Sphinx

by T. S. Learner

I collapsed into a chair, shattered by the barrage of recent events. ‘The sin of hubris,’ I volunteered.

  ‘It usually is with scientists. So when is your death date?’

  ‘Can you help me?’ I asked. ‘I know you were part of the original sect.’

  ‘I left after the first manifestation of Seth. I wish Isabella had, too. From that moment, her whole career was directed by Giovanni - in some ways, even after his death. Then she fell under the influence of Hermes Hemiedes.’

  ‘And he sent her to Goa.’

  ‘When I got that teaching position at Oxford, and once I felt I’d gained her trust, I explained some of the terrible things that her grandfather had done, the events he had manipulated. She wouldn’t believe me, couldn’t believe me. Then, when you both returned to Egypt this last time, Hermes heard that Isabella was close to finding the instrument. He persuaded her to attend a few of the rituals and, naively, she agreed.’

  ‘I had no idea. If only she’d told me.’

  ‘Would you have believed her?’

  I didn’t need to answer.

  Amelia’s expression was one of sympathy. ‘I’m afraid, Oliver, that you have a part to play, no matter how reluctant you are. As I tried to tell you at the opera, this is a great love story. You see, when Banafrit, chief consort and sister of Nectanebo, realised the assassination plot, I think she might have died trying to save her lover. Who knows if she succeeded in saving him or not? You can imagine the scene: Banafrit, party to the Machiavellian politics of the priest clan, desperate to reach Nectanebo to warn him. It couldn’t have been easy. There were many who plotted against the pharaoh, some in his own family, and the future of a whole nation rested on Banafrit reaching him in time. What I know for certain is that the assassination attempt was organised by a religious cult that worshipped the god Seth; a cult that Hugh Wollington wishes to recreate. Their manifestation of the god is one that thrives on chaos; the personification of amoral evil, the fascistic shadow self.’

  ‘Wait - the manifestation I saw in the catacombs - how was that staged?’

  ‘What makes you think it was staged?’

  I didn’t answer. The idea that the manifestation might have been real was profoundly disturbing.

  ‘Hermes and his friends’ games, a dangerous charade that led to a summoning of arcane evil. Hermes still has some influence and he has gathered a small group of dedicated followers, much like Giovanni did.’ An image of the young woman, Isabella’s likeness, flashed into my head. Hermes must have picked her for the similarities, knowing that I would follow her.

  ‘You have to remember that when a group of followers come together,’ Amelia continued, ‘their desire and their will unite. That in itself is a hugely powerful force, an energy that many charismatic political leaders have exploited. Think of Hitler, Stalin, Mao - individuals capable of galvanising hundreds of thousands of people at a time. Jung also believed in the idea of mass hypnosis, an alchemy of faith. There, Oliver, I have given you a psychological explanation that you may feel more comfortable adopting.’

  ‘I’m due to die in . . .’ I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall ‘. . . sixteen and a half hours. It’s hard to find anything comforting at the moment.’

  I laughed cynically but the others stayed grimly silent.

  ‘What about Hugh Wollington?’ I asked. ‘Who’s he working for? Was he involved in the ritual that was designed to terrify me?’

  ‘He was. Hermes was playing a dangerous double game. He is terrified of Wollington but he needed him as Horus. I suspect he would have tried to beat him to the astrarium to take it for himself. It wouldn’t have worked, poor man. Wollington is too powerful. He struck a deal, I’m sure of it. I imagine he is to get the astrarium after Majeed has abused its power. And, let’s face it, if Majeed gets his hands on the astrarium, the consequences will be just as devastating as the era of Seth: a whole country sinking into chaos, darkness, abject poverty, all under a dictatorship - even Seth couldn’t do much better. Wollington wants to be the rewriter of biblical history. He is hugely ambitious academically. He also want immortality - just a different sort of immortality to that sought by Hermes or Majeed.’

  There was a knock on the door, which startled us all. After a nod from Amelia, Faakhir went to answer it. We could hear him conversing in Arabic. A moment later he came back.

  ‘Hermes Hemiedes has committed suicide. He hanged himself in his cell.’

