The Crystal Curse
(Book 4 of the Legends of the Winged Scarab series).
Sailing around the
island of Malta on their way from the Canary Islands to Crete, my protagonists
must skirt a real number of oil rigs surrounding this historically
significant island. They are often towed through busy shipping channels creating hazards to transiting vessels (yes, there is an incident in the book).
-- Remember the Malta Conference held January
30 to February 3, 1945 between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Winston Churchill planning a final campaign against the Germans. They
also agreed on the undesirability of the Red Army pushing into Central Europe.
-- This was followed by
the Yalta Conference in Crimea (February 4–11, 1945), between
Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier
Joseph Stalin, divvying up war-torn Europe by demanding the unconditional
surrender of Germany, and other then-secret agreements.
In
The
Crystal Curse, once again, the new leaders of the supervolcano-devastated world plot on Malta,
with China and South America in the fore. Here, I touch on the island-building
fortifications by the Chinese on and around the hotly disputed Spratley Islands in the South China
Seas.
If you think "well, that's far away," think again. This YouTube video may just tell us of how China ramps up its island-building for military purposes.
But
mostly, together with my “goodies and baddies,” we explore the dangers and wonders of the Lost Labyrinth of Egypt near Hawara in
the Fayum. The complex is deemed to predate Egypt's Old Kingdom by thousands of years.
This ancient underground maze was off-limits to researchers, and until something huge was proven by ground-penetrating laser, the Egyptian Government largely denied its
existence. Were they hiding something sinister or too valuable for it to
be explored?
Here a brief excerpt from an interesting article:
"The labyrinth is
said to be an extraordinary underground complex which could hold the key
to mankind’s history. ... there, we could find details
about unknown civilizations in history, great empires, and rulers that
lived on the planet before history as we know it began."
But back to the fiction in The Crystal Curse:
Will Naunet and Jonathan escape with their lives as the
Curse of El-Hanash, the Crystal Snake, seems to befall all who enter the
Lost Labyrinth.
Excerpt:
One by one, the heavy tablets were handed down the
dangling starboard gangway and lifted into the A&N’s impressive captain’s
launch. Hovering on the upper steps were an anxious Lorenzo and a very jittery
Jabari. Despite both men suspecting they had lost their own claim to ownership
of the ancient gold, every time the launch’s bumpers clanged against the small
bobbing platform, the two men winced.
“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”
Jabari
adopted a conspirator’s tone. “What if he sails off in the middle of the night
with our gold?”
“In the middle of the night, you and I will be on
the A&N.”
Lorenzo’s mood had turned as dark as the ominous haze bunching up
on the southern horizon. “
As soon as we’ve loaded the last of this lot, I want
you to get my group together to be ferried on over.” By his group, he meant
himself and Edward, as well as Jabari, Zahra, and Aziz. Cheryl and a more than
reluctant Naunet made up the rest to spend the night on the Russian mega-yacht.
Lorenzo pulled the two crystal halves from his
pocket and handed them to Jabari.
“Here. Before we leave, have Browning glue these
back together. And make sure the Wilkins woman knows her hocus-pocus. If I
can’t persuade Alexei this thing has special powers, we’ll all be taking a long
swim.”
*
* *
