Cries from the Lost Island

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  Dripping water, Roberto got down into the pit, and carefully positioned himself over the larger skeleton. “Hal, loan me your flashlight. It’s about the right size to fit in the skeleton’s closed fist.”

  Digging in my soggy pocket, I pulled it out and handed it to him.

  Roberto slipped the flashlight into the ancient fingers and we waited for the next flash. Instead, the full moon crawled from behind a cloud and silver washed the world.

  We stood there with our heads cocked, trying to fathom what it meant.

  “I don’t get it,” Roberto said. “With the skeleton’s fist twisted at that weird angle, the flashlight looks like a long pointing finger.”

  “What’s it pointing at?” I stretched out on the lip of the excavation and tried to sight down the length of the “finger” to see what might be in the distance. “It aims at the fortress wall.”

  Roberto scratched the back of his neck, as though unhappy. “But the fortress dates to the sixth century, right? So it wasn’t here when they were buried.”

  “Right, but . . . Could the blade have been pointing to the temple? Or to Caesarian’s grave?”

  He frowned at the fortress wall. “I’d give anything to be standing on top of the fortress wall right now. If we could see both directions, we could answer that question. There is, of course, another possibility, bro.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Roberto pulled my flashlight from the skeletal hand, climbed out of the pit, and handed it to me. “Well, what if the bagsu was placed in the hand with the point down, not up?”

  Spinning around, I looked south. “That would mean it was pointing to something out in the depths of the desert. Something out near Samael’s—”

  “Or it could have been pointing in both directions. Or maybe it was pointing at nothing. Maybe the dagger isn’t the clue. Maybe it’s the skeletons that are the clue. Or the stela.”

  Blinking rain from my eyes, I said, “I wish I knew.”

  Roberto pulled his soaked shirt loose where it conformed to the outline of the pistol butt. “Speaking of the stela, has it occurred to you that the person who dropped the stela on the skeletons may have seen you out here with Samael and assumed this is where—”

  “He was looking for the dagger?” I cut him off. My God, that made perfect sense. “Roberto? I need to go back to the sterile pit.”

  I broke into a trot, making time across the wet sand. Roberto’s steps pounded behind me.

  When I reached the pit, I stepped down into the excavation, picked up the trowel, and said, “I want us to switch imaginary rolls. I want you to be the murderer this time.”

  “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  Pointing with the trowel, I said, “Can you hide behind the fortress wall, watch me for a while, then come toward me.”

  “Got it.”

  While Roberto trotted for the fortress wall, I pulled out my flashlight and buried it in the hole where I’d hidden the dagger, covered it with sand, then started carefully excavating it. Trying to place myself in Samael’s head, I sat down. I am old, frail, and mostly blind, but I’ve been a great archaeologist for most of my life. I have to do this by feel alone. Feel the dirt. I don’t want to destroy any fragile artifacts that might be buried here, including the bagsu. So I must go slowly, very slowly. When the pile of dirt beside me starts mounting up, interfering with my ability to dig, I scoop it up with both hands and add it to the back dirt pile. Five seconds later, my trowel “tinks” on something buried about thirty centimeters deep. Laying my precious trowel aside, I reach down into the hole and pull the object out with my fingers.

  Behind me, I hear footsteps.

  Panic seizes me. I have to hide it! Not on me. Not in the hole I just dug. Where? Without thinking, I do the only thing I can. I blindly shove the dagger into the back dirt pile to my left.

  The footsteps came closer.

  Roberto said, “Hey, Samael, what are you doing out here?”

  Frantically, I dove into the back dirt pile, throwing sand out with both hands. “Roberto, get over here and help me!”

  “You think he hid it in the back dirt pile?”

  “Yeah, come on! I think he shoved it in the dirt, then when he was attacked, he fell into the pile, probably pushing the dagger deeper.”

  Roberto charged over and started throwing dirt aside as fast as he could.

