THE JOURNAL

Emma eyes widened with curiosity the moment she saw the book on the table. It was no doubt that the book belonged to her late dad because her father's name was written boldly on the front hardcover. Although she was eager to take a look inside the book, she hesitated and stopped her hand for reaching out to the book at the other side of the table. She wanted to ask the professor if she could have a look inside while he continued his tale but a message alert tone rang twice in the breast pocket of the professor, preventing her from asking, even before he could resume his story. Realizing the ring tone emanated from his cellphone in his cellphone along with resonated vibrations coming out of the device, the professor took it out and distracted himself a bit with reading something displayed on screen of the cell phone while Emma quickly but surreptitiously took the book from table without the oblivious professor noticing that she had taken it.

His face turned a bit grim after he read the message though Emma barely noticed his face peering at her for she was still lost in reading the book.

"It seems to me that I have to leave for my abode sooner than expected",

"Right now, professor? But you haven't ....",

"Don't worry about it, Miss Emma. I'll continue on the way but first, let's have our meal before leaving together",

"Sounds okay to me",

"The food has gotten a bit cold, do you want to request for another or....?",

"Thanks for the offer but I am not bothered if the food gets cold. I'm still satisfied with eating it anyway",

The professor scoffed and smirked as he took a fork to pinch a chunk out of the cold food.

"Self contented as always like your father used to be back in the day. Very well then, let's eat to our hearts content",

He complimented with the piece of food at the back of his mouth, gnawing it to get a good savory feeling of what he was munching with his edible molars in spite of his old age

"You know that I can't deny the fact that I am my father's daughter",

"True and well said, dear. Like they say, an apple does not really fall far from the tree",

"Nice one, professor but with food in our mouths and time running fast, it's better we stick to more eating and less talking",

"Good advice, Miss though I prefer doing both and it wouldn't be fun eating quietly with no room for jest nor laughter",

"Fine, you can talk all you want if it so pleases you. I rather finish this up and follow you back to wherever you want to go",

She answered slicing off one of juicy soft claws of the lobster with the knife and pick it up using the fork straight to her mouth.

"Quite the adventure spirit of Jones, I must confess",

"As long as I'll be able to listen to your tale, I'll be fine even if you were going to the ends of the earth",

"Okay, you can do what you want, I won't stop you. I guess I'll pay heed to your advice and enjoy the taste of this sushi, methinks",

The professor replied and silence took over from their chattering amongst the other customers that were not even paying attention to them ever since they sat comfortably to kickstart the planned meeting.

Fifteen minutes later, they had finished eating their meals and the professor quickly paid the bills for the dinner before they left the restaurant exactly thirty minutes after noon. The professor had taken a ride on a black Peugeot automobile to the restaurant earlier, driven by his personal driver who had parked the vehicle near the front of the building and had been waiting for him to conclude his meeting with Emma the entire time professor Livingstone was discussing with the daughter of his old friend whom he knew already passed away into to the afterlife some months ago. The driver named Alfred immediately came out of the car to open the back door of the vehicle awaiting the duo outside the restaurant after he noticed that they had finished eating lunch except for their discussion which was unknown to him. Emma squeezed herself into the back seat of the car followed by the professor who entered last into the passenger seat whilst Alfred immediately shut the door and went into the driver's seat where he start the car engine as soon as everyone was ready to depart from the vicinity.

"Alfred, take us straight home but be cautious on the road",

"As you wish, Sir",

Alfred answered at once after receiving instruction from the professor behind him and stepped on the brakes, skillfully steering the car out of the vicinity into the middle of the road and he applied enough caution to avoid colliding into another vehicle which would be catastrophic for them.

As the Alfred drove the car with his eyes firmly fixed on the road, the professor went on with his story which had been interrupted by a text message he received earlier whilst Emma placed his father's journal on top of his handbag flipping through the pages of the old notes which had a lot of writings and queer drawings of pictures as well as Getty images of things he encountered during the excavation.

"Like I was saying, your father documented everything the local farmer told us, even I did but his notes was well detailed and surpassed mine. It took us three months to scour the whole mountain and after the local farmer helped us to locate the original site whence the stones actually came from, we went along with our plans of setting up a mine cooperative, having legal rights to recover stones from the region and we had them set up headquarters at the same village we found the local farmer. We did this since the site was close by and it would make it easier to transport the rocks from the mountains to the village for proper processing and after a route was constructed, we left Tashkent, heading back home but I left him on the way to France where I decided to settle down while carrying out lectures on sociology in a university right here in Paris...",

The professor paused as the driver took a next turn to the next lane driving in front of another vehicle till he stopped the car near a traffic light.

