Sam tore his eyes away from the image of the goddess and walked to the edge of the pool. The water was cool and inviting so he undressed and slipped up to his waist into the glassy blue water. He removed the dressing from his wound and slipped his entire naked body beneath the crystal-clear water. Each minute bathing in the pool increased his sense of wellbeing, and feeling invigorated he made his way to the water’s edge where he had left his clothes.
‘You are swimming in the remnants of the ancient River Kufrah,’ Sienna said, as she held out a thick towel. ‘Some believe it was one of the four rivers that were mentioned in the creation story of your Christian bible.’
‘Sienna!’ he said in surprise as he looked up at her beautiful face. She was wearing a simple white linen pleated dress that cascaded to her ankles. On her upper arms and around her neck were thick braids of pure gold, and a glossy black wig adorned her head and shoulders. Her eyelids were accentuated by heavy blue make-up and thick black kohl eyeliner framed her attractive green eyes. She exuded a confidence that had not been apparent during their previous meetings. Sam gasped in pain as he tried to haul himself out of the pool, then took the hand Sienna offered him. He grasped his towel and wrapped it around his waist. He stepped forward and embraced her as hard as he could without putting pressure on his broken ribs. The familiar smell of her frankincense perfume played havoc with his senses.
‘Your father is worried about you, and half of Egypt’s Rapid Deployment Forces are looking for you. And oh, yes, there’s a well-armed terrorist army trying to establish a fundamentalist caliphate on your doorstep.’
‘I’m safe in the temple.’ She stepped back and looked Sam up and down before she examined his wound. ‘It’s healing nicely. Your recovery will be swift. The pool has therapeutic properties and the air inside this temple hall is invigorating. Alexander the Great once came here to recuperate after he sustained an injury like yours during the siege of Gaza in 332 BC.’
‘How did I get here?’
‘I watched the battle from the top of the sandstone ridge that lies to the north of your geologists’ encampment. This temple is located inside a natural hollow of the ridge.’
‘You saw it all?’
‘When the khamsin had passed, I went to the spot where you had fallen. You had been sheltered from the ravages of the storm by the mushroom-shaped rock formation, but you were close to death. My servant and I carried you to the temple and tended to your injuries. Sam, I’m sorry about Tom Bradshaw and his colleagues. You were lucky you didn’t become their sixth victim. When you were shot, I thought you had been killed.’ She stepped forward and embraced him again until Sam winced in pain.
‘I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you dress.’ Sienna gathered his clothes and helped him fit the unfamiliar ancient Egyptian garments around his waist and over his shoulders.
‘We will make a pharaoh of you yet,’ she said with a smile. ‘The clothes you were wearing when we brought you here were covered in flesh and bone fragments and are being washed. They will be returned at the end of the day.’
Sam nodded, but was intrigued by his surroundings and Sienna’s earlier comments about the pool. ‘Did one of the four mighty rivers mentioned in the creation story really run through this site?’
‘Six thousand years ago, this whole area, which we now call the White Desert, was teeming with vegetation, water and wildlife. Fruit and cereals grew here in such abundance it was later referred to as a paradise on earth. But similar places abounded throughout the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula.’
‘You are suggesting this spot may have been the original Garden of Eden?’ said Sam in astonishment.
‘The story of the Garden of Eden is a myth associated with many religions. But its origin is connected to the sudden desertification of the Sahara and the Middle East. Humanity was driven out of the lush grasslands of the Sahara by the sudden change in climate and the encroaching sands. The creation story refers to a lost age before that catastrophic event.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘The ancient river systems are still visible from satellites. This temple was established by the ancient Egyptians, who believed this location was their ancestors’ capital before the approaching desert sands forced them to settle along the Nile. They always hoped the monsoons would return and they would be able to reclaim their ancient homeland.’
Sam rubbed his hair with the towel. Feeling ravenous, he realised he had not eaten for days, and looked around to see if there was any food nearby.