  The clouds moved back in, turning the world a velvet black, punctured now and then by flashes. We’d been throwing dirt out for about five minutes when the sky opened up and poured rain on us, soaking us to the bone, but we kept digging.

  When my hand touched warm metal, my fingers went tight around it. I pulled the dagger out and held it up to the flashes of lightning. The golden blade flickered as though catching fire.

  Laughter. From the other side of the fortress. “I should have guess—”

  “Hal, get down!”

  Roberto shoved me so hard I tumbled sideways.

  From the corner of my vision, I saw him draw the pistol from his shirt, aim it, and cry, “Stop! Who are you?”

  Ten feet away, right where the fortress wall ended, a white light burst through the storm. Like a blossom opening. A white carnation. Then again. My body jerked with each blast. But I saw Roberto stagger and fall. He didn’t drop the pistol until he hit the ground, then it bounced a few feet away.

  Dragging himself toward it, he shouted, “KARNAK! KARNAK! Hal, run!”

  Instead of running away, I ran to help Roberto.

  Blood poured down the side of his face, and gushed from his leg. I willed the world to freeze, the blood to stop seeping out of the wounds.

  Please, God. Not like Cleo. Not again.

  Steps approached, heavy steps.

  The darkness withered, going from velvet blackness to lunging flashes of white faces. Three faces. Big men in uniforms. That was the greatest shock. I was staring at the end. Even on my worst days, I had always felt hope. My brain was frantically trying to figure a way out. Tackle the lead man. Grab his gun. Kill the others.

  I felt Roberto’s fingers slide over my hand, weakly grip it, and drag it across the sand until it touched wet metal.

  Abruptly, I was weightless.

  My fist closed around the pistol.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Wildly, I fired at the lead man, then I rolled to my feet and sprinted away. When I stole a glance over my shoulder, I saw one of the men on the ground, but the other two were after me and catching up fast.

  The big man yelled, “Drop it!”

  That deep voice . . . he was the man who’d attacked me last night.

  I charged blindly out into the storm, heading westward. The chunks of wet glass that scattered the ground flickered in the storm. It was like running across a field of winking sparks.

  “Stevens, stop! Don’t make me shoot you!”

  My mind was on overdrive, calculating how long it would be before they overtook me, fifteen or twenty seconds? I ran as hard as I could. Breath was sucking at the bottom of my lungs, trying to find air.

  “Goddamn it!” someone shouted.

  A shot rang out to my right and I saw sand fly up. A miss.

  “Don’t be a fool, boy! We don’t want you dead.”

  “You shot my friend!” I screamed back.

  “He had a gun!”

  In the distance, a yellow halo glittered, like a bonfire’s gleam filtered through the falling rain. Fire meant people. I charged toward it, wondering who had stayed behind to build a fire.

  “You’re giving me no choice, you young idiot!”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw the big man steady his pistol and draw a bead on me. From this range, even with the downpour, he couldn’t miss.

  A shot rang out, followed by two more, but I felt no bullets impact my body, and I
couldn’t figure out why. They were almost on top of me. I could hear their boots slamming the ground right behind me.

  When I turned back, I saw Tashir appear out of the storm ahead of me, his gun in his hand, planning to finish me off. But less than two paces away, he yelled, “Hal, get down!”

  I dove headfirst for the sand, listening to the gunfire echo from the fortress wall and ruins.

  Tashir whirled around, stumbled, and toppled in front of me, less than a pace away.

  I lay there, rigid, staring into his wide eyes. He clutched his chest as though to stanch the blood gushing between his fingers.

  “Tashir?” I scrambled toward him on all fours.

  When I huddled over him, looking down, I heard a sound I’d heard before while deer hunting. A watery sputter. Blood was filling up his lungs. He wheezed, “Tell . . . Moriarity . . . didn’t know it was her . . . until too late . . .”

  The relentless rain washed over his face and body as his muscles relaxed, and he went limp.

  I lunged for his gun.

  Before I could reach it, two men grabbed me by the arms, ripped the dagger from my hand, and roughly dragged me toward the yellow gleam.

