I rolled over and looked behind me. Wollington was running towards me across the cavern as Amelia worked furiously to snap a new clip of ammunition into her pistol. I watched in horror as he stopped and raised his pistol directly at me, taking careful aim. His stare locked with mine - just a dozen paces and the gun barrel between us.
At the edge of my vision I saw Amelia pull back the slide of her pistol, heard the click of the breech.
A gunshot rang out. My heart jolted. I stared at Wollington, astonished that I was still seeing anything at all, and, as I watched, Amelia’s bullet took him squarely in the stomach. Her second hit his temple - spinning him around and dropping him to the floor in a spray of blood.
A scream welled up inside me but I felt and heard it as if I were outside myself. I gasped for breath, hyperventilating with shock, but as Amelia turned towards me, her eyes calm, her hands steady, I felt my own hysteria recede.
I raised my hand and called ‘I’m okay,’ though I could feel my boot filling with blood.
‘Can you move?’ she called back.
I levered myself up onto my good foot. Pain shot up my leg. Just then, another shot rang out, the sharp, loud crack of a pistol from the very back of the cavern. Amelia’s face, a smile opening across her features, suddenly froze. I expected her to turn and fire back, but instead she pitched backwards, her arms flung wide, her pistol clattering on the stone floor.
In the silence that followed I heard a pair of heavy boots running across the cavern towards me. I was horrified at the loss of Amelia and, for one crucial moment, I dithered. But there was no time to grieve. Dragging myself through the lichen-covered archway as quietly as I could, I prayed that my pursuer wouldn’t find the trail of blood I was leaving behind. I looked around for a ready weapon. Reaching for a heavy rock, I lifted it and waited, desperately trying to control my breathing. The footsteps seemed to be coming nearer, but before they reached me a space opened up in the cave wall behind me and I was pulled backwards into it.
48
An old man helped me to my feet and supported me as we made our way to a small rowing boat that appeared to be floating on an underground river. He lowered me into it and I collapsed onto the bottom. Murmuring in a dialect that I didn’t understand, he drew a rug over me. As he bent down I noticed that his eyes were white with cataracts.
He cast off and the boat, lit only by a single lantern, began its journey along the dark water, where to I didn’t know; the stalactites passing above us were dazzling as the crystals reflected back thousands of shards of light. I felt the blood draining away from my body.
A luminous orange shape pressed against the darker red of my eyelids as external sound and light sucked me back into consciousness. I heard the beat of dripping water, and smelled the acrid odour of manure, damp straw and the distinctive apple-scented tobacco of the hookah. I opened my eyes and realised I was grasping something in my hand. I looked down. I was holding a feather - a sparrowhawk’s brown feather.
I was on a low divan that was covered in goatskins. The old man was sitting beside me with a bowl of water on his lap, smiling, his toothless mouth sunk into his wrinkled face. Chanting what sounded like a prayer, he lifted a cup and poured the cold water over my head. Shocked, I spluttered and gasped.
My head ached, but I was aware that, despite a strange feeling of dislocation and a heightened sense of colour, I was now entirely lucid. ‘I don’t understand you,’ I said in Arabic.
‘That is because I was using an ancient language,’ he replied, also in Arabic. ‘Aramaic, the old tongue. Forgive me, the immersion had to be done. It is the tenth hour.’
I sank back against the cushions as he bent down to examine the wound to my foot, now covered with a brown-green poultice of moss. Shocked, I pulled my foot back. The poultice went flying. He scolded me and replaced the moss.
At that moment I remembered the astrarium. My hands flew up to my shoulders; my rucksack was gone. I looked around wildly. Reading my expression, the old man reached for a small woven basket at his feet and pulled out the astrarium, now wrapped in an oiled goatskin.
‘Fear not, my friend, the treasure is safe. This is the last hour of your journey and I have restored your health and your sight.’ He touched my eyelids in turn, his fingertips pungent with the musk of the poultice. ‘I am Yedaniah bar-Ishmael. For centuries members of my family have protected the secret tomb of Nectanebo II, since the time my ancestor was hired as a personal bodyguard by the Pharaoh at Elephantine, long before the living memory of this epoch.’
