Watcher of the Hidden Realms: Keepers of the Conscience

By David K Giordano

Below the sands of Sable Island in the Canadian Maritimes, the discovery of an ancient ship containing futuristic technology has the potential to be more life-transforming than the computer or the cell phone promising untold riches and power to whoever controls it. The device promises to be a great benefit to mankind . . . or, in the wrong hands, the end of humanity.

 

While scuba diving through caves in search of an ancient Mayan altar, April and her fiancé become separated during a freak storm. She drifts into a cavern and finds a capsule containing journals written centuries ago. The mysterious writings drive her to face ongoing danger as the adventure and suspense mount.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David K Giordano
• Release date: Feb 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215782019

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

You never know who or what’s flying with you onboard an aircraft....

The 747 with a full complement of passengers descended into the clouds toward the Halifax Stanfield International Airport. The captain, exhausted from the long flight, took a deep breath of the stale, recirculated air and exhaled in relief now that his shift was nearing its end.

Ah, finally, a few days to relax and unwind...just what the doctor ordered. After a much needed nap I’ll be sipping cocktails and enjoying the company of a fine young lady overlooking the deep blue waters of the Atlantic. What about you? Got any plans, Brian?

Brian Billings, the copilot, raised his arms and stretched life into his aching joints. Yeah, he yawned, Jean and I are going to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax tomorrow to check out remnants salvaged from the Titanic. I hear it’s quite a museum. Have you ever been there, Max?

Maxwell Teagon looked over to his right through bloodshot hazel-green eyes, Yeah, at least two or three times. With more than one level, there’s quite a bit there to see and check out. Plan on spending most of the day there...even then you won’t see it all.

Without the door opening or closing, suddenly a new passenger appeared in the tiny restroom unknown to anyone aboard the airline. He didn’t walk in; he just materialized there in the blink of an eye. Strapped to his leg hidden inside his faded jeans C-4 plastic explosives waited to blow and take down this flying behemoth. Tim Russell planned to be far away when that happened, out the way he came, in a split second and unnoticed by anyone. He didn’t relish all the pain, death, and sorrow he would create killing innocent passengers, however, he salivated at the thought of finally putting an end to his newest adversaries: Sam and Janice Jordan. Once his friends, they now stood in his way, plotting to keep him from the riches and power he deserved. T.R. took one long look in the mirror. His eyes, cold and dark, accentuated the hidden evil pulsing in his blackened heart, mind, and soul.

Passing from one dimension to the next, an unseen spirit entered his body, a benevolent presence he’d felt many times before. A feminine, motherly presence of goodness he too often ignored. Without speaking a word, he knew exactly what this angelic being was about to push into his mind.

You can still stop this, Timmy. She had always called him Timmy. For as long as he could remember she called him Timmy. You can still turn away and leave the way you came without killing anyone. It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to give in to those dark thoughts you know are wrong. There is still hope for you. Turn while you still can...turn...Timmy, turn!

He thought about it for a few seconds then heard another familiar voice.

Oh c’mon, this is your big chance! You know you won’t have another opportunity like this again. They’re in it for themselves just like the rest of the world. It’s every man for himself. C’mon, T, this is your golden moment. For God’s sake, don’t chicken out now!

He thought about his options for another few more seconds then smiled at himself in the mirror.

T.R. opened the door and exited the tiny airline restroom and headed up to the front of the plane in search of Sam and Janice who he knew would be seated in the third row. He didn’t want them to notice him—knowing full well that they’d try to stop him—so he ducked down a few seats behind them and did his best to positively identify them from behind. Convinced he’d found who he was looking for, he headed back to the restroom, entered and locked the door behind him.

A few seconds later, the C-4 explosives were off his leg and set on top of the sink. T.R. looked at his watch, noted the time and set the charge to go off in one minute. He glanced up at the mirror one last time, laughed and smiled at the demonic man he’d become. No turning back now, this was his golden moment, his moment to shine and take what he’d always deserved.

Why not?

...tick...tick...tick...

You can still end this. You can still pull the plug. Forgiveness is but a moment away.

...tick...tick...tick...

He thought about it for a long moment and finally decided to ignore the still, quiet voice.

...tick...tick...tick...

T.R. reached into his right front pocket of his black denim jeans and pulled out a flat circular device that resembled an old pocket watch. It had a glass face with a green button where the stem would normally be. He brought the device up to his mouth, said return, pressed the green button and vanished ....

PART ONE

SABLE ISLAND

CHAPTER 2

I hope this isn’t the mistake of a lifetime. A writer, I am not. Making sense of it all is making me edgy and paranoid to the extreme. I go ahead with this, terrified in making a grave and miscalculated error, but at the same time feel it absolutely imperative that the word gets out. And, if I don’t make it back or succeed, hopefully, you or whoever else reads this will take up the cause where I left off. It may, in all honesty, be the only warning you have.

First, let me say that what I do, I feel needs to be done. I’d rather live a normal, somewhat selfish life and think of my own needs and desires first, but this journey I embark on is far more important than the life of just one individual: for that matter, more important than that of many.

