The Complete 8-Book Guardians Adventure Saga Read online

  “Knock and the door will be opened,” said Achava.

  Chapter the Thirteenth

  SAM LOOKED QUESTIONINGLY at Achava as she walked around the large middle room knocking on the walls.

  Salinger inspected the hole in the pedestal and the surrounding area.

  Aviela was still looking for specific clues to find Ben-Tzion.

  Achava moved slowly, as if she was trying to pinpoint a location in the wall that might hide a secret. Her persistence was evident to Sam.

  Salinger looked into the treasure room.

  “Come, my dear lady,” Salinger said to Aviela. “There is obviously a mystery here that you are not aware of.”

  “That is possible.” Her forehead wrinkled.

  “I do believe so.” He looked all around. “I learned in the past that sometimes the most obvious clues are before your nose. They are ones that should be examined first.”

  She placed her hand against her face, but said nothing.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “Give me some time,” said Aviela.

  “What about you, Achava?” Salinger turned to address the younger woman. “Think of the time of Achsah. She knew Joshua. What was Joshua most famously known for?”

  A look of realization sparkled in her golden eyes as she headed for the treasure room. “Taking down Jericho.”

  Soon they were all in the treasure room.

  Sam had a look of bewilderment as he approached Salinger. “Professor, I don’t get what the Battle of Jericho has to do with a wall…”

  He stopped his thought as he basically answered his own question. “The walls of Jericho fell down.”

  Achava addressed Sam. “Look for a shofar! It has to be made from a ram’s horn!”

  Excitedly, he examined the treasure about the room. Salinger confidently walked up to him. “Remember, we leave it all behind.”

  “I know.”

  While Achava searched frantically through the treasure scattered on the floor, on one side of the room, Sam hunted through the rubble nearby. Sam saw that Salinger’s pupils enlarged as he scanned the many wonderful artifacts under his feet.

  An old goblet got his attention. He pulled it over with his feet and then picked it up. It was a metal cup that had rusted with age. When he rubbed some of the rust off, he said that it was a common goblet that he had seen many times before. Sam wondered who crafter had been. A picture of a gorgeous lady was painted on the side.

  At the time of Moses and Joshua, men were builders, carpenters and metal smiths, but his research had proven that women were involved and extremely creative in the process of making craft goods, such as painted goblets.

  Achava startled Sam as she silently approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned toward her and she smiled.

  “That’s not ‘the cup of divination,’ you know. Although it is from the same time period.”

  “I know that.”

  “The holy cup is nowhere near here,” she said. “It will never be fondled by mankind. There are those who would ensure that.”

  With that, he let the goblet fall. She caught it before it hit the floor. Sam’s mouth dropped open as he realized what he had done.

  “We have to be careful,” Salinger said. “The treasures belong to the government. So they should remain as we found them.”

  ***

  ACHAVA GAINED a new respect for the old man as she realized that he was not interested in taking any of the treasure back with him. Sam, however, was another matter entirely.

  She saw the look in Sam’s eyes when he gazed upon the treasure of the monarchs. She had watched him closely all day. She watched him now, as she saw Sam digging furiously through the mounds of treasure looking for the ram’s horn. With each piece of treasure he moved out of the way, he paused and admired it. It was as if he were taking a mental inventory. At the same time, he deliberately would not look her in the eye.

  It was obvious that he was attracted to her. She walked over to him and squatted down beside him. He was breathing hard and refused to make eye contact with her. She nudged him in the ribs. “It’s okay if you are attracted to me. We can be friends. That doesn’t mean we have to get involved.”

  He studied her face. “Thank you for understanding.”

  Aviela spoke up. “Look around everybody. Somewhere in this room are the bones of Ben-Tzion. I won’t leave until I find them.”

  “I’ll let you look for them. I want to find the Moses staff before I go,” said Sam. He stood and moved to one side.