‘You are a Jew?’
‘My family chose not to leave with Moshe ben Amram ha-Levi across the divided sea; our hearts were wedded to this land. I was born here and I will die here.’ His fingers scraped at the earth floor of the cave, crumbling the soil. ‘I am sorry for the death of your companion. The Berbers will collect the shell of her body and they will bury her next to her husband. ’
The vision of Amelia’s crumpled form swept bleakly through me. Suddenly the death toll, the sacrifice that the astrarium demanded seemed too high. Despair gripped me. Battling rising panic, I tried to calculate how many minutes I had left of my own life - not many.
I looked around. The room appeared to open onto a courtyard, a mat of woven rushes covering the entrance. The bluish dawn light filtered through the gaps between the rushes and I could just make out a couple of goats tethered to a post outside and the outline of a metal water pump.
The cave itself had obviously once been a tomb: murals of the gods hunting and feasting covered the walls. There was a huge stone oven carved into the back of the cave, large enough for a man to crouch in; a blackened copper pot sat atop it. Against the wall was a set of shelves made of wood from a shipping carton - the stickers advertising Siwah Dates were still visible - filled with tinned food, condensed milk and one lonely jar of Nescafé instant coffee. I noticed a radio propped up against a low table that held a backgammon board, the pieces poised mid-game. The prosaic nature of the setting was reassuring and I felt myself becoming calmer.
I looked back at the old man. His skin hung in folds below his chin and his face was a map of moles and uneven pigment. Again, I saw the clouds of cataracts in his eyes. It was impossible to say how old he was - over ninety, I imagined.
‘Where am I?’ I asked.
‘On the island of Arachie, in the cave of Horus. But we must hurry. Ra has almost risen and you must place the skybox into the Pharaoh’s arms before then. You know the parable: a king is sacrificed for the greater good of his people, is entombed for a time, then rises again to join his father in the sky. This is the universal story, one that is told again and again.’
He reached up to his neck and, with a jerk, broke the leather thong of the pendant hanging there. He pressed it into my hand. It was a large gold coin embossed with a rearing horse.
‘The coin of Nectanebo,’ he said. ‘This was the first payment made to my ancestor. It will protect you.’
From outside, at some distance, came the sound of running feet. I looked at Yedaniah, wide-eyed with fear.
‘They’ll kill us,’ I said. ‘They’ll kill us both.’
Yedaniah put his hand on my arm to reassure me. ‘Have faith. Come now: it is time you faced your own death.’
I swung my feet around to the dirt floor and he helped me stand. Gingerly, I placed my weight on my injured foot to find that it wasn’t hurting nearly as much any more, then slipped the coin into my pocket. Outside, a cockerel crowed, followed by shouting.
‘We must hurry,’ Yedaniah said. He picked up the astrarium and bowed his head ceremoniously as he placed it into my arms. ‘For you and Nectanebo, my king. May the gods bless you both.’
He led me to the oven at the back of the cave, guided me over the cooling coals and pushed against the soot-covered back wall. To my amazement, it opened, revealing a large cavern beyond.
‘Quickly.’ He bundled me through.
Feeling panicked, I looked around the chamber; th
ere was nothing but the stone walls, a dirt floor and an ancient mural illuminated by two lanterns hanging from the ceiling.
‘But where’s the coffin?’ I asked.
‘You were chosen. The gift of Osiris will guide you,’ Yedaniah told me, and stepped back into the outer cave. ‘May Amun-Re and my God protect you.’
His voice echoed against the walls as he pulled closed the hidden door, leaving me alone in the tomb.
The air was dry and smelled faintly of paraffin. The mural painting showed Seth spearing Osiris; an allegorical declaration of victory by Nectanebo’s assassins, I assumed. I put down the astrarium and limped slowly across the dirt floor, my left foot trailing blood. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the ground beneath my naked feet and, for the first time in my life completely unassisted by science and technology, attempted to read the subterranean geology.