I’ll start by bringing you back to the day it all began years ago. Speaking of mistakes, that dive may have been my biggest one. You see, I made the decision then to go cave diving hours before the arrival of one of the worst hurricanes on record. Fueled by El Nino, Hurricane Mitch was bearing down hard on the eastern shore of Central America. South of my dive entry point—near the Mayan ruins site at Coba—Honduras, Guatemala and Belize were being slammed and flooded by the storm of the century. I screwed up. I couldn’t see how rain hundreds of miles away could affect me diving in caves emanating from a sinkhole off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. They did, and that’s where we begin.

Let me start by giving you my name and some background information. I go by the name of April Lynd, daughter of Frank and Cindy Lynd of Nags Head, North Carolina. I have long, straight red hair, freckles and hazel eyes, and stand a few hairs taller than five foot seven. Some have said that I look like Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and I guess, in a way, I do.

I’m obsessed with the lives and beliefs of the ancient Mayans and am thoroughly hooked on the sport of scuba diving...especially cave diving. At least I was until those last cave dives I mentioned earlier near Coba, in Mexico. It’s there that I lost my best friend Ray in one of the most expansive underground cave systems in the world.

Car Wash, so named because taxi drivers used to wash their cars there while tourists and explorers combed the nearby Mayan ruins at Coba, still holds secrets yet unknown to mankind. The length and extent of some of the caves that branch out of this once sacred cenote are still, to this very day, a mystery.

My personal belief is that the Mayan ruins of Coba and Tulum in Mexico, and the ruins site of Xunantunich in Belize, and possibly others, all connect underground through a labyrinth of tunnels and caves. I know this sounds crazy, but hundreds of miles of tunnels, now underwater, once connected Mayan cities rising above the limestone Swiss cheese they were built on.

After photographing Car Wash’s Room of Tears, named for the stalactites hanging overhead, Ray and I pointed the camera lens at a Mayan, or even pre-Mayan, altar that, at one time, stood high and dry above the water line in a cavern now aptly named the Chamber of the Ancients. We know it was once above water because stalactites form only in air when evaporating water leaves behind gravity-formed icicles made of limestone over countless years.

It was after leaving the Chamber of the Ancients that the real story begins. While setting new lines in unexplored virgin caves, it was then that all hell broke loose. Hurricane Mitch was pelting the lands south of here, with record amounts of rainwater flooding towns and villages in its wake. The water filled the subterranean limestone caves sending a surge of water out in all directions reaching areas hundreds of miles away.

Caught in a torrent of sand and silt, I strained my eyes searching for Ray. All I could see was brown silt, nothing else. My light couldn’t begin to penetrate the clouded tunnel we barely squeezed through only moments earlier. I kept repeating the phrase that had gotten me through countless other dilemmas where I couldn’t see the light of day and my situation seemed hopeless: Nothing lasts forever, I kept telling myself.

Waiting for the silt to clear, I fought off panic as the sharp prick of a stalactite pierced the skin at the top of my scalp. It was then that I first realized that I was being swept through the cave at an alarming rate of speed. Nothing lasts forever, I kept saying. Nothing lasts forever. It was somewhere at that point that Ray and I became separated for good, and, where Ray lost his life. Ray’s never been found even to this very day, and I miss him dearly.

Nausea set in as I rode a roller coaster ride through hell itself. I must have blacked out or something because the next thing I remembered was waking up in an air-filled chamber the size of a bus. The cave’s ceiling overhead was just a few feet above me and within reach if I strained to touch it. I inflated my BC orally to stay afloat then screamed out Ray’s name hoping for a reply but got none. Ray was dead; I felt it in my bones, and all I was able to do was cry.

When the onslaught of tears finally dried up and reality settled in, I calmly reassessed my situation. While looking around, I noticed something floating at the far end of the chamber. It was about half the size of a scuba tank and covered with green slime. After spending a fair amount of time and effort trying to identify and open the strange object, I finally decided to give up for the time being and just take it out with me. That’s if I ever got out.

To this day I don’t know what happened next, or how I came upon finding my way out of the caves. It’s all a blur to me now when I look back at it. All I know is that it’s imperative that I make this journey as soon as possible. The lives of all on this planet hang in the balance, and I can’t afford to make even the slightest mistake. 

***

As the single-engine deHavilland DHC-2 Beaver seaplane makes its descent, this lonely sliver of sand known as Sable Island becomes the first entry point to locations here on Earth and hopefully to a vast number of other worlds as well. I know it’s confusing, but after reading the journals from the book, my suspicions mount: Tim Russell is a man not to be trusted; his lack of memory, partially erased by the Lantians, and mere presence on Sable Island both attest to this. And if I don’t successfully foil his plans, tomorrow and the future will forever be changed.

What journals from what book, you ask? I’ll try to explain it to you, so it’ll make more sense.

