Today we have a sneak peek from The Garden of Souls, the historical action-adventure novel by author Cheri Vause.
Two archaeologists, a priest and his best friend, uncover a bizarre map that leads to the Biblical burial cave of Abraham, drawn by a famous first century Rabbi. The two friends must decipher the strange symbols on the map to locate the cave, and secure what may be hidden there before antiquity thieves catch up with them. What they encounter in the cave changes their lives and the lives of all mankind, forever.
The Garden of Souls, the action-adventure novel by Cheri Vause, is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.
Here is an excerpt from The Garden of Souls…
PROLOGUE
In a village outside Jerusalem, Israel, 135 A.C.E.
I am a dead man.
Akiva scratched the words across a torn piece of parchment, which was stretched over a table made from two clay wine jars and a large piece of wood from an abandoned ox-cart. A faint smell of wine drifted through the cracks in the wood, reminding him his old stomach was as empty as the wine jars. While dismissing the tempting perfume, he dipped his stylus again into the black ink and waited for the bead on the tip to plop back into the pot, for every drop was worth a fortune and he was quickly running out of money and time.
Shaping the letters in short, deliberate movements, his hand crept from right to left, aligning each letter to the one before it. For a long moment he stopped to stare at the words as though they were a primal truth and, try as he may to understand them, he knew he never would. The world had gone mad with violence and he seemed to be at the whirling core of it.
He felt a sharp pain scrabble inside his chest until it found his heart, making it rattle like a dried up bean in a clay jar. Age had come upon him suddenly in these last few weeks, hurtling itself over him until his bones creaked with the weight of it, or was it, rather, the harrowing millstone of responsibility for all of those deaths at Masada crushing him? He touched the point of his stylus to the parchment and began writing again.
I can hear the soldiers marching several streets away as they search for me and the others involved in the rebellion. They most certainly will find me, unless I am able to escape in the next few moments, leaving little time to explain anything to you, but I shall try.
A tear slid down his nose and dropped, drowning the letter it fell upon until it was nothing more than a black spot. He wiped his face with his sleeve and continued writing.
I am staying in a village somewhere on the outskirts of Be’er Karkom. My life here has been smothering me like an old wool blanket. All the hiding and the reliance upon others to fetch food and supplies has taken its toll on my spirit. I continue to teach, but the number of my students has dwindled to only those brave enough to defy the governor’s edict. General Vespasian will never give up the search for those who escaped Masada, and my name is on the top of the list. I believed in Bar Kokhba, I believed he was our Savior, but, as you know, hindsight has always had better vision.
My students each carry a letter to you through my graduates who are scattered about the countryside. I hope that by using this method, one letter will make it through to you.
Wow! You sure got my attention. This looks like my kind of book.