‘I’m sorry, Sam, I have forgotten my manners. I will organise some food.’
Sienna took Sam’s arm and she led him towards an alcove near the skylight, her solid gold armbands rattling as she walked. A small indoor garden of plants and flowers surrounded a low wooden table, around which were scattered leather cushions. A tiny pond nestled against the rock wall, in which a dozen exotic fish swam. Sienna helped Sam to squat on the cushions and then sat on the opposite side of the table. She crossed her long legs and clapped three times.
An old man dressed in a simple white loin cloth shuffled across to the table. His skin was paper thin and he had lost all his teeth. He wore a peculiar smelling fragrance that assaulted Sam’s nostrils. The old man knelt in front of Sienna and pressed his forehead to the smooth cavern floor. He straightened and spoke with a reedy voice in an archaic language. Sienna conversed with the old man for a minute before he rose to his feet and shuffled off towards a network of antechambers.
‘That’s Sneferu. He claims he is descended from a famous vizier who once served the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. He can trace his lineage back to the Old Kingdom.’
‘How many servants to do you have?’
‘Sneferu is the only one left. At the time of the pharaohs there were over a hundred employed by the temple. But when I was taken from my mother to serve as the Oracle, there were eight servants and twenty priests living in the temple.’
‘Including the priest who abducted you as a child twenty years ago?’
‘He did not stay at the temple long.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was banished when I was invested as the Oracle of Sekhmet.’
‘Were many priests banished during the temple’s history?’
‘The practice was rare. The priests who served in the Temple of Sekhmet acquired knowledge of considerable importance. They could cause real harm with that knowledge if they used it to serve their own ends. In the time of the pharaohs, errant priests were not allowed to leave the temple alive.’
‘Where is your errant priest now?’
‘It is rumoured he changed his name and his appearance. He is operating at the top levels of society, but he could be one of a hundred different men.’
‘Did your father ever come here?’
‘No. One of my duties is to protect the temple’s knowledge and its many irreplaceable treasures from outsiders. You are one of the few living people on the planet to know of this temple’s existence.’
They were interrupted by the re-emergence of Sneferu, who was carrying a silver platter loaded with exotic fruits, pastries and dried fish. The platter shook as the wizened old man struggled to carry the heavy load. Sam made to stand to help him, but Sienna held up a hand.
‘You would shame Sneferu if you tried to assist him. He is a proud and independent man.’
Sneferu placed the dish onto the low table and checked to see if Sienna was pleased with his service. When Sienna smiled, he bowed low and backed out of the alcove.
‘What language were you speaking with Sneferu?’ Sam asked, as he selected a lozenge-shaped baklava and popped it into his mouth. The sweet, nutty flavour caressed his palate and he grabbed a second.
‘It is the purest form of ancient Egyptian. There are a handful of people left who can speak it, although modern Coptic has its roots in the language. I’m afraid the language will die when the followers of the old religion breathe their last.’
Sam helpe
d himself to a cake that was laced with dates. He washed it down with a sherbet drink and then helped himself to a thin slice of smoked fish. With the edge taken off his hunger, he attacked a pomegranate that Sneferu had quartered.
‘This food is astonishing. How do you get it here?’
‘The temple has been self-sufficient for over five thousand years. The fruit comes from the temple’s own orchard and the fish from an ornamental lake in the gardens.’
‘But how can that be? We’re in the middle of one of the most inhospitable deserts on the planet.’
Sienna pointed to the pool in the middle of the cavern. ‘The temple is blessed by a wadi that rises to the surface within this cavern. We can direct generous quantities of water to the garden, which is protected on all four sides from the worst of the sun and wind by the surrounding rock. The temple’s secret location within the interior of a sandstone rock formation is the reason why it has remained undisturbed for thousands of years.’
‘Your own Garden of Eden?’
‘But not for much longer. The garden takes many hours of hard work to maintain, and as you have noticed, Sneferu is no longer a spring chicken. I will not be able to look after it on my own.’
