His eyes were particularly drawn to a lumpy mound of brown dirt, looking like a failed attempt at a sharp five-sided pyramid. To his knowledge, it was only towards late 2600 BC, after the Great Pyramid of Giza was built, when the Egyptians finally discovered the trick to building sturdy structures that had sharp edges. This only meant that this mound was built around 2613 BC and was one of their tests. Nonetheless, the mound was surrounded by a handful of tourists walking around on a mixture of sand and clay.
Sam remembered reading about this. He tried to remember as he stared at the structure, willing the name into his mind. What was it? Dahshur? No. They were in Dahshur. Certainly not the Black Pyramid. Was that the name?
Suddenly, the name of the mound hit him. The Bent Pyramid. Appropriate. Vaguely remembering the name from the map he had seen hours ago, he knew the name made sense. Sam could picture generations of ancient Egyptian architects pouring all of their knowledge in transition from step-sided pyramids to smooth-sided ones and this was the result. These were the fumbling attempts that had led to such masterworks as the Pyramids of Giza, wonders of the ancient world, a shining testament to humanity.
So this is what I was exploring, thought Sam. It looked much different in daylight.
Clearly, the Bent Pyramid was not a success with its collapsing walls and dirty look - yet tourists seemed to still admire the ancient aesthetic and architectural value. It was one of the best preserved in the area and something had to have worked: its outside limestone was still mainly intact, unlike many of the pyramids in the surrounding area.
Pyramids, right. Remembering that there were two pyramids drawn on the map, he found the motivation to start moving. After all, he couldn’t spend his entire day just staring off into space.
Watching a tourist couple starting to walk north, Sam began to follow. Maybe they actually knew where they were going. Which meant where he was going. Or at least he could ask them for some information on where exactly he was.
Walking through the sandy ground, Sam’s shoes began to slowly sink into the ground, making him more and more tired as he walked through. That was one of the miscalculations that had contributed to the collapse of the pyramid, he knew. Another was the weight of the blocks themselves – their weight was not distributed evenly and as the awkward weight proved to be too much for the unstable foundation the massive stones had settled wrong, giving the pyramid its hunched shape and its name.
What kind of idiot decides to build a structure on sand? Sam thought. But he knew who it was. If only he could remember. Anyway, he thought, the ancient Egyptians didn’t have much choice- most of the terrain was sand. It was remarkable they’d done what they’d done. And it seemed they’d learned from their mistakes, as the pyramids of Giza were many times as large, with perfectly cut blocks weighing two tons, and they’d been standing for thousands of years without a hint of collapse.
Done with pulleys and ramps and mud and water and manpower. Sam shook his head and continued on. As his leg grew tired, Sam’s mind offered up a fact like a bubble from the depths unbidden, unexpected, one he had heard from his tour guide days ago.
It started with an S… I know it.
He touched the side of the pyramid, hoping that there would be some sort of clue; his eyes fell onto the hieroglyphics carved on the side of the pyramid. It looked suspiciously like a snake.
His mind clicked. It was Sneferu! King Sneferu. The ambitious pharaoh who supported mathematical and architectural endeavors under his financing, and was actually in charge of the Bent Pyramid. There had to be another one nearby. Sam was sure of it. He was on the right track.
Regaining his motivation to walk, he continued his journey northward, enjoying the sound of the rustling bushes, the trickling water in the Nile, and the clicks of the tourists in the background. Boats skimmed the surface of the blue water.
Slowly, a red tip began to surface upward out of the ground in the distance. Getting excited, Sam picked up his pace. Was it the Red Pyramid?
Sure enough, the famous structure towering at three hundred and forty one feet and boasting a glorious red color stood majestically only a couple hundred feet away. Sneferu had learned from his mistakes with this smooth sided edifice. A fitting monument to a king.
Sam had seen enough pyramids in the past few days to get the full spectrum, and The Red Pyramid looked much more like what people expected to see when they heard the word "pyramid". The learning curve was steep, Sam thought as he gazed at the structure. It was only the second true pyramid which was ever built, but it had come damn close to achieving the ideal of the pyramid builders' art. Or maybe, he thought, they’d been too tired to improve on it, but he doubted this. As he circled it now, there seemed very little to improve on. He knew that it was still the third tallest pyramid ever built, behind the two largest at Giza and shook his head, impressed. It was really amazing that so little was known about it, despite the fact that it had been hidden in a restricted area, safe from the prying eyes of the public, ripe for study, until 1996. Sam suspected that the slightly greater distance of Dahshur from Cairo – about twenty five miles south of Giza and ten miles south of Saqqara - made it a bit more of a hassle for tourists and a bit less attractive for tour operators, especially since there weren’t any tourist shops in the area for merchants to earn commissions!
Sam looked at it now and had to admit that this is what made it an especially attractive place to visit.
There was a plaque outside, though, an impressive amount of signage for the area. He brushed the dirt off so he could get a better look.