  “You have what you want, let me go! I have to go take care of my friend!”

  The big soldier replied, “Dally’s dead.”

  I felt like my guts had been kicked out.

  Though I roared and fought like a wildcat against their iron hands, they dragged me toward the temple. The worst part was their eyes. Cold and hard, they resembled black stones set in their faces. These were not men, but machines following orders. Obviously, they’d been told to capture, not kill, me. Why? They had the dagger. Why did they still need me?

  When we reached the rim of the temple, I gaped at the light flooding from the tunnel. My tunnel. The temple bricks turned to glass in the lightning flashes.

  “Get down there. He wants to see you.”

  “Who?” I cried. “Who wants to see me?”

  The big man shoved me toward the wet steps. “Move.”

  Holding my hands over my head, I felt my way down the steps one at a time. Running with water, it was like skating on black ice. My feet kept slipping, but I knew I had to stay on my feet. The big soldier was two steps behind me with a gun in his hand. All around, tiny waterfalls poured down the temple walls. How deep was the water on the floor? Had the newly excavated tunnel and corridor flooded?

  When I hit bottom, I heaved a shaky breath. The other soldier remained at the top of the stairs with his rifle. Whatever their reason for keeping me alive so far, it would end.

  “Walk to the tunnel.”

  I walked.

  As we got closer, the soldier said, “Stop,” and shoved the dagger into my hand. “Go now.”

  I blinked at the dagger, then up at him, not understanding at all.

  “Move, boy. Into the tunnel.”

  When I entered, I heard voices.

  Bracing myself, I started my journey down into the mythical Kingdom of Osiris. Maybe that’s why Cleo had been down here? She had just walked up a few steps from the land of the dead to meet me. Where are you, Cleo? When the time arrives, please come for me?

  The tunnel was sweltering, much hotter than the cool rainy air above. An exotic fragrance wafted around me, and I wondered if it were incense rising up from a long-vanished world. The deeper I went, the stronger it became. Strange. Like a blend of cedar oil and cinnamon.

  I hit the last step and stood looking down the corridor at the square of orange, like candlelight slipping around the edges of a door. The dagger in my hand warmed up. Probably just picking up the heat of the air, but it knew something I did not. I forced my shaking legs to continue. Thirty feet.

  The faint outline of the door came clear. It was unadorned, rough-hewn, heavy, but surely not the entry to the tomb of a royal member of the Ptolemaic dynasty. A pile of crumbling plaster lay mounded on the floor to the left of the door, refuse left by hasty workers trying to see what lay behind the dead-end wall.

  I glanced back at the junction with the tunnel. The curious cartouches were little more than oval patches of gray that seemed to float disconnected from the wall, suspended on the pale light.

  Why had no one followed me down here?

  They want me to see something.

  Marching forward, I shoved the heavy door. It creaked open on its hinges. The sudden glare made me squint. The radiance came from the combined glow of dozens of small oil lamps situated in niches around the walls of the chamber.

  My mouth fell open.

  Dust shrouded everything, but not even millennia could tarnish the glory.

  The octagonal room spread around one hundred feet across, and the ceiling soared at least thirty feet over my head. I could see other chambers receding into the darkness beyond the lamplight. Every square inch of the walls was brilliantly painted with red, white, green, and black hieroglyphics. To my left, a line of figures in white robes, accompanied by animal-headed gods, carried offering bowls toward a seated pharaoh . . . Cleopatra in the guise of Isis.

  My gaze scanned the life-size marble statues that stood on each wall of the octagon. They cast fluttering shadows across the walls and ceiling. I recognized Osiris, Set, and Isis. And Ammut. Standing on her hippopotamus’ hindquarters, she was the largest statue. She loomed over the others, as though in charge of this affair. The other statues, of gods I did not recognize, wore coiled cobra headdresses. The serpents’ heads were up, their jeweled eyes flashing at me as though curious about my identity. Everywhere, gold and silver blazed. Despite the dust, it was almost blinding. The gilded masks, heavy shields and necklaces, armbands, were all made of gold, inlaid with silver and gaudy jewels. King Tut’s stunning tomb was shabby in comparison. I couldn’t believe I was standing . . .