‘And what about you, Sienna? You can’t live here on your own in the middle of the desert. The extremists will track you down.’
Sienna shifted her sitting position so her legs were curled beneath her. She selected the smallest grape on the platter and nibbled at its edges. ‘That depends on you, Sam.’
‘Me? How can it depend on me?’
‘There is five thousand years of climate data stored within this temple, Sam, and I will show it to you in the next few days as you recover from your wounds. You can ignore what it portends, or help me to convince the political establishment that we face the greatest threat to our civilisation since the Great Flood.’
CHAPTER 21
Sienna lit a series of candles affixed to a large circular candelabra suspended from the ceiling. Shadows danced on the two large stone sarcophagi that dominated the tomb, exuding an unnerving presence, Sam thought. As each candle was lit, the rock paintings that adorned the walls came to life like an ancient picture gallery. The paintings were crude and had none of the brilliant colours that Sam had seen in his sleeping chamber or in the cavernous Great Hall, but they were nonetheless spectacular.
‘These are the oldest rock paintings in the temple. They tell the story of the Great Drying,’ Sienna said as she followed his gaze. She walked to the first picture that depicted lush grasslands and flowing rivers. Hippos and giraffes grazed along the river banks, human figures with spears hunted wildebeest and impalas. The sun blazed from the sky and vegetation wilted as grassfires burned in the distance. Stick-like human figures were fleeing to the east. As the paintings progressed along the tomb wall, the rivers they portrayed had shrunk to tepid streams, and fish flapped in distress in small puddles.
Sienna pointed to the neat hieroglyphics that had been carved into the rock below the last painting. ‘It says this palace was the last location in the Sahara outside of the Nile Valley that could sustain a major population. But as the River Kufrah dried, the tribal chief and his wife ordered their people to abandon their ancestral homes and move to the River Nile.’
‘So what happened to the chief and his wife?’
‘They became the forebears of the ancient Egyptians. However, they never lost hope the monsoons would return. The chief ordered their former palace in the White Desert be turned into a temple in the hope the goddess Sekhmet would bring back the monsoons. When they died, their bodies were interred here so they could welcome back their people when the grasslands returned and the rivers flowed once more.’
Sienna walked towards the last painting. ‘The painting here depicts the chief’s last symbolic taste of fruit from his garden before he led his people to the Nile.’
Sam gazed at the artwork and felt the hairs on his arms and neck bristle. ‘He’s eating an apple with his wife and there’s a bloody python wrapped around that tree!’ He turned to face the sarcophagi in the centre of the room. ‘Who the hell are those two?’
‘The bodies in the sarcophagi are those of the chief and his wife, Atum and Aye. They are the oldest documented mummified humans in the world. The serpent is an Egyptian cobra, which is one of the many manifestations of the goddess Sekhmet.’
‘Are you suggesting these mummies belong to Adam and Eve?’ Sam was drawn towards the stone containers. The lids had been shifted to one side so he could look in.
‘The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is a Christian myth acquired from the older religions,’ Sienna said with disdain.
Sam looked at the mummies and stared into their shrivelled faces. The male had receding red hair, thin lips and parchment-like skin, but his grotesque features were still visible. The female had long dark hair and was missing a front tooth. Some of the skin was missing from her nose but she still looked regal and serene. At the foot of her sarcophagus was the preserved skin of an Egyptian cobra.
‘I’ve seen enough. I need some air,’ he said.
* * *
‘You are standing among the temple’s main archives,’ Sienna said. ‘The entire library has been chiselled out of solid sandstone rock.’
Sam allowed his eyes to adjust and he gasped at the sheer size of the room. It was over two hundred metres long, fifty metres wide and rose three storeys. The chamber was honeycombed with alcoves on all three levels and each alcove contained wooden shelves crammed with cylinders of furled papyri. The odour of the ancient documents gave the library a curious, fusty atmosphere like an old barn. At the far end was a massive wall upon which had been chiselled inscriptions that Sam recognised as ancient hieroglyphics.
