Tiamat Rising

By J. C. Brandt

Ancient objects unearthed in the Taurus mountains of Turkey send archaeologist Stan on an unexpected journey of discovery. With a passion for history and a reputation for groundbreaking research, Stan is no stranger to uncovering the secrets of the past. But when he stumbles upon artifacts that challenge everything he thought he knew, he finds himself on a perilous adventure that will test his knowledge and courage like never before.

As Stan delves deeper into the mystery of these ancient objects, he soon realizes that he's stumbled upon something that should have stayed hidden. The more he uncovers, the more dangerous the situation becomes. Stan finds himself facing an enemy unlike anything humanity has ever encountered before. He must put his skills and knowledge to the test as he fights to protect history itself from being destroyed forever.

Along the way, Stan meets a group of unlikely allies who join him in his quest. Together, they travel across continents and through time, facing impossible challenges and battling fierce adversaries. Will their combined efforts be enough to save the world as we know it, or will they fall short in the face of an unimaginable threat? Find out in "Tiamat Rising", a thrilling tale of adventure, danger, and discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. C. Brandt
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223770558

Book preview

Control was only part of the reason he was watching. The other reason was the young lady standing in the corner. Stan had thought he was the only one they were going to let oversee this. He was there to make sure that everyone followed protocol and that no mistakes were made in handling the objects.

He wondered what the woman was doing there. Was she there to replace him? Finally, he decided that he would go find out what was happening.

Hi, my name is Stan, he said as he approached the woman.

Hello, my name is Tiamat, she replied.

You mean like the goddess? he joked.

Yes, however, I am no goddess, she replied.

No, of course not, he stammered. He had to figure out how he was going to phrase what he had to say next in a tactful way when she answered him before he could ask.

I am here to find out what these artifacts are. They were on my property, and I am an archaeologist. These objects seem to be from way back, she said.

So it’s kind of a double interest, he said, smiling.

Okay, I thought you were here to take my job, he laughed.

No, not at all, she replied.

When I heard you were overseeing the tests, I was very anxious to meet you. You have written some amazing papers that I have read. You are the head of your field and an innovator in that field. To say I wanted to meet you is an understatement. I needed to meet you, especially after we discovered these artifacts because I was thinking they might tie in with your third paper on time before history and the gods. In your paper, you described objects that were used by said gods for various powers, communications, and transport. Well, I am thinking that these objects are indeed those of which you spoke. Your part here is more than just overseeing the tests. You are here for insight, which I requested of you myself. He looked at her and said, Well, thank you very much. I had no idea I was so sought after. I mean, I wrote that paper about things that appear to be alluded to but have never been seen or written about directly. Just hints of them scattered throughout time.

And it seemed that in a time before the written word, they moved these stories around the world by word of mouth. The legends we have now are mere shadows of what happened. It's funny how we look at things in history as if they were happening right now, with our current thinking.

It's like saying a unicorn doesn't exist. Well, now it doesn't. So because we've never seen it, found bones for it, and can't conceive of it, it must not exist. So it is overlooked.

Yes, yes, she laughed. That's what I believe. It's like in thousands of years, what we see as common will be thought to be not real, impossible.

Exactly, he replied. Now what's interesting is that if someone tells you a tale, you now expect that it is exaggerated. Because we have created a mindset that everything around us is so mundane, and because of our insecurities and our egos, we tell tall tales to make life exciting again and ultimately to make us look exciting. And we seem to always think people think the way we do.

Now, what if everyone you knew was simply in awe of everything around them and was humble, didn’t need recognition, and only told stories they knew to have happened, never having to embellish them, fully knowing that everyone else at the time knew the things they talked about because it was all common knowledge?

Now, how many people told these stories? he asked. Probably not as many as you think, because people were busy just trying to survive at the time, so depending on his character, certain men would be telling these stories now, which will determine their accuracy. Some would under-tell the stories, while others would over-tell them, and there were even fewer men who never deviated from the original story; the number of these men has declined over the centuries.

And as our characters evolved, we became more and more susceptible to over-embellished storytelling because we lost our satisfaction with ourselves and the world around us. So we try to create wonderment because we lost ours. I believe there was a time in our history when our world was new, fresh, and very different from what it is today, and it stands to reason that people during that time would think differently from us and have experiences that we will never have the chance to experience or even conceive of what that experience could have been. As they say, we don't know what we don't know. Even in the case of written history, if you think it has not been changed many times, the originals were all burned long before the last copy was written. So when we find them, they are not original and thus subject to that generation's fallacies. Even now, with video, we can track history infallibly, right or wrong; however, for the most part, yes, we are as close to documenting our history as we have ever been. Then he realized he had been going on and on and couldn’t figure out why. Whereas normally he was a little reserved, here he was