  I buried my face in my hands. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  Amelia put her hand on my arm, her cool touch reassuring.

  ‘Oliver, concentrate. We have to move fast.’

  44

  I sent Faakhir to the apartment with a letter for Moustafa, giving him our pre-agreed code word. What seemed like minutes later he returned with the astrarium. Amelia lifted it from its wrapping and I witnessed the same reverence in her face that I’d seen in Hermes’s when he first saw the device: an expression of religious rapture. But in seconds she switched back from worshipper to scientist. Using what looked like a dentist’s stylus, she pushed at the base from one end. To my amazement, it shifted and slid outwards. She carefully removed it and picked up a magnifying glass to peer at its surface.

  ‘As I thought.’

  Amelia offered the magnifying glass to me. A set of hieroglyphs and a line drawing were clearly visible on the tiny panel: I recognised the symbols for Osiris, the sun god Ra, and Thoth, but that was all.

  ‘This is an Amduat,’ she explained, ‘a map of the afterlife to help the deceased become an Akh Aper, a prepared spirit. It describes how the spirit must travel to the mansion of Osiris - an early prototype of Hades - and to the Field of Hetep in a twelve-hour journey that mirrors the journey of Ra, or the sun, in the hours between dusk and dawn. The map shows us how the spirit of the deceased must travel from east to west along a blue waterway across the inner sky. Then back again, from west to east, on a black land-path across the outer sky. Finally the spirit becomes a star in the sky next to the god Thoth. However, I suspect this particular map is more than allegorical; it is a deliberate smokescreen. I have seen this ruse once before on the back of a hand mirror found in the tomb of Nectanebo’s uncle.’

  Amelia reached over and pulled a cigarette lighter from Faakhir’s shirt pocket. Flicking it open, she ran the flame over the metal surface. Shocked, I grabbed her wrist.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing . . .’

  Smiling, she shook my hand off. ‘My dear man, of course I don’t! It’s always ten per cent fact and ninety per cent guesswork. But the flame can’t hurt it.’

  As the surface of the metal blackened, the lines of another map appeared. I heard Amelia’s sharp intake of breath. The distinctive shape of the Nile, like the delicate branches of a wayward tree, was instantly recognisable. At the bottom, Aswan, with the ancient city of Memphis near the top; and the cities of Luxor and Thebes in between, small pale dots on the tiny illustration. A route was etched into the metal, from Alexandria along the coastline to Marsa Matruh, then swinging inland to the south-west near the Libyan border.

  Amelia nodded several times. I could see her eyes misting over slightly. ‘So, he really was killed,’ she murmured. ‘This is the true map - added later, I suspect, after Nectanebo’s murder - a cartogram describing the route the Pharaoh’s mummy was taken along before being placed in a secret tomb. The assassins would never have left him unburied without some ceremony - the danger of angering the gods was too great. Oliver, we have finally solved the mystery of Nectanebo’s disappearance.’

  ‘And how will following this map help me?’

  ‘Your role is to return the astrarium to its rightful owner, to place it into the arms of Nectanebo’s mummy. The astrarium’s soul will unite with that of Nectanebo and the device will cease to function, maybe even to exist. It’s not only the one hope for keeping Egypt safe - therein also lies your own redemption, Oliver.’

  I peered down at the small soot-laden map - it looked terrifyingly tenuous
to me, the silvery etchings of a smoky dream. I still found it difficult to believe completely in the powers of the astrarium, but I had fallen under the spell of the death pointer and its quiet insistent ticks. And, as I noted bitterly, my supposed disbelief hadn’t prevented me from becoming embroiled in the events surrounding it. My own ambivalence aside, it was clear that Amelia believed in what the astrarium might achieve in the wrong hands and I had nothing to lose by trusting her. It was a calculated gamble: go with her plan, which might switch off the mechanism, or not. According to the astrarium I had only hours to live.

  ‘Following this map,’ Amelia continued, ‘Nectanebo’s mummy lies somewhere in the oasis of Siwah near the Libyan border. The inscribed instructions aren’t only to show the route that the Pharaoh’s mummified corpse travelled; they are also our guide through the twelve stages of the journey to the Afterworld.’