Sienna followed his gaze. ‘That wall contains the oldest known scientific recordings in the world. Some of the inscriptions pre-date the pharaonic era.’
‘What do the recordings represent?’
‘The wall records the water levels of the ancient River Kufrah. Unfortunately, the records on the wall ceased when the river dried, although you can see they continued to monitor the River Nile until they ran out of wall space.’
‘And what’s written on the papyri?’ Sam asked as he gazed at the innumerable scrolls towering around him.
Sienna pulled a document from one of the shelves and took it to a long wooden bench. She unfurled it using her fingertips to avoid damaging the fragile document. ‘Here is one of the earliest forms of writing ever recorded. It pre-dates Egyptian hieroglyphics and is a variant of proto-cuneiform.’
‘What does it say?’ Sam asked, fascinated by the colourful symbols on the ancient papyrus. The symbols were interspersed with elaborate drawings, which gave the document a dreamlike quality.
‘This form of writing is not trying to convey spoken language; it is telling a story through a combination of pictures and symbols. It’s more like watching a movie than reading a book. In theory, you should be able to understand what the writer is trying to convey even if you don’t speak his language. Give it a try.’
Sam stared at the swirls and symbols on the papyrus, but could make no sense of the sensations that assaulted his brain. After a minute, he shook his head and looked at Sienna. ‘What does it say?’
Sienna laughed. ‘It’s almost impossible for someone whose brain has adapted to read conventional script to understand this proto-cuneiform variant. You must look past the actual symbols so their patterns meld. You should use the creative and spatial right hemisphere of your brain to see the story unfold in your head. Some people who have taken hallucinatory drugs or who have gone into a trance-like state have claimed to be able to read similar documents.’
Sienna stared at the ancient document for a minute. Sam watched as her emerald eyes focused on different parts of the papyrus and her expression became serene. Then she smiled and looked at Sam. ‘It’s a love story. The writer is female and claims to be the daughter of the tribal chief, Atum. She has prof
essed her love for a young warrior who raided the neighbouring tribe to punish them for stealing her father’s cattle. Her father thinks the warrior is unworthy of her love and wants to send him away to another land. She is beseeching Sekhmet to protect her lover so he might return from the war as a hero and win the blessing of her father.’
Sam tried to read the document once more. As Sienna had instructed, he looked past the lines and swirls and fixed his right eye on the drawing while his left eye settled on the symbols. He allowed his imagination to wander and he saw the vague outline of a young woman by the side of a muddy stream, but the image was fleeting and vanished before he could see her features. He shook his head in frustration.
‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Sienna said, smiling at Sam.
‘I didn’t see her long enough to tell,’ Sam replied.
‘Do you ever hear voices in your head, Sam?’
‘No,’ Sam said rather too quickly. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Those with schizophrenic personality disorders adapt to proto-cuneiform with little difficulty.’
‘What about all the other documents?’ Sam said, keen to change the topic.
‘In this section, they contain census records of those who migrated from the vanishing grasslands to the River Nile as the ancient rivers dried up. But mostly this library is a record of subsequent climate change in the region and the events that may have preceded them. It notes the position of the key stars, the five major planets and the length of the sun’s shadows at midday on top of the Great Pyramid and elsewhere. During the years when Egypt had a mighty empire, they even took records from far-flung places around the world, including Stonehenge in ancient Britain.’
Sienna threaded her arm through the crook of Sam’s elbow and walked him down the main aisle between the high stacks of shelving. Sam smelled the heady aroma of her perfume and felt the intoxicating motion of her hip against his side. He glanced across at the beautiful woman who was clutching at his arm and marvelled at how regal and assured she looked in her own domain. Her sharp chin jutted upwards and her kohl-lined eyes revealed a wisdom far beyond her years.
The Last Oracle: A Climate Fiction Thriller (Sam Jardine Crime Thrillers Book 3) Page 15