A Hundred Thousand Dragons

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘All right,’ said Jack with a yawn. ‘Before we make ourselves comfortable, though, I want to make sure we’ve got a runway prepared in case we need to take off in a hurry.’ He looked out of the mouth of the overhang. ‘This’ll be all right, as long as I avoid the obvious boulders and crags. With any luck, most of the rocks are loose. I’ve got a crowbar in the cabin. We’ll be able to shift them without much trouble.’

  It was well over an hour later before they finally settled down to a meal of tinned stew, washed down with hot tea laced with tinned sweetened milk. ‘That was good,’ said Jack with a yawn, wiping round his plate with a piece of bread. He was desperately tired. It had been a long flight and clearing the runway had been exhausting. ‘I suppose we’d better keep a lookout.’

  ‘You take the last watch,’ said Arthur, who could see his friend’s eyes drooping. ‘That’s the easiest one,’ he explained to Isabelle.

  ‘I’ll take the first one,’ she offered. ‘I don’t feel very sleepy yet.’

  The two men settled down in the cabin of the aeroplane. Isabelle, who had worked hard clearing the rocks, scrubbed the plates clean by scouring them with sand, put some more camel-thorn on the fire and made herself another cup of tea. Nursing the hot liquid between her hands, she was surprised how grateful she was for the warmth. Jack had warned them how cold the desert could be at night and he was right. There was no moon but the stars were brilliant enough to see far across the sands. Very far . . .

  She sat up with a guilty jerk, the empty cup falling from her hands. She had been hovering on the edge of sleep and had fallen into a waking dream. For some reason she had been thinking of the seaside and boats. Not big ocean liners or cruise ships, but trips from the pier at Brighton. Had she heard something? A Brighton boat? That was crazy.

  The wind shifted and, although she listened intently, she couldn’t catch any other noise than the wind sighing through the rocks and the occasional flat, staccato bark of a desert fox far in the distance. She couldn’t understand it.

  ‘Boats?’ said Jack when, considerably before dawn, they were breakfasting on hot coffee, tinned ham and bread. ‘You were dreaming.’

  ‘I don’t think I was asleep exactly,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘Of course you were,’ said Jack with a laugh. ‘Let’s leave a cache of food and water buried at the back of the cave. It’ll be a lot cooler there than left in the plane all day.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe how hot it’ll get,’ said Isabelle, shivering with cold.

  The temperature had plummeted in the night and the air was chilly, which, in view of the loads they had to carry, was just as well. They all had packs slung over their shoulders with enough supplies to see them through the day, plus rifles and ammunition.

  As they came to the entrance of the gorge, the sun was colouring the eastern sky. Jack smiled in relief as he knelt down, looking at the undisturbed shale, sand and rock. Von Erlangen should be along soon, but it was good to know they’d beaten him to it.

  It was cold in the gorge, cold enough to make a brisk walk a pleasure. Above them the sky had turned to a pillar-box slit of blinding, impossible blue. Here, hundreds of feet below, it was nearly dark. It was a real shock when, a quarter of an hour or so later, the gorge bellied out to form a space about twenty feet across. Sunlight caught the walls obliquely, splashing the ground, catching and reflecting light from a carpet of quartz. It was like looking at a field of diamonds.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Isabelle. The rocks caught her voice and echoed it back in hundreds of tiny fragments.

  ‘I bet this was a whirlpool thousands of years ago,’ said Jack softly. It seemed wrong to speak loudly. ‘Look how smooth the rocks are, twisting round and up. It still might be a whirlpool. It rains in the winter and this would trap the water into a flood.’

  ‘It’s as if we’re at the bottom of an enormous well,’ said Arthur.

  Isabelle caught hold of his hand. ‘Don’t, Arthur. That’s rather frightening, somehow.’

  They walked forward, their footsteps crunching over the quartz, but on the other side of the sunlit space they faced a problem. The trail divided into two, separated by a tall, narrow boss of rock. Jack shrugged. ‘One way’s as good as another, I suppose. We can always come back.’

  ‘That’s true . . .’ Arthur began, when Isabelle gave a cry of excitement.