  I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Faakhir. Reading my expression, he stubbed out his cigarette and said, ‘My friend, Egypt is riddled with mysteries. Here the divide between the inanimate and the animate is not the same as in the West. Our land has its own spirits. This is not a new story.’

  ‘If I agree to go, will you be coming with me?’ I asked.

  Faakhir looked at Amelia, who spoke for him.

  ‘Faakhir has been called away to another mission, equally important. I will be your guide and protector.’

  Faakhir put his hand on my arm to reassure me. ‘She knows the area better than anyone, and she is more of a soldier than I am, believe it or not.’

  I must have looked apprehensive but Amelia ignored me. Carefully, she slid the base of the mechanism back into position.

  ‘It’s important that you understand the symbolism of the journey before we leave,’ she told me.

  ‘Isn’t it the soul of the deceased overcoming moral trials and tribulations as he attempts to pass into the Afterworld? A little like a day of reckoning?’

  ‘In the first hour, Ra, the sun god, enters Akhet, the eastern horizon, a place that lies between day and night. The spirit of the deceased accompanies him. In the second and third hours, Ra and the spirit travel through the Waters of Osiris, a realm also known as Wernes. Hours four and five are passed in the world of the desert, Sokar. In the fifth hour, the spirit finds the tomb of Osiris, recognisable by the pyramid mound built over it, a hidden lake of fire beneath the interior enclosure.’

  ‘And will we really be travelling through a desert?’

  ‘Both physically and psychologically. The New Testament also contains a version of this—’

  ‘The temptation of Christ?’

  ‘For an atheist you certainly know your Bible.’

  ‘I blame my mother. What happens next?’

  ‘The sixth hour of the journey is the most crucial. This is when the Ba of the sun god has to unite with his body. If this does not happen, the sun will not rise the next day and such an event symbolises the end of the world. On a smaller scale, the spirit accompanying the god will not pass into the afterlife. There is no worse destiny, according to the Ancient Egyptians. The unification of Ba and form traditionally happens within a celestial circle made by the mehen serpent - the snake biting its own tail - which is a symbol of infinity in many cultures. Hour seven leads us into an even more difficult transition. The nemesis of Ra and of renewal - the huge serpent god Apophis - will be waiting to attack and destroy Ra and his spirit companion. Isis is called upon to protect and defend both Ra and the deceased. You will be most vulnerable in this hour. But there is no one who knows Isis’s spells from the Book of the Dead as well as I do - except Hermes Hemiedes, which now, of course, is irrelevant.’

  ‘And how does this metaphysical journey conclude?’

  ‘At the eighth hour, the tomb gates open to allow the spirit to depart from Sokar. The ninth hour is spent returning back over the waters. Hour ten sees the regeneration of the spirit through immersion in the waters.’

  ‘How dangerous is this going to be?’

  Amelia and Faakhir glanced at each other. Amelia answered.

  ‘It’s your last hope. Mosry is out there and Hugh Wollington as well - both of them want this more than anything. I suspect that Hugh will have worked out where we’re going, although they may not know we’ve teamed up yet. But I will endeavour to protect you to the best of my abilities.’

  ‘And if I stay in Alexandria?’

  ‘Mosry will kill you,’ Faakhir answered bluntly.

  I turned to Amelia. She shrugged, then began packing away the astrarium.

  ‘According to the map, by the eleventh hour you will be on an island in Lake Arachie and the god’s eyes - and those of the accompanying spirit - are fully restored. In the twelfth and final hour, Ra enters the eastern horizon as the dawning of a new day, while the deceased’s soul ascends to become a star in the sky.’

  ‘Meaning that I emerge having reunited the astrarium with Nectanebo and my death date has slipped somewhere to the distant future?’ I said. ‘I wasn’t planning on becoming a star in the sky.’

  ‘If the gods will it, Oliver,’ Amelia said seriously. ‘I am of the view that there are many life paths, all running in parallel. Free will lies in the choices we make, which paths we step onto at any given moment - but those life paths are already written. Isabella knew there was a chance she would die that day in the water. She also knew that you would inherit her task. The question is: do you have the strength of character to complete it?’