  Salinger slowly returned to Aviela’s side. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good.” She looked Salinger in the eyes. “It has been a pleasure getting to know you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I’ll work with you,” said Salinger. “I want to find Ben-Tzion as much as you do.”

  He looked to his left and saw a dark hallway. There was something else on the ground right before the darkness enveloped the hall. A body!

  He stepped closer and examined what appeared to be the skeletal remains of a man. “Come, look at this.”

  They gathered around. “He has been here for quite some time,” said Sam.

  With further examination, Salinger said that there was a backpack underneath the man’s body. He moved the spider webs away from the body and began to pull the body forward to get the pack.

  Sam tried to turn the body and Achava stopped him by blocking him with her body. Sam appeared frustrated. “Oh, come on! Why was I asked to come if I can’t be involved?”

  She glared at him. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

  Salinger turned and said, “Will you two stop arguing like married folks?”

  They both blushed.

  Salinger managed to pull the body forward as it bent in half. He clasped a kerchief and put it over his mouth as dust flew everywhere.

  “Yes, Sam, help me.” He felt around in the man’s pockets and eventually found a wallet in the back pocket of his pants. He pulled it out and opened it. There was a picture identification card with a name on it. Eldad Ben-Tzion.

  Aviela squealed for joy.

  There was a stone pressed into his chest with an evil eye on it. Sam brought it to her attention. “This man was cursed. The evil eye is a worldwide curse,” he said.

  “Don’t touch the stone. I know about the evil eye curse,” said Aviela. She sighed. “The fear of the evil eye did not carry over to America.”

  “Glad for that,” said Sam.

  “It looks like the Canaanites put the evil eye on him to be a curse. Instead, it kept human diggers away from the body. That was a good thing. That which was meant to be a curse ended up being a blessing.”

  “Then why did we find him?” Salinger asked.

  “Well, Dr. Salinger, it’s because Aviela and Achava were with us. They have…powers beyond our understanding.”

  Chapter the Fourteenth

  AVIELA STOOD OVER the body of Ben-Tzion with her ancient dagger.

  Without touching it with her hands, she removed the stone that had the evil eye painted on it and tossed it across the room on the end of the dagger. It exploded when it landed.

  “He is clean now. My friend deserves a proper burial,” she said. “I shall give it to him.”

  “Hurry and do it,” said Salinger, walking up to her. “We may be in danger if we stay too long.”

  “Don’t worry about the time.”

  Aviela removed her cloak, smoothed it out and placed it on the body and face of the bones of Ben-Tzion. Salinger stayed close to the older woman while she sang the old hymn of Amazing Grace. When she started to cry, Salinger quoted the Twenty-third Psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. . . When he finished, she prayed.

  “Dr. Salinger,” said Aviela after a couple of minutes. “Would you be willing to look inside the backpack for us? It is so dusty that it will make me sneeze.”

  “Yes, but I’m almost afraid to open it. I don’t want to destroy
anything precious,” Salinger answered.

  “You’ll do fine.”

  “Sam, would you give me a hand?” Salinger was obviously trying everything in his power to get his assistant’s attention away from the fortune in treasure that surrounded him.

  Sam was inside the main room, but looking out into the treasure room. Sam reluctantly left his position and went up to his mentor and the backpack. He held one side open for the professor, while Salinger removed sheaves of papyrus.

  When Salinger first opened up the backpack, he said that he had found nothing of importance, but soon changed his mind. Achava turned on her flashlight while he unzipped the large inner compartment. He looked up to see disappointment on her face. She sighed and motioned toward the pack. “What is in it anyhow?”

  “I think passages of scripture.”

  Salinger and Achava looked in to see several gold coins and an ancient papyrus wrapped in plastic.

  Achava said, “Check it out for us. I’m going to look for a way out.” Achava then walked over to the pedestal which had a sheaf on top of it. It had potential as a way of escape. She then headed down the dark hallway and returned. “That way is completely blocked,” she said. “A ceiling has caved in.”

