box down from the shelf. It smelled fragrant and vaguely familiar. The top of the box was engraved with the same three images that were on the walls. He tried to open the box, but it was locked, or at least sealed very tightly. "This thing must open," Alfonso muttered to himself, as he tried again. This time he pressed with all his might and the lid sprang open.

Inside the box, nestled securely in a wooden clasp, sat a small glass vial containing a thick, shimmering blue liquid. Two small gold-colored objects that appeared to be seeds were on either side of the vial. Something was weird about the seeds. Alfonso peered closer and let out a small cry of surprise. The seeds were floating about two inches above the floor of the box. They appeared to be completely weightless. He reached into the box and touched one of the seeds with his index finger. It began to vibrate and then spin rapidly. He withdrew his hand, carefully shut the lid, and tucked the box under his arm. "Very cool," murmured Alfonso. "This is coming with me."

He continued to explore the crypt and was relieved to discover a series of solid-bronze handrails leading up one side of the crypt toward a wooden trapdoor. Hopefully this was a way out. Nearby the closest handrail, a massive slab of wood was lying on the floor. It looked like a giant door that had toppled over. Several long knives were scattered across the surface.

Alfonso approached the wood slab and saw that the names of dozens of people were carved on it, along with their ages and places of origin. The writing was in a number of different languages including English, Greek, Russian, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and a few others that Alfonso could not recognize. It seemed as if everybody who had passed through this chamber had carved their name into the wood, almost as if it were a guestbook of sorts.