“Name, please,” the man said.
“Well, her name is Anya Gates,” Raloam said. Anya stepped up next to him as he placed his arm around her.
“And guest,” she said.
The man looked down at the tablet in front of him, slowly scrolling his finger across the screen. He tapped it a couple of times and looked up with a smile.
“Of course, Ms. Gates,” he said. “I have a note here that says that you’re expecting a crew later this evening.”
Anya gave a little laugh. “Not a crew. Just my cameraman. He’ll be here around nine thirty to set up for the ten o’clock news.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he replied. “We’ll take care of it. I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
“Thank you,” Raloam said and moved to walk up the steps. Anya reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. She gestured to the man with her eyes. Raloam looked upward as if he had forgotten something. He reached into his coat and slid a bill into the man’s hand. They smiled and started up the stairs.
“How much did you give him?” Anya asked.
“Ten bucks,” Raloam said. “Not that he’s going to be able to use it. Everyone in the city has switched to credits.”
“Really, Ray,” Anya said. “You’re not new to modern life. You still can’t remember to tip?”
“I’m not a people person,” Raloam said.
Another man in a tuxedo opened the front door for them and they moved into the main lobby. Several people were already moving about the room, and the wait staff were serving drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Anya immediately reached out and took a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.
“Is that wise?” Raloam asked. “You’re going to be on television in two hours.”
“It’s one glass, Ray,” she said. “I’m not going to get drunk before doing a report.”
“I hope not,” he replied. “Not if you’re planning on getting that anchor position that you’ve been hoping for.”
“Are you going to have any?” she asked.
“Not tonight,” he said. “I want to stay focused.”
“Do you see him yet?”
Raloam exhaled slowly, looking around the room. “No. He’s here, though. I can feel it. But he’s in another part of the building.”
Anya nodded, sipping her drink and taking a look around as well. Her senses were not as finely tuned as her companion’s, but she had sharpened her skills over the past few years.
“Do you want to find him?” she asked.
Raloam shook his head. “I don’t want to give any reason for us to have to leave before the time comes,” he said. “We don’t need to be seen in closed-off parts of the building. My guess is that he’s in one of the offices upstairs, getting ready for the banquet. We’ll bide our time.”
__________________________________________________________________________
“Dad, the photographer is ready.”
Daniel McDawn turned away from the conversation he was having with the caterer. He nodded and held up his index finger.
“Go ahead and open three cases of wine. Be sure everyone has a drink,” he said. “We’ll start seating for dinner in about twenty minutes.”
The caterer nodded and left. Daniel joined his son in front of the ornate desk to be used as the background for the picture. He hardly ever came into this office. He was not the a man who sat around making calls all day. He had opened museums around the world because he loved museums. So when he had the opportunity to be here, he took advantage of it and spent his time on the floor.
A man Tyler had not met was standing by the door. Daniel gestured for him to join them in the picture. The man came over and stood beside the two of them.
“Tyler,” Daniel said. “This is Professor Jonah Robbins. He’s the head of the team that made the discovery we’re showcasing tonight.”
Tyler reached out and shook hands with the man. He was taller than his father, and very thin. He was older as well, most likely in his late sixties. He smiled warmly, and Tyler could see his smile was genuine as he had a light dancing in his eyes. This was a man who was realizing something he had worked for his entire life.
“Pleased to meet you, Tyler,” Robbins said. “Your father has said a lot about you.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Tyler said.
Robbins laughed. “Good. I assure you.”
“Okay,” the photographer called out to them. They turned their attention to him. “Smile!”
The three of them grinned as the camera flash went off. He took one more for good measure and gave them a thumbs up.
“So, are you planning to get into the museum business as well?” Robbins asked.
Tyler shook his head shyly. “No, sir. I’m not much of a history buff.”
“Tyler wants to be a writer,” Daniel said, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder. “He’s been writing short stories since he could hold a pencil.”
“Well, that’s impressive,” Robbins said. “Have you ever had anything published?”
“They put a couple of my stories in a magazine when I was younger,” Tyler said. “But they were kid magazines.”
“Tyler, don’t ever put a but on your accomplishments,” Robbins said, that little light shining in his eye again. “Be proud of the things you’ve done. Don’t feel like you have to justify their importance.”
Tyler smiled. That was the same thing his father said to him often. He did not know why he had to make things seem less than they were. He suspected it was because he thought people already thought he was a snob because of his father’s wealth. He never wanted to sound like he was bragging.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. The older man smiled and patted him on the back.