  ‘The horse’s head rock! Can’t you see it? It’s the horse’s head rock from the code! It’s the rock dividing the two paths. If you look at it from here it’s just like a horse’s head.’

  Arthur glanced up and was immediately struck by the resemblance. ‘So it is, if you think of a horse as being about a hundred and fifty feet high. Well done, Isabelle. The nose sort of points the way, doesn’t it?’

  They walked for another ten minutes before they came out of the gorge.

  Before them, the valley of the Nabateans lay open to the sun. The site, as Jack had seen from the air, was small, a natural arena in a roughly circular bowl in the surrounding rocks.

  Across an ancient pavement stood a temple carved from white rock so bright it hurt their eyes to look at it. Four pillars supported a pediment that rioted with figures petrified in a moment of time. A man with a lion’s head stood in the middle, surrounded by a crowd of worshippers. A sunburst shone round him and he had his arms raised to catch the solar disc. On either side of the temple entrance were a series of open doorways carved into the rock, their mouths black in the brilliant sun. The tombs?

  Feeling as if they were intruders, they walked forward towards the temple and stood in the middle of the arena.

  There was a white stone altar standing alone in the middle of the pavement and behind them, cut from crimson stone on either side of the gorge, rose the banks of seats Jack had seen from the air. The scale was small; fewer than three hundred people could have filled those seats. It was obviously only for the use of the select. Silence wrapped round them like a silk blanket. Isabelle felt she had never been in such an utterly private place. She had never really believed in ghosts, but here, surrounded by the sunlit, crumbling temple and tombs, it was easy to feel the brooding presence of another world.

  ‘My God,’ said Arthur, awestruck.

  The ancient builders had understood the science of sound. His words were caught by the stones, echoing round in rolling, whispered waves. Isabelle jumped and clutched at his arm.

  ‘The whispering dead,’ said Jack. The stones picked up his words. ‘We’re in the Tombs of the Whispering Dead.’

  They crossed the pavement and entered the white temple cautiously, their voices low. Not only did it seem wrong to speak in an ordinary voice, but anything louder than a whisper reverberated round the open space.

  From an opening far above them the sun jagged down into darkness, full on to an immense white throne. Despite its size, it seemed to be floating on empty air. Arthur walked forward and crouched down beside the white seat. ‘I see how it’s done,’ he said practically. ‘The supports are made of black rock so all you see are the white bits.’ He looked round. ‘There’s a throne but surely this was never a palace. It’s not a tomb, either. At least, I can’t see where anyone’s buried. I wonder what it was used for?’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ said Isabelle with a catch in her voice. ‘This is where the new kings were crowned or proclaimed or whatever they did. The king would be sanctified by the sun.’

  Jack’s eyes were growing accustomed to the light. In front of them was a black stone block about the size of a bed. It was completely smooth. ‘I think I get the idea,’ he said softly. ‘If you buried a king in one of the tombs, his body would be brought through the gorge. You’d come out of the gloom into the light of the square, then into the darkness of this place. Can you imagine the effect of music or chanting with those echoes outside?’

  ‘Spooky,’ said Isabelle with a shudder. ‘Downright scary, actually.’

  ‘Impressive, certainly. What d’you think? Maybe the king’s son
walked with his father’s body. The body would be placed on this stone table, while the new king would walk on to be crowned, drenched in the sun. The symbolism must have been breathtaking.’

  ‘Death into life,’ murmured Arthur.

  ‘It’s the classic Eastern contrast, isn’t it? Ormuzd and Mazda; darkness and light. Vaughan’ll go doolally when he sees all this. If he’s still alive, that is.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ said Arthur, going back to the entrance, ‘hadn’t we better be getting a move on? We don’t know when they’re going to show up.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Jack. They had decided last night it was impossible to be too rigid in their plans but, broadly speaking, they would try and find the hidden gold, then lay in wait for Von Erlangen to arrive. Surprise was the one advantage they had and they didn’t want to squander it.

  Once out of the temple and on the pavement again, Jack pulled his copy of the coded message from his breast pocket. ‘At the tombs of the whispering dead, stand you in front of Petra. I presume that means we see where Petra is and go in that direction.’ He consulted his compass. ‘Now, Petra’s north-west of here, so we’ve got to go . . . there.’ He pointed towards a group of open doorways. ‘Step you or go you in the lion inside, is our next direction, whatever that means.’

