Ancient Echoes

CHAPTER 39



MICHAEL AND QUADE looked down from the cliff top where they hid. There had been no signal from Jake or Charlotte.

“Let’s circle the compound,” Michael said. “There’s something about it I just don’t like.”

To stay out of sight, they made a wide arc through brush and pine forests until eventually they reached the compound’s west side. There, they noticed an area where the ground had been trampled.

“The beasts?” Quade asked, walking toward the low-lying scrub where broken stalks lay flat on the ground.

Michael stooped low, peering at the dirt. “Not unless they’re wearing shoes. It must have been men from the compound. Let’s see where they went.”

They continued on slowly, carefully. None of the landmarks they had used earlier remained visible to them, and they felt disoriented.

In the distance, they saw a large object on the ground. It looked like some sort of animal. Michael half expected it to wake up and run or attack. When it didn’t, they moved closer for a better look.

Blood covered the ground. The creature lay face down and looked more like a bear than anything else, but not quite. It had been stabbed multiple times.

Michael turned it over.

The monster had a long snout with enormous fangs, and white skin under a brownish-gray coat. As he looked closer, he saw a symbol made up of bluish-red vein-like lines just above the stomach—the same triangle-vee-circle symbol he had seen in Lady Hsieh’s tomb.

And now it marked this creature.

“What in the world?” Michael exclaimed.

“It’s a chimera,” Quade said, his soft hands clasped as if in prayer as he stood over it. “It’s an animal made of components of other animals, possibly including humans. Some people believe that when the alchemist moves beyond gold to being god-like, in other words, moves from creating the perfect metal that will not decompose, to the perfect man who will not die, their earliest attempts often do not work. There are various names for the beasts that result—some are called chimeras, which are more animal-like, and homunculi, which are more human.”

“Human? An alchemist, here, involved humans?” The idea appalled Michael.

“Homunculi were little humans created in a flask,” Quade explained. “They were often discussed by medieval Arabs. Whether they actually created homunculi is unknown, but they certainly wrote as if they did, and I see no reason for them to lie. They even debated whether using the fluids of these ‘little men,’ as the word means, to cure diseases in normal men, was moral. It’s much as we will someday debate cloning humans for the sole reason of taking the cloned being’s body parts. Is it moral and ethical, or is it simply good science? All of this, chimera and homunculi, erode the boundary between the artificial and the natural.”

“This is our proof, then,” Michael said with a shudder. “An alchemist was at work here, and may still be.”

“Yes,” Quade nodded, ever emotionless and scientific. “There are things at work beyond mortal understanding.”

“But look at the way this beast was killed.” Michael stood, and then backed up as the full realization of what the sight before him struck. “It was killed with knives, and anger. Great anger.” He peered into the dark forest and wondered what other strangeness lurked within. “We should get away from this creature, back to where we can keep an eye on the compound,” he said. “The forest has eyes. I can feel them on us.”

They no sooner left, than the creature awoke. It slowly struggled to its feet, then stared with curiosity after the two men who found it.