“My granddaughter is here tonight,” he said. “I think that she is about your age. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to spend a little time around her. She feels awkward at events like this.”
“I know the feeling,” Tyler said and they all laughed.
Robbins turned to Daniel and shook his hand. “Mr. McDawn, I thank you again for your hospitality. I’m looking forward to tonight.”
“I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes,” Daniel said. He called out to the hallway for one of the security men and instructed him to see the professor got to the exhibit hall. The guard nodded and the two men left together. Daniel turned to Tyler. “You don’t have to babysit the professor’s granddaughter, Ty.”
“It’s alright, Dad,” Tyler said. “I don’t mind. We all have to do our part. Right?”
“Right,” Daniel said. He looked his son in the eye and straightened his tie. “Look at you. A grown-up.”
“Big boy clothes and everything,” Tyler replied with a laugh.
“Your mom would be proud of you,” Daniel said.
Tyler looked down and then back to his dad with a smile. They did not bring up his mother often. It was a sore subject for both of them.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said. It was all he could think of to say. With his father’s arm across his shoulder, they stepped out into the hallway and moved toward the elevator.
__________________________________________________________________________
There were about five hundred people on the guest list for the gala. As the glass elevator dropped down into the main museum building, Tyler could see that almost all of them had made it, most of them bringing a guest. With all of the service personnel moving around, there looked to be more than a thousand people. The guests were in the main banquet area outside the exhibit halls. The wait staff was already starting to serve dinner.
Tyler and his father stepped off the elevator. A young lady met them there and walked them to the table set up by the podium on the stage. A huge banner hung across the entrance to the area that said “The Birmingham Museum of Natural History Welcomes Professor Jonah Robbins”. There was also a slide show projected onto a blank wall with pictures of the professor and various other men and women working on the excavation site in Greece. There were huge holes dug at the foot of a mountain, and into the rock face itself. Pictures of various artifacts Tyler could tell very little about flashed slowly on the screen. Vases, pots, bones, coins, and some that looked like little more than rocks.
“What exactly did he find, Dad?” Tyler asked as they were seated at their table. Their salads were already there, waiting for them.
“Well, it's a little more than I can explain five minutes before the program, Ty,” Daniel said. He took a sip of the water in front of him. “Just wait. The professor will explain everything.”
Daniel McDawn had hired John Larrington to serve as the master of ceremonies at the gala. Larrington was the face of WIET’s “Good Day”, a morning news and entertainment show. He was exactly as one would have imagined. His hair and suit were perfect, and his smile was irritatingly permanent. He showed his glowing white teeth at every chance he got, and he gave himself plenty of chances.
At precisely eight o’clock, Larrington marched to the podium and switched on the microphone. He introduced himself and made a few jokes about the museum and several of the members of high society who were in attendance. Tyler was not sure how funny his father thought the jokes were. Especially the dinosaurs being bored into fossils by tonight’s speakers, or that he was going to the mummy room to cruise for chicks. Tyler just rolled his eyes. His father looked at him and gave a smirk and a wink. His father may have been a well-off museum mogul, but he still had a good sense of humor.
Finally, Larrington turned his attention to Daniel McDawn. He thanked him for bringing such positive attention to the city, and for all the work he had already put into the community. Tyler did not know to what community work he was referring. His father was a charitable man, but since they had arrived in the city he had barely left the museum for much more than a few hours of sleep.
Daniel got up and took over the podium. He leaned into the microphone and thanked Larrington, joking about his having the nicest teeth outside the Tyrannosaurus exhibit.
“I would like to thank you all for coming tonight,” he said. “It hasn’t been very long since we opened the doors on this establishment, and to already be having an event of this magnitude is really something.”
“I’ve had the honor of managing six museums of various kinds worldwide. They have all had the standard exhibits you would expect to find at any other museum in any other major city. We’ve had permanent exhibits of rare fossils, and the remains of many extinct species. A lot of artifacts from different periods in history, such as armor and weapons, can be found here and at our other facilities. We’ve had many exhibits that have visited us for a short time, with art from famous artists like Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Worhol.
“However, the fact that Professor Robbins has uncovered an entire city at the base of what was once an active volcano is tremendous. There have been stories about the city of Dartha for generations, and we’ve always thought it was just an old tale. Something to tell your children in the old days to frighten them into behaving. Be good, or you’ll be burned like they were in Dartha. But now we know that the city was real. And while we have a long way to go in understanding what happened to it so long ago, I’m proud the professor has allowed us to become the permanent home to some of the things he has uncovered so far.
“And now, to talk more about his discovery, I’d like to turn the stage over to Professor Jonas Robbins.”