  They walked together, talking little, making as little sound as possible on the smooth, venerable pavement. The soft thud of their footsteps on the stones made it sound as if they were being followed by something not quite human. Isabelle couldn’t rid herself of the feeling they were being watched from the black, gaping doorways that lined the street. She wished she could stop thinking of ghosts.

  Here and there, a breath of wind whirled sand into a dust devil before passing on, leaving all as before. A green lizard looked at them with indifferent, glittering eyes from the basin of a sand-choked fountain. It was the only life they had seen.

  Isabelle looked at the carvings above the doorways. Some were too weathered to make out, but she could see an eagle, a scorpion and what looked like a gazelle. ‘The carvings above the tombs could be like coats of arms. Maybe these are family tombs. If we find one with a lion over the entrance it could be what we’re looking for.’

  ‘There it is!’ said Arthur, his voice vibrant with excitement. He pointed to a mountain lion carved over a doorway. ‘Well done, Isabelle. What does the code say next, Jack?’

  Jack consulted the paper again. ‘It says Fight you with the scorpion, whatever that means.’

  Many years ago there had been double doors guarding the entrance to the Lion Tomb, but they had since long rotted away, leaving their outline in the dust where they had fallen. Light streamed through the entrance, touching the bottom of the far wall of this shallow, empty space. Jack, who had taken out his torch, re-clipped it on his belt and stood in wonder in the empty, ancient, shadowy room.

  The floor was paved with smooth stones and the red walls were full of pictures of people, carved into the rock and picked out with paint. Most of the paint had fallen away but enough remained to show them that when new, the chamber must have been a blaze of colour.

  Jack whistled. ‘My word, this is interesting. There isn’t a trace of paint anywhere in Petra. If this is a Nabatean site, they must have reserved the art for their most honoured dead. Actually . . .’ He turned to Isabelle, his eyes alight. ‘You know I said your mother helped to work out the code? She talked about the Silent Ones, from the poem in the book. Do you remember it? The Silent Ones, when asked, will measure, the hidden way to dragons’ treasure. She guessed the people and the things in the book – the painted objects – although silent, were showing us the way to the treasure. Now there are more paintings, more Silent Ones, if I can put it like that. I think we’re getting very warm, don’t you?’

  ‘The Silent Ones,’ said Arthur softly. He gently touched the gold face of the man in the relief beside him. The paint flaked on his fingertips and drifted downwards to mix with the heap of dust beside the walls. Feeling like a vandal, he regretfully brushed his fingers and stood back from the wall. ‘There’s something wrong, though, isn’t there?’ he said, looking round. ‘If this is a tomb, then where’s the coffin or sarcophagus or whatever? There have to be tombs somewhere. I mean, the whole city is called the Tombs of the Whispering Dead, but this is just a room.’

  ‘Maybe this is an antechamber,’ said Jack. ‘Perhaps the actual bodies are in a crypt somewhere underneath.’

  The sun only caught the bottom of the far wall. Isabelle switched on her torch and immediately gave a cry of triumph. ‘It’s a door! And look, there’s the scorpion!’

  It was a door, but a door without a handle. It stood proud of the wall, a single slab of stone. The central panel consisted of a large scorpion with fragments of gold paint still clinging to it.

  Arthur put his shoulder to the slab and pushed hard. ‘It’s no use,’ he said, panting. ‘It felt as if it should move but I can’t shift it. What does the code say? Fight the scorpion? How the blazes do we do that?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe we have to pull it, not push it,’ suggested Jack. He rested his rifle against the wall, gripped his hands round the stone, and heaved. ‘It’s moving,’ he said, his voice thin with effort. ‘Bloody hell!’

  He jumped away from the slab as a scorpion scuttled out from under the door.

  Isabelle screamed. The scorpion, eight inches long at least, was by her foot, stiff-legged with tail raised, ready to strike.

  Arthur hefted his rifle, stepped forward and brought the butt down with a crunch on the creature. He stamped on the remains for good measure, then opened his arms to Isabelle. She leaned against him shakily. ‘It’s all right, now,’ he said gently. ‘It’s dead.’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry I screamed. I really don’t like them. It startled me.’