  Aviela sat quietly by the bones of Ben-Tzion. While Achava and Salinger were talking, Aviela saw Sam grab as many of the coins as possible and stuff them into his pockets. He then looked at the papyrus as if nothing had happened. Aviela glared at Sam.

  Salinger brushed off his hands on his pants and carefully pulled the papyrus out of the pack. “It is strangely wrapped in plastic. Which means this was found not too long ago.”

  “Ben-Tzion would do that,” said Aviela. “Wrap it. And they had some plastics in the 1960s.”

  “I agree,” said Salinger. But then, he grabbed his chest and began gasping. “Sam, help me.”

  Salinger looked like he was in a considerable amount of pain as he turned away from the pack and braced himself on the pedestal.

  Sam gave him an aspirin. “Chew this quickly.” Sam also placed a nitroglycerin under his tongue and tried to comfort him. “Professor, will you be all right? Can I do anything else for you?”

  “I’ll be fine, Sam. It’s just that…” Pausing, he looked at the body of Ben-Tzion. “He was one of the biggest missing pieces in my life’s work.”

  “I know,” said Sam. “In a matter of a few days, you found him. You wanted to find him…and here he is!”

  Aviela spoke up. “It’s a shock to my work to find out that he found this treasure and yet, was never able to leave the cave to tell anyone that he had a greater find than Yigael Yadin’s scrolls from Masada.”

  “I know,” said Salinger. “It’s too much to take in all at once, but I do want to see what those manuscripts are.”

  Sam placed another nitro under his tutor’s tongue. Salinger relaxed and then said he was better. “Thank you.”

  “Do you think that those are genuine scrolls?” asked Sam.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you think they’re biblical?”

  “Definitely.” Salinger smiled weakly as he looked at the papyrus. “Thankfully, as an archaeologist, Ben-Tzion was smart enough to protect the scrolls before he died.”

  Aviela picked it up and said, “Now let’s see what he found!”

  She separated them slowly as Salinger carefully evaluated what they could represent.

  Aviela said, “There are only five.”

  Achava’s eyes were now glowing gold again, showing that she realized the significance of the scrolls.

  Aviela unrolled the first one and handed it to Salinger. He looked up at Achava and Sam with excitement. “This one contains some passages from the Book of Joshua! If not original, then pretty close.”

  Aviela clapped her hands. “Ben-Tzion found them before he died. We’ll give him the credit, posthumously.”

  “Come closer, Aviela,” Salinger said.

  While Aviela looked over his shoulder, Salinger examined the ancient script more carefully. “Joshua 15:16 stands out.” He read, ‘And Caleb said, ‘He that smites Kirjath sepher, and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.’” Salinger smiled at Aviela who appeared moved by the scroll.

  “You have found something priceless,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “That is about my ancestor.”

  Salinger went on to the next one. “Look at what this says.” He stepped aside for her to see.

  Aviela said, “Joshua 15:17. Of course that is proof of ownership.”

  Salinger read, “And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and Caleb gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.”

  Aviela’s face glowed as she hugged her daughter. “Those are our ancestors, Achava.”

  Salinger was extremely careful, as he read each scroll. After reading from each one, he carefully rolled the scrolls back up. Achava emptied out the rest of the gold coins that were in the pack and used it to keep the scrolls safe. She put the first ones inside and waited for Salinger to finish reading.

  “Do you want me to read now?” asked Aviela.

  “No! I’m okay.” Salinger read, “Judges 1:12, ‘And Caleb said, ‘He that smites Kirjath sepher, and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.’”

  “That’s interesting,” said Sam. “It repeats the Joshua scriptures.”

  “Yes, it does.” Achava smiled and said, “And I love it.”

  Aviela was in tears as Salinger continued reading. Sam now understood why she was moved by the scrolls. He whispered, “It is your heritage.”

  Aviela nodded and read, “Judges 1:13.”