The room erupted into applause as Daniel stepped back from the microphone. Professor Robbins got up from his chair and walked across the stage. He shook Daniel's hand and turned to the audience. Daniel sat down in his chair and glanced at his son.
“That was good, Dad,” Tyler said.
Daniel smiled. Tyler knew that his dad was accustomed to speaking in front of a crowd. But Daniel had always made a point to congratulate him on his accomplishments, so Tyler tried to do the same.
“Thank you, Daniel,” Professor Robbins said as he pulled his glasses and notes from his coat pocket. “I’m not sure of which I’m more envious of. Your wealth, your youth, or the fact that you know more about history than I do.” The audience chuckled.
“You’re the one with the Ph.D.,” Daniel called out and the professor nodded with a smile.
“Ten years ago my team and I decided that we believed the city of Dartha to be a real place. Since that time I have spent most of my time in Greece. We made the initial discovery of evidence of a human presence in the fields on the very boundaries of the country. These remains appear to be no less than three thousand years old. After that, we went about trying to prove that what we had discovered was indeed the lost city we were in search of.”
The professor began a long speech about the legend of Dartha. Tyler had heard the stories before. His father was a huge fan of classic Greek mythology, and he can remember a lot of books lying around his office on the subject. He had always liked looking at the pictures of Zeus and Hercules, and listening to stories of the gods and goddesses. The city of Dartha was only mentioned in a couple of those stories. But Daniel had books that were completely dedicated to the subject.
The actual story, as it was told to Tyler, was not very complex. There was a city that was more advanced than any other city in the country at the time. It was believed it was helped by magic. There had been an old mage that most people agreed went by the name of Kalan. He protected the city with the magic he got from the spirits of ancient warriors and animals.
That was all that was known of the city. The rest of what had been in Daniel’s books was speculation of what became of it. A lot of people believed the city had been at the foot of what the citizens believed to be a mountain. It was a volcano that erupted, burying the city in hot lava. Another belief is that the valley it rested in flooded and buried the city under a massive amount of mud. Of course, some believed that either one of these could be true, but that the disaster was brought about by a magical battle between Kalan and someone else.
“Now I want to show you a couple of the items that have been uncovered,” Robbins said. He had been speaking for about twenty minutes and showing several pictures of the excavation on the screen. “There are twenty different things that will be on display in the exhibition hall, and hopefully there were be a few more joining them over the next few months. But one or two items are of particular interest to me, and I would like to tell you about them.”
__________________________________________________________________________
Raloam sighed and Anya shot him a look that quickly told him to be quiet. He was not good at this. Sitting in one place for a long time and listening to someone talk was one of the most difficult things he ever had to do. It was in his nature to move. It was also in his nature to stay away from crowds. He was completely out of his element here.
But this was the part of the night he had been waiting for.
“The first item is a medallion that I find extraordinary,” Professor Robbins said. Instantly, the image of his excavation team on the wall vanished and was replaced by a round, ancient-looking coin, scarred with time. In its center was a small red stone that was dull with age, but still seemed to shine.
Raloam inhaled deeply.
Anya looked at him. “Is that it?” she asked. He nodded but did not speak.
“This medallion would not have been used as currency,” the professor said. “It most likely was a decoration or a symbol of wealth. The stone in the center is pure ruby, and there is a carving on the back of it. You’ll be able to see it more clearly when we move to the hall. But the carving appears to be writing although no one on my team can identify the language. There is also a cat or a lion drawn above the writing.”
“Or a griffin,” Raloam muttered. Anya was the only one that heard him. She reached over and squeezed his hand.
“Patience, Ray,” she said. He sighed.
“Most of the other items found were relics of the time,” Robbins continued. “Pottery and jewelry of many different types. And we found a lot of bones. But the other item I find the most interesting is this.” The image on the wall changed to a huge chunk of black rock lying inside a display case. After a moment the audience was able to see that there was a clear outline of an entire human skeleton encased in the rock. “This rock was once red hot lava. This was found in a small cave inside the mountain that used to be a volcano. We aren’t sure who this person was, but it is clear to us that he died by being covered by the lava. What is amazing is that the bones were not disintegrated by the heat of the liquid rock. Every bone in the human body has been accounted for. All of them are perfectly preserved and encased in this rock.”
Anya winced and realized that Raloam was squeezing her hand to the point that it hurt. She yanked her hand away and looked at him. He was staring at the image on the wall so hard it looked as though his eyes would set fire to the building.
“Ray,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Gods!” he whispered loudly.
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