  ‘It startled me, too,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve never seen such a brute.’

  ‘Do you think there are any more about?’ said Isabelle, trying to keep her voice steady.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t know if they come in ones, twos or lots.’

  ‘In that case I’m going to wait outside,’ said Isabelle. She looked at the scorpion and shuddered. ‘Let me know if you find anything.’ She went outside, crossed the street to the shade and, after examining a fallen column closely for anything lurking there, sat down and lit a cigarette.

  ‘That really was a brute of a thing,’ said Jack, turning his attention back to the door. He kicked what was left of the creature out of the way, and, for the second time, gave a startled exclamation and jumped away.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Arthur quickly. ‘It’s not another one, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. The ground moved. I felt it sway.’ He looked at the stone floor closely. ‘Arthur! There’s a picture of an eagle on this stone slab, beneath the picture of the scorpion.’

  ‘An eagle? That’s in the code. Fight the scorpion, crush the eagle.’

  ‘The slab and the door must be connected. We probably weakened the door by heaving at it. Crush the eagle . . . How do you crush something?’

  Arthur looked puzzled. ‘Well, you sort of squash it. Grind it down, I suppose.’

  ‘Crush it,’ muttered Jack. ‘Squash it. What do you do when you crush or squash something? Damn it, you stamp on it! Stamp on the eagle and fight the scorpion . . .’

  ‘We must have to hit the blasted thing,’ said Arthur excitedly. ‘Stand on it, Jack, and I’ll press down on the scorpion. Go on.’

  Jack ground his heel hard into the eagle’s head and felt it give slightly. Arthur put his shoulder to the carving.

  Although they had worked out what should happen, it was a real shock when the door swung open.

  ‘We’ve done it,’ breathed Jack. ‘We’ve actually done it.’ He shone his torch through the doorway. There was a short passage with steps leading down. He turned and raised his voice. ‘Isabelle! Come and look at this!’

  Isabelle, still pale, came back int
o the room. She looked dubiously at the steps in the torchlight. She couldn’t see any scorpions but there were certainly cobwebs. Lots of cobwebs. She swallowed before she spoke. ‘Look, do you mind if I don’t come with you? I’m not crazy about cramped spaces at the best of times, especially in the dark. I’d really rather wait outside.’

  ‘What about Von Erlangen?’ asked Arthur. ‘Don’t forget we’re expecting him. Shall I wait with you?’

  She could see he was itching to explore the passage. ‘No, don’t do that. I’ll be fine. If Von Erlangen turns up, I’ll hear the echoes a mile off. You could probably do with someone on guard anyway.’

  ‘All right,’ said Arthur, after a moment. ‘If you hear anything, come and get us right away.’

  Jack cleared away some of the cobwebs with the muzzle of his rifle. ‘Come on. We have to Seek the maiden next.’

  The stairs were as gorgeously decorated as the ante-room had been but here, preserved from the sun, sand and wind, the paint was as fresh as the day it was finished. The stairs led down for about ten feet and gave on to a narrow passage which, in turn, opened on to a long, narrow L-shaped room.

  The torchlight picked out vibrant colour. The figure of a lion was repeated but there were also people, camels, palm trees, flying birds, blue water with reeds and a boat with white sails.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Arthur softly.

  ‘Maybe it’s their idea of heaven. And look, there are the coffins.’

  Set into niches at regular intervals down the walls lay a row of sarcophagi. They had been covered with white plaster and a life-size and lifelike picture of the person within painted on it, a top view on the lid, a side view along the length.

  Arthur shivered. ‘That’s a rum sort of notion. It makes the coffins look transparent.’

  Running the torch along the line of tombs, Jack wished his friend had kept that idea to himself. ‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before,’ he said thoughtfully, in an attempt to distance himself from the thought of transparent coffins. ‘There are some Roman coffins in the British Museum which are painted like this. The Romans knew Petra. That’s obvious from the architecture, apart from anything else. Maybe this isn’t a Nabatean site but a Roman one. That amphitheatre, or whatever it was, looked a bit Roman.’