When I finally made it out of the caves at Car Wash near Coba in Mexico, I broke open the floating object I found in the subterranean bubble. Inside, what I found was a series of thin books or incomplete journals that are the sole reason for my expeditions here and beyond. Written on their brown paper bag cover, were the handwritten words: Keepers of the Conscience.

Reading through the book—or series of books—I found fantastic tales of pirates, shipwrecks, Mayan folklore, and far-fetched dreams of extraterrestrial visitations long, long ago.

I originally thought they were all some rich, crack-head’s mindless musings accidentally dropped into the ocean after a rough night sailing his million-dollar yacht. But the detail in each adventurer’s account led me to believe there was more to it than mere fantasy...way more.

I read the books again and again and found more details I must have missed the first time I read them.

My mind flashed through a flood of imagery: An old black wooden sailing ship strangely named the Vampire with its gruesome figurehead reaching out of her bow, a fanged vampire’s head to the forefront of a spar skewering one head after the next, each with a blood-curdling visage from hell.

Other ghosts of smoke and dreams played on the movie screen of my mind: A surgeon pirate with a black eye patch, and beside him a beautiful redheaded pirate; scenes underwater with intrepid divers wearing brassy old-time helmets feeding air through long, snake-like umbilical cords leading up through the abyss; Mayan pyramids, and, to top it all off, saucer-like UFOs buried a millennia ago.

Wow!

Are you kidding me?!

There was too much here. How could anybody make up such a bizarre collection of wacked-out ideas? It had to be nothing more than one man’s passing fantasy; a man who had way too much time on his hands. Impossible, or is it?

The stories played over and over in my tortured head. I even wound up dreaming about it one night! That was the last straw; I was hooked!

Hour after hour I spent researching every detail I could, and time and time again found accounts that proved the veracity of the stories I’d read. There really was a pirate by the name of Edward Low; some said he was hung by the neck in New York harbor while other reports concluded that he narrowly escaped the gallows pole. And get this: there really was a ship named the Vampire that was indeed wrecked on the shoals off Sable Island. Add to that all the accurate descriptions of Coba, in Mexico, and the Mayan sacred cenote later aptly named Car Wash with the ancient altar in it. There were just way too many coincidences here.

Way, way too many coincidences, to be sure. Go ahead, look them up yourself. See what you come up with.

So, after doing all this research, I finally came to the only conclusion that made any logical sense to me: Keepers of the Conscience is the real deal; true-life accounts from reliable witnesses and fearless explorers, some written centuries ago by average people who wrote about their fantastic journeys into the unknown.

After finalizing all my preparations for my initial expedition to Sable Island, Nova Scotia, I took most of the journals I had to a good friend of mine who’s a writer living on one of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. He edited and translated it all into modern-day English, then had it published as a sci-fi/adventure novel. The money generated from the book sales is helping me finance this expedition into the Canadian Maritimes. A blind, dangerous expedition to a crescent shaped spit of sand known today as Sable Island, formerly known as The Graveyard of the Atlantic to ancient mariners on treacherous, uncharted seas.

May fortune favor the bold...and the foolish.

CHAPTER 3

Breaking through the patchy white clouds, the deHavilland seaplane descended to an area of clear blue sky above a dense layer of blinding fog. Cool mist blanketed the plane as she sailed through the fog and finally skimmed the surface of calm blue water a stone’s throw from the shoreline of Sable Island. April Lynd scanned the beach of the treeless island as the plane coasted to a halt. In the distance, sand dunes spotted with yellowish-green seagrass rose here and there on this tiny, windswept, crescent-shaped isle.

Jack Perry, the pilot, asked: You sure you want me to leave you here all alone ’til Monday of next week? He shook his head, A pretty young gal on an island in the middle of nowhere sounds a little risky and dangerous to me...you sure ’bout this?

Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll be alright, Jack. Just don’t forget to pick me up Monday morning, okay?

You’re the boss. I’ll be here by eight, rain or shine. I just hope you’ll be alright and find what you’re looking for, Ms. Lynd.

Together they stepped out onto the plane’s pontoons then into the cold, waist-deep water and made their way toward shore. Jack carried a five-gallon container filled with drinking water and April hoisted an overstuffed backpack filled with essential supplies and her sleeping bag.

You’re going to need more water, Ms. Lynd, he said, as he scratched his shaggy, gray beard. Five gallons of water will never last you ’til Monday. I sure hope you’ve thought this through.

There’s supposed to be some inland ponds beyond the dunes where I should be able to replenish my supply. I just have to locate them. I’m sure I’ll be fine, Jack. Don’t worry. Please believe me when I tell you that I’ve researched this very carefully. Just make sure you’re back here on time to pick me up.

Okay, I’m just trying to make sure you’ll be alright, that’s all. I won’t say another word, Ms. Lynd.

Thanks, Jack. And please call me April, okay?

Sure thing, Ms. Lynd...I mean April.

They reached the shoreline and scanned the beach in all directions. Off in the distance, to the right, seals basked in the warming sunshine and, a bit further, a lone horse emerged from the dunes.

April removed her backpack and set it down onto the shell-covered sand while Jack relieved himself of the heavy water container and set it right