  My breath caught.

  I’ve seen this before. At Actium . . . just before I walked up to speak with Cleopatra . . . the marble statues, the aching loneliness . . .

  My gaze drifted to the figure lying flat on its back on the table in the center of the chamber. It was a mummy, but it had not been prepared as such. There were no wrappings. The mummification had been accomplished by Egypt’s climate. He was a big man. Tall and broad-shouldered. His skin had dried and shrunken over the bones, leaving a gaping mouth and dark empty eye sockets.

  With the high water table in Pelusium, how could this chamber still be intact? The entire place should be filled with water and mildew, the corpse nothing but a mound of mold. Then I remembered what Moriarity had said about the ancient priests and their great magic. Had they sealed this chamber with magical spells to protect it?

  Muffled sounds.

  Somewhere in the temple above.

  Walking closer, I stood at the mummy’s side. A ceramic cartouche, matching those in the corridor outside, hung around the neck, as though announcing his identity to everyone who entered this chamber. As though waking from a dream, I finally understood: Dionysus. The ecstasy-inducing god of wine and revelry.

  On his way to Tarsus in 41 BC, Antonius had been hailed as the New Dionysus.

  The man’s hands had been folded over the chest and covered with a rectangular shield about a meter long. Called a scutum, it curved to protect the soldier’s body during battle. The clothing could not have been plainer. As though hastily dressed, the mummy wore a simple royal purple sheath and sandals. A rip zigzagged down the left side of the sheath. To my uninformed eyes, it looked freshly done. But what did I know? Ancient fabric was fragile. A spot of oil, a ray of sunlight, or the feet of a beetle could contaminate the weave and, over time, it would unravel and crumble to dust.

  Awe swelled my chest until I thought it would burst wide open. That day on the bench outside of Starbucks, Cleo said she’d betrayed Antonius before Actium. The only thing that made sense was that Cleopatra had ordered this tomb built in secret long
before his death, perhaps a year or more in advance. She knew what she had to do to save her nation, and it broke her heart, but she had built an extraordinary monument for the man she loved . . . the man she had already betrayed to his enemies, and would betray again, at the bitter end. Perhaps she’d hoped to join him here, but Octavian had left her no . . .

  Voices. Closer this time.

  I didn’t have long.

  Walking around the table, I noticed metallic flickers at the mummy’s right side. Reverently, I lifted the edge of the sheath to look at the source. A gladius, the Roman short sword of choice, lay next to the desiccated body. About twenty inches long, it had a double-edged blade. The handle was bronze, inlaid with silver geometric shapes that had tarnished over the centuries. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

  Boots in the corridor . . .

  Sweating profusely, my hand was slippery. I took a new grip on the sacred dagger that I believed had belonged to Cleopatra; it was the dagger she had carried at her waist when I’d seen her standing on the hill overlooking Actium. “Help me, Cleo.”

  The door creaked open, and a tall man stepped through. He let the door fall closed behind him. He’d changed clothes. Now he wore a crisply ironed white shirt and cream-colored slacks. Not the attire of a police officer. This was a businessman. I suspected his gold watch would pay my college tuition at Harvard for four years.

  Stunned, I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  “Are you well, Halloran?”

  He slowly walked forward to stand on the opposite side of the mummy’s table. Black hair fell over his forehead in damp wisps.

  “Wh—what do you want, Sattin?”

  “Your help.”

  “What?”

  There was no movement in his eyes, no soul, only glacial silence eons deep. Inhuman eyes that saw, but didn’t really see. That’s what scared me. To this ghost of a man, I was simply a momentary illusion like a trick of the mind to be soon ignored.

  As though trying not to frighten me, he lifted his hands and held them, palms open, in front of him. “I want you to know it wasn’t my idea to kill Cleopatra Mallawi.”