There seemed to be three rooms inside the pyramid, joined by a single corridor. Sam knew that the ancient Egyptians hadn’t come up with the idea of the arch as a load-bearing mechanism in stone buildings- he was fairly certain that distinction went to the Greeks and the Romans- so when they did construct rooms in stone structures they either used lots of stone pillars spaced close together to support the weight of the roof like a forest of stone – a common sight in temples and one familiar to tourists, synonymous with ancient Egypt; or they used large slabs of stone to make “corbelled" ceilings. He’d read the term before, but he hadn’t seen it close up and he looked at it, interested. The one in the first chamber allowed the ceiling to reach twelve feet high – constructed by flat slabs of stone laid on top of each other moving slowly in towards the center, the huge mass of stone above the room keeping the ceiling from falling in on itself.
He rubbed his thumb over scratches in the plastic plaque cover. Some hopeful tourist had inscribed their initials, eager for their own brush with immortality.
There was a staircase which led up to a passageway to the final chamber and Sam studied closely, wondering how much of this information he could use in navigating their descent into the Black Pyramid when Ethan was finally well enough to go.
He didn’t expect it to be easy. Thieves had been breaking into burial chambers even from the earliest days, so the passageways inside the pyramids had been deliberately made to be difficult to follow, with deep pits for unwary grave robbers to fall into and stone blocks called portcullises which could be lowered from the ceiling to block the path.
Still, Sam knew that almost all of them were eventually ransacked and looted, and his heart stopped as it had before, at the thought that they’d come all this way to find nothing when they finally reached the heart of the maze.
Sam squinted at the structure before him, marveling again at how time worked. The architect had been clever: some archaeologists believed that the Medium pyramid was the first attempt at building a smooth-sided pyramid, and that it may have collapsed when construction of the Bent Pyramid was already well under way. That would have clued the architect in to its potential for instability, Sam thought… prompting his decision to hide the labyrinth under something that was already crumbling as a way of keeping it safe from prying eyes. Hopefully.
He still wondered how he had expected his children to find it if they had to fight through a collapse
d ruin to get there, but that was a question for another day.
He could only deal with so much.
The Necropolis was worth it, Sam thought. Who knew I could ever be standing face-to-face with this? “Wow” sounded anticlimactic, but it was the best his tired brain could do.
Now this, the Red Pyramid, was known to be the resting place of King Sneferu. It only made sense that it was. After all of his investments and dedication to the project, of course he would want to be buried there.
His son, Cheops, had learned from his father’s mistakes. He had constructed the Great Pyramid at Giza based on this design, but that rose almost five hundred feet in the air, a testament to the ages.
Sam shook his head, impressed as he always was at the powers of mankind. He wasn’t a philosophical man by any means, but he could give credit where credit was due, and there was definitely something humbling about standing next to such power. He thought about legacy. He thought about the man who had built the Black Pyramid and thought about what kind of man he had been. What kind of father.
So he should expect staircases, he thought, when they made their entrance into the Black Pyramid. He should expect portcullises and booby traps and passageways that went nowhere.
He brought out the map Ethan had copied from the hall onto the other map, but it didn’t tell him much more in daylight than it had at night.
Someone must have found their way in to make the map, he thought.
Yes. Someone. Many someones. All dead.
He knew the pyramid before him had already been breached and defiled by Europeans - he was sure of it. What he didn’t know was if it was worth going in. After all, rumors had it that there was already black graffiti on the insides of the walls, left behind by the finders of the pyramid, who wanted to leave their mark on the sacred structure.
Those fools, Sam thought, shaking his head. That they would disgrace such a magnificent structure was beyond him.
Sam sat down on the gravel, took out his journal, and flipped the book open to a free page. Rummaging in his pack, he held the book open with his thumb and carefully took out his sketching pencil and began measuring out the sides of the pyramid. Slowly, he became more appreciative of the Egyptians’ intellect.
How did they make the rock line up so linearly? Sam wondered.
He had heard tales of how advanced the Egyptians were in terms of mathematics and astronomy, but in the presence of these majestic structures, Sam could only stand in awe of the pure power of the Egyptians. Soaking in the energy that the Red Pyramid seemed to seep out to him, Sam started to sketch.
Sam had no illusions about being an artist, but he did like to make records of his travels and drawing was always something that had shut off the logical part of his brain. He wasn’t as technically skilled as he’d like, but he was improving and he’d found that drawing – with its reliance on measurement and perception- was as good a way as any to sharpen the skills of vision and sight.
But Sam’s hand never stopped, as it seemed to have a mind of its own. He was drawing the Red Pyramid, standing with the Nile flowing beautifully in the background. Labeling the land as Necropolis, Sam stopped to admire the page.
Not bad, Sam thought, critically regarding the page. Good enough for now, anyway.
Pulling out his headset, Sam leaned back on his hands and began to listen to music as he let the wind rustle his hair. Tonight. They would go tonight, tomorrow at the latest. It might take Ethan quite a while to heal and they couldn’t wait that long, not with the cartel on their ass. Not when he didn’t know how much Josh had already said. Not when he didn’t know how much Mia knew, or where her loyalties truly lie. He knew Ethan trusted her- or had trusted her- but he’d trusted Josh, too. Love made people blind.
