Author(s): Geoffrey McSkimming

Middle Readers

IN THE ABANDONED, MUSTY UNDERGROUND store rooms of the Old Relics Society in Cairo, Gerald Perry (Esquire) leads Jim, Doris and Brenda to a row of six almost-forgotten, dust-covered crates secreted away in the gloominess. These crates, Perry tells his friends, were deposited down here long ago, shortly after Perry himself had the headquarters of the Old Relics Society built. the crates were left by an archaeologist-explorer who was himself an old man when Perry was young. That man, Perry informs was none other than Hercule Von Coddler one of the most felonious, thieving, wretchedly arrogant distorters of our profession! As each crate is uncovered, the store rooms become filled with awe-struck incredulity. the crates hold six large stone astragals convex mouldings hewn from the walls of an obviously ancient building. Each of the astragals has been carved with the figure of a dancing apsara heavenly nymph. It turns out they are the famous Astragals of the Apsaras, and therein lies their great, almost incomprehensible secret: each of the heavenly nymphs is demonstrating what appears to be a different sort of yoga or exercise position, with their arms, legs, necks and torsos bent and distorted, and all-akimbo, this way and that. They represent a sacred series of meditational mantras. the final astragal, the seventh, is supposed to show the final position attained before the human body will vanish in a single second into a plane only half in this world. Jim and his friends realise that someone is armed with lightweight replicas of the Astragals of the Apsaras replicas that may very well lead them to the last remaining astragal. They are dispatched to the vast and beautiful complex of Angkor, where they set about trying to thwart whoever is seemingly following in the footsteps of Hercule Von Coddler to obtain an all-empowering ancient knowledge which, if misused, could halt the progress of humankind as we know it.