Matt looked down at the mix of ancient languages. He started to translate. “Hmm, it’s incomplete, but he talks of an underworld…and structures.” He read on. “A city guarded by massive gates, and…” He felt the bloom of pain begin in the center of his brain. He shook his head. He soon felt he had been kicked by a horse, but from the inside. It slid down into his gut like a bomb.

Matt slammed a hand over his mouth and swung around frantically. Albadi anticipated him and lifted a wooden waste bin. Matt grabbed it and vomited explosively into it.

Tania rushed to him, putting an arm over his shoulders. “Jesus, Matt, you okay?”

Matt nodded, feeling embarrassed, but slightly better as soon as he moved away from the book’s pages. He wiped his mouth.

“A city?” Tania said, rubbing Matt’s back. “Is that what Alhazred found, and what we’re looking for?” She let him go, and looked at Albadi with one eyebrow up.

“Perhaps,” Albadi said. “Alhazred says that what you seek is buried deep behind mighty barriers big enough to hold back an army. It is the same as I deciphered. He says it is a city created millions of years before human beings even stood upright.”

Matt breathed deeply, shutting his watery eyes for a moment. “Many of these ancient prophetic works were allegorical. It might not mean a physical city at all. Given Alhazred’s mental state, perhaps he meant something like a mental construct – the walls of his mind and all that.”

“Or nothing but hallucinations from a mix of hashish and a wild imagination,” Tania added.

“We could hope that. But it might mean exactly what it says,” Albadi said softly. “Only in the original Al Azif will you find the answer.”

“Gates so huge they could hold back an army,” Andy said softly. He looked to Matt. “Hold them back…from our armies going down, or something else coming up?”

Matt nodded. “You know, the planets have been used for both chronological and religious reasons for thousands of years. After all, archeoastronomers are still studying Stonehenge for its possible connections with planetary alignment.”

“The trigger,” Andy said. “The alarm clock event again.”

“Yes.” Matt looked from Tania to Abrams. “Given what we are experiencing, I think we should take everything seriously, and be prepared for it.”

“Agreed,” Abrams said.

Tania nodded, but still looked reluctant. “What about the monsters and djinn in the forbidden deserts?” she asked, sardonically.

Albadi snorted. “I wouldn’t worry so much about djinn as bands of Al-Qaida fighters roaming the outskirts of the cities. You have more to fear from falling into their hands.” His lips compressed momentarily and his eyes moved to Tania. “They torture and behead foreigners, and would take great delight in capturing an American – especially a female American.”

“They can fucking try,” Tania spat.

Abrams growled. “No one is going to be getting captured…Soldiers!”

Berry and Hartogg came back into the room, their eyes wolf like in their intensity.