He laughed as a song came into his ears. “All you need is love.” Playing The Beatles always made him feel more hopeful about the world. Good art did that, that’s why people loved it. It made you feel connected to something greater than yourself, and remember your own purpose in this mad play called the cosmos.
Sam lost himself in his thoughts once again. He imagined the Egyptians dancing to the music of British rock bands, the Egyptians drinking beer and trying fast-food. He pictured the Egyptians teaching the Americans how to write hieroglyphics and drawing murals on the subways to promote the importance of aesthetics.
His thoughts turned to what they would find later, when he and Tom entered the Black Pyramid and tried to follow the map, as he squinted at the structure. In the distance, date palms dotted the floodplain of the Nile and Sam thought that it was part of the reason the whole thing had collapsed, and part of the architect’s genius. It was only ten feet above sea level, here. Well, if the man could use it, he could use it, too.
Sam packed up his book in the setting sun, fighting the sudden chill. Faintly in the distance he could see the Tahila riding the waves like a goddess.
Tonight. They’d go tonight.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Tom and Sam had snuck off the boat as quietly as possible. They hadn't told Ethan they were going and when they’d asked Genevieve where he was, she’d shrugged and said he was resting. He’d been resting and didn’t want to be disturbed.
That was good enough for them.
But when they reached the Black Pyramid they found a man in the shadows already waiting. Sam tensed, hand reaching for his gun.
Then he recognized him and his hand didn’t drop but his face did, into a scowl.
“What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be resting.”
Ethan wore bandages under his shirt, but he looked hale and eager with a defiant glint in his eyes.
“There’s no way I’m missing this after everything that’s happened.” His eyes blazed a challenge. “I have every right to enter this place, just as much as you. I found a key-”
Tom snorted. “You stole a key.”
Ethan glared at him. “Men tried to kill me for it; I killed them. I helped you get the other two keys. Without me, you wouldn't even know where they were. I-”
“And almost got us killed with your help. Slimy turncoat.”
Ethan swung on him. “And all your friends are perfect?” He swallowed. “We do what we have to in war.”
Tom stepped forward. “How do we know you won’t leave us in there? Take the-”
Ethan punched Tom in the stomach. The other man, caught by surprise, stumbled back, winded. Before Tom could retaliate and do serious damage to Ethan’s already damaged physique, Sam stepped in the middle.
“Hey. He has a right to be here, just like you do. I’m not playing nursemaid. To either of you.”
He turned a level gaze to Ethan. “I want you here, you’re a good man to have in a fight and you do have a right. But I’m not going to drag you along. You keep up on your own steam or you don’t keep up at all.”
Ethan met his gaze with a level gaze of his own. “Understood.” He grinned, surprisingly. “Boss.”
Sam flicked a glance at Tom. “Can we all play nice?”
Tom looked mulish. “Sure, if he does.”
Sam rolled his eyes. Ethan and Tom shared a look. Tom’s lip quirked. Ethan’s did too. Sam wondered just how the man had managed to get off the Tahila in the first place.
Depending on his future plans, he wondered if Ethan would be interested in being a part of the crew. He was useful and he was shrewd and he was persuasive. All good things to have at your back.
Sam grinned and faced the challenge ahead. One thing at a time.
This one happened to be the military fence around the encampment. Sam and Tom had been planning to duck under and sneak in, but Ethan dragged them toward the manned gate entrance.
“Got your back, boys,” he said and saluted the guard in impeccable SEAL fashion. “Been working while you been taking your sweet time.”
As they passed, Ethan tossed the man a whole carton of cigarettes.
Even Tom laughed. “What did you tell him?”
Ethan fought a grin. “That we wanted to perform satanic sacrifices on holy ground to protect us from the demons that surround us drawn by your ugly face.”
Sam laughed. “Sounds about right.”
The fence was a fair distance away from the structure itself and it took them some time to cross the open ground under the moonlight.
Sam fought the prickle of unease at the back of his neck, glad Ethan had come with them after all. Always good to have another man in the fight, even if he was recovering from injury.
The three men cautiously approached the entrance of the Black Pyramid as they took in the ancient monument that had withstood so much history. From afar, it was almost unrecognizable, blending in with the sandy, desert landscape that surrounded it for miles around. To the casual tourist, it seemed like an old pile of rubble that had been decaying for years unless you knew what to look for.
“No wonder it’s called the Black Pyramid. It just looks sad.” Tom observed as they crossed a narrow dirt path, approaching the massive structure. They called it “mid-sized” in the information, but it looked damn big close up. Sam whistled appreciatively, inhaled a lungful of dust, and doubled over, coughing.
“Don’t die on us now, Sam.” Tom said teasingly. Sam gave a small grin. They stopped in front of the entrance, which was a small hole covered in cobwebs. Limestone crumbled off the top of the entrance, and clay that once encased it was completely worn away.
“Well, here it is.” Ethan eyed the structure warily. “We came all the way for this?”
Tom shrugged good naturedly. “Definitely not your dream pyramid, but she has curb appeal, I’d say.”
The Labyrinth Key Page 32