  She backed up so Salinger could read the verse. “‘And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.’” He smiled. “Again, we see the repetition.”

  Salinger unrolled the final scroll. “This one is found in 1 Chronicles 2:49. You read it aloud, Aviela.”

  She read, “She bare also Shaaph the father of Madmannah, Sheva the father of Machbenah, and the father of Gibea: and the daughter of Caleb was Achsah.”

  “Interesting.” Salinger rolled it back up and handed the papyrus to Achava to put away. As she put the last scroll into the pack, she said, “We are blessed.”

  ***

  “I found the shofar,” said Achava.

  The bewildered Sam was left standing in the middle of the treasure room. “Okay.”

  She placed the small end of the ram’s horn near her lips as she whispered a short prayer in Hebrew. She then closed her eyes and blew softly.

  Sam looked questioningly at Salinger. Salinger smiled knowingly, as if he knew what was going to happen next.

  Achava glowed gold. Aviela glowed silver. As her lips touched the horn again, it emitted a golden glow. It was hard to know if it was the horn or Achava which was the point of origin for the glow, but assuredly, it had something to do with their ancestry.

  Inhaling deeply, she blew hard into the horn. The sound wasn’t harsh or loud. Rather, there was a beautiful melody flowing out of it which relaxed everyone. With her eyes smiling, Achava noticed a few items starting to move as if pushed by some unseen force. She played with extra vigor, dancing from side to side. More and more items in the treasure room were jingling as if someone was moving the floor, but she believed that was impossible. Then again, after everything she had seen so far, maybe there were more miracles to come.

  The walls themselves now were vibrating as if they were experiencing an earthquake. Achava looked around and noticed that the earthquake was isolated to the treasure room. She became concerned that there could be a massive cave-in as she glanced toward the ceiling of the treasure room.

  To Achava’s surprise, it appeared unaffected by the music from the shofar. She was amazed at the fact that the horn controlled certain areas by its effect.

  Salinger was watching as well. He said, “I know of several scientists who would claim that what we just saw went again
st the laws of physics.”

  “Of course it did,” said Achava. “There is faith involved, not physics.” She admitted to having supernatural powers.

  Achava began playing again. The floor of the treasure room began crumbling before their eyes. Items fell into a growing abyss as large sections of the floor gave way.

  Sam turned pale. His fear was apparent even to Achava, who continued her musical destruction. A light now emanated from underneath the treasure floor. Aviela voiced her enthusiasm with a squeal.

  Larger sections of the ground supporting the treasures dropped down to the next level of the mountain. Salinger grabbed the backpack with the scrolls in it and put it on. Before the last few pieces fell away, Achava removed the horn from her mouth and tossed it into what was left of the treasure room. Sam reached out for it in vain as it disappeared from view. The light coming from the lower level now went out as Achava turned to the two men and bid them farewell. With a most peaceful look on her face, she stepped backward toward the treasure room. Both men tried to stop her, but failed.

  “It’s not preventing me from falling,” she said, “but join me. It is a small leap.”

  “But a leap of what?”

  “Faith. That’s all it is, Sam!” With that being said, she fell backward only to be swallowed up by the bleakness. “It’s a leap of faith!”

  Sam and Salinger were in shock as Achava could no longer be seen. The last of the treasure room floor now fell into the chasm behind her.

  Salinger heard her voice in his head about the leap. He repeated, “That’s all it is, Sam! It’s a leap of faith!”

  “I don’t know if I have that much faith, Professor.” Sam was quite pale and he trembled.

  “Nonsense! I am surprised at how much doubt surrounds you in spite of the wonders that we have seen. I can only imagine what it would take to get you to believe in what you are seeing with your own eyes. This is one of the reasons I wanted you to come on this expedition, Sam. No, I never knew we would experience what we did, but to have your first true-life adventure as miraculous as this has been more of a series of revelations than the frightening nightmare that it appears you are having.”