Then the professor continued.

".... Barely two months after we separated from our trip back from the Soviet Republic as it was back then, I received a message from your father saying he had plans to make an excavation project for archeological findings of any possible relics, particularly the tomb of the undead emperor owing to a discovery of houses in the caverns which was chorally decorated with engraved drawings of the ancient lifestyle of the natives that once settled in the mountains and monopolize the trade of the stones with neighboring city states. I knew that he was impressed by the story of the local farmer when we first visited Tashkent which undeniably prompted him to spearhead the project And it was after I had arrived in Tashkent that I realized that your father had invited other researchers to join his quest especially the Russian Explorer Bohdan Berdy, he personally requested to join the group, he intently did to involve Russia in his project so as to avoid any conflicts with international bodies and to ensure they carry out the project without the home government. To me, it was seemingly a wise decision to do so because the ideas of the Soviet Republicans were not globally accepted by the world especially some Capitalist countries in Europe and majorly in North America. The Russians would see any outsider checking their mountains as a possible spy if the person involved do not have the legal rights of the Soviet Union to carry out such a project in the any of the states under the administration of the Russian government. Earlier, Jones had already mapped out the terrain last time we went into the Tashkent mountains and he had prepared everything possible to make the project succeed in its aim to find relics and the tombs of the emperors even before I arrived which stunned me greatly. At first, there were a few difficulties getting the equipments to work in the mountains where the gorges where broad and the ravines were much but through dedication and hard work, we were able to achieve the best we could by recovering a good number of stones and relics that were later taken by the home government from the area particular three tombs and the huge casket of the undead emperor including the four special precious stones that accompanied the sacred orb which we never found when the project was shutdown by the home government who seized almost all of the relics from us after our efforts in finding them. It was the greatest accomplishment and the greatest tragedy of your father to have discovered the tomb of Hemelion excluding the sacred orb which he wanted badly but couldn't achieve it",

The professor stopped again and flipped the pages of the journal right in front of Emma till he stopped at a picture of how the orb looked like in photography which was quite similar to the drawing she saw in the brown book she read at the library.

"This picture is a computed image of the drawing you saw based on the local farmer description when you read the book I published after the project was canceled. It looks like the original in great detail as you can see here in your father's journal"

"Where are these four stones?",

"Good observation. They are probably somewhere in Russian, possibly in Tashkent. They were the only items we found at a place quite different from the location of the orb where it was supposed to be fused together as you see here in the picture",

"How come it was separated? And come to think of it, it wasn't stated in your book",

"Yes, it wasn't because not long after the chief priestess cursed the emperor using her life as a sacrifice, the stones might have been removed from the orb by the mutineers who didn't want the curse to be broken and kept it hidden in a separate place. According to what the local farmer told us concerning the orb, these four stones must be completely fused in their places in the below the orb before any rite or ritual can be carried out successfully by the speaker to their god Motesh for any vow to granted by the diety",

The professor answered the question as the car driver steered the car into the estate owned by the professor through the gate where two security men greeted them as the car sailed into the broad compound before Alfred parked the car beside a fountain flowing in the middle.

"You live in that house?",

"Yes, I do but recently I have not been around to watch over things here. My personal assistant has been keeping things in good condition during my vacation in Italy",

He said and opened the car door as soon as someone came out of the front door of the gigantic mansion, descending down the stairs towards him. Emma followed him out of the car and walked to the other side of the car after adjusting her handbag on her shoulder and kept the journal inside whilst peering in awe at the lush mansion including the colorful vicinity as she stood beside the professor.

"Emma, meet my assistant, Angelina Rose",

Emma turned as the professor introduced her to a lady in her early thirties and kissed her cheeks as a gesture of friendship between them. Before they could get acquainted, the professor intruded.

"Rose, lead us to the bunker. I have something to show Emma here"

He said and beckoned at one of the guards at the gate. "Robert, you can join us", he yelled at the top of his voice.

"Right away, Sir",

Rose replied after embracing Emma and led the duo to the back of the mansion followed by the guard who trailed behind them. Rose led the group of four individuals to an electronic door leading to an underground tunnel, not far from the mansion, where a constructed elevator took them below down seventy feet underneath the ground till they get to the bottom of the long pit. The elevator opened up to a narrow bright hallway and they walked in silence with Rose leading them at the front through the corridor till they arrived at another door quite larger than the first one. Using her fingerprint as a pass key , Rose opened the electronic door and strolled inside followed by the trios behind her into a hall that was dark at first when they entered but Rose quickly switched on the lights revealing the spacious hall and a huge marble like casket which the professor pointed out as the a fifth century old coffin of the undead emperor Hemelion.