  Again, I found myself thinking about my marriage. The idea that Isabella had married me because of some prophecy had been haunting me. Had she really been that obsessed?

  I looked at the astrarium, an ancient mesh of cogs and divination, and remembered how frustrated I’d been with Isabella’s focus on finding it; how absent she had been when she’d been working, as if incapable of registering anything outside that circle of intent. I’d begun to view that absence as a rival. Perhaps my instinct had been right.

  And what about my father and Gareth - would I ever see them again? I glanced at the clock. I’d already been here for an hour - one precious hour of the few I supposedly had left.

  ‘What have I got to lose if I don’t go?’ I asked.

  ‘Only your life, if you believe the prediction - or if you believe in Mosry!’

  Faakhir indicated the television. It now showed Sadat’s convoy crossing the Syrian border before it wound its way across the desert; the same convoy that Rachel was in. ‘There’s something else you should know,’ Faakhir went on. ‘We believe that Mosry has details of the secret meeting between Sadat and Begin, right down to the hour. Prince Majeed wants the astrarium now, Oliver. He wants to destroy any possibility of an accord.’

  Amelia put her hand over mine. ‘We leave in an hour.’

  45

  The sheikh wore a traditional Berber striped jellaba and sat cross-legged on the rug on the floor of the mud-brick house. He looked about seventy, and had a large scar that ran in a zigzag across one cheek and over his nose. He paused mid-sentence to stare at me dismissively, then swung back to Amelia - with whom he’d been in deep conversation since we’d arrived in the ancient city of Siwah. Although most of their exchange was incomprehensible to me - they were speaking in a dialect I couldn’t follow - occasionally I recognised the word ‘sister’, which made me curious about the nature of their relationship.

  I took a sip of the black tea I’d been offered, heavily flavoured with rose syrup, and waited for Amelia to tell me what was going on. Eventually she turned to me.

  ‘Sheikh Suleiman is an old friend and a Berber. This community dates back to 10,000 BC. They, and a few Bedouin traders, are the only people who really live in Siwah.’

  The sheikh said something and they both laughed.

  ‘He tells me to warn you about walking amongst the date pickers,’ she said.

  I was perplexed and it must have shown.

  ‘There is an ancient law here that the date pickers, who are male, must remain virgins unt
il they are forty years old. He thinks your blue eyes might turn their heads.’

  Slightly insulted, I glanced at the sheikh who smiled back sardonically.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be on our way by now?’ I asked Amelia, conscious of the astrarium lying heavily in my rucksack and the insidious hum of a large electric clock that sat, rather incongruously, next to an ornate hookah. I was running out of time. I felt my throat close up every time I looked at the two moving hands inching by.

  Amelia put her hand on my knee. ‘Patience. The sheikh has a gift we should take with us.’

  The sheikh nodded, then stood and left the room.

  ‘Why does he keep addressing you as sister?’ I couldn’t help asking.

  ‘Because I am his sister.’ Amelia went over to a low chest that stood in an alcove. ‘This once belonged to my husband.’

  She opened the chest and took out a photo to show me. Standing in front of a pool surrounded by palms was a young woman in army camouflage and beside her a young Berber holding a rifle. They were smiling at the camera and his arm was wrapped around her waist, but there was tension in their faces, as if this moment was a forced respite.

  ‘The man I loved is buried here,’ she went on. ‘He was a local sheikh. This was taken in 1943 - we’d been married for two weeks, fighting Rommel for ten. The German troops were notorious in Siwah for desecrating this pool, Cleopatra’s bath, by bathing naked in it. The people claimed this contributed to their defeat.’

  Amelia touched the photograph, almost a caress. ‘He was the love of my life.’

  I now realised why, when we’d walked through the streets of the ancient white-clay town with its huts made of palm fronds and its braying donkeys, many of the older tribesmen had greeted Amelia as if she were an honorary male. It was the legacy of her military service in the region during the Second World War.

  ‘He was killed only days after this was taken,’ she said, replacing the photograph in the chest.

  ‘I’m sorry.’