I thought I could hear the distant rattle of gunfire, but I pushed it and my fear to the back of my mind as I concentrated on the earth, sensing its very resonance as it spoke to me. It was as if any distrust of my gift that had impeded me in the past had finally evaporated and I could see the strata in the rock around me as clear as day.
I walked slowly into the centre of the chamber, ignoring the dull throbbing in my left foot. My eyes closed, I pushed my naked right sole back and forth across the dirt. I could feel a ridge in the surface.
I kneeled down and with my fingernails dug wildly at the layers of impacted sand and earth. There was a marked line underneath - it looked like a rectangular corner. I cleared more dirt away and soon I had revealed the full outline: about seven feet by four - the size of a coffin. I brushed away a section in the middle and found a cartouche, one I’d now seen several times: the ostrich feather - Nectanebo II’s insignia. But as I kneeled there, my hands flat on the ground, I sensed nothing; the area felt as dense as the rest of the floor.
I stood up and stepped out of the rectangle, moving several feet to the left, closer to the wall. I felt a tingling under my soles. Here the structure changed radically - I could sense it as clearly as I could see the lights above me. The cartouche was a false lead - a trap to entice tomb raiders to dig in the wrong place.
I kneeled again, running my hands over the floor. Beneath the layers of dried mud and compacted stone dust I could feel a slight bump - the raised indentation of a circle. Scraping with my nails, I unearthed a metal ring and, with all my strength, hauled on it. The wound in my foot screamed in protest, but I ignored it. Time was running out. With a great grinding of stone and metal, a door opened in the floor, revealing a wide, deep grave with a single wooden coffin laid in it.
After jumping in I walked around the simple coffin: its wood was decaying at the corners, the grain eaten by time. The only ornamentation was the painted door for the occupant’s Ba to escape. The rest of the coffin was starkly bare, as if Nectanebo’s buriers had given him the minimum possible for his journey into the afterlife. I stood over the wooden lid, my legs shaking in nervous anticipation, my body racked with a terrible fear and tremendous excitement. What was I afraid of? Dying? Or seeing the great Nectanebo himself?
I climbed out of the grave and fetched the astrarium. The date of my death was unchanged. The two pointers had almost fused into one, announcing that my final moments were imminent. I had no time to waste - whatever happened to the astrarium, Mosry would probably kill me anyway. My only hope was to complete the task and then hide or try to run.
I stepped back into the grave and used a rock to break the lid of the coffin; the ancient wood splintered, sounding impossibly loud. I paused, listening. Then, reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the feather from Isabella’s Ba and placed it into the coffin. If I was to die I could at least try to ensure that she found peace.
Suddenly, shouting came from Yedaniah’s cave, then gunfire and the sound of furniture being broken. Frantically, I tore off the rest of the lid. There was a mummy inside, a gold mask over the face. I frowned and looked closer. I recognised the features despite the curl of the royal beard: it was the moulded face of a beautiful woman. I’d seen it on the sphinx that had toppled down onto Isabella, causing her to drown, I’d seen it in the shadow cast by the astrarium. I’d seen it again in Amelia’s thesis, and once more in Gareth’s drawing: Banafrit, Nectanebo’s high priestess and lover. I lifted the mask off and underneath - desiccated, skin blackened like leather but still beautiful - was the face of the woman herself. Now I noticed the outline of breasts under the brownish linen bandages that ran in long lines down the body, a filigree of beaded string stretched over the torso.
Despair washed over me, and I leaned against the side of the grave, staring down at the golden mask I’d left by the side. This was supposed to be Nectanebo’s coffin. Had this whole journey been in vain now that I had failed to unite the astrarium with its rightful owner? For a moment, the enormity of my quest overwhelmed me. Then, as I looked more closely at the mask, I noticed a line of hieroglyphs carved into its forehead. I immediately recognised Gareth’s cipher. ‘When the singing reed is placed in the lion’s mouth, the sands will echo.’ Now I noticed that the headdress engraved on the mummy’s mask looked like a lion’s mane. Why was this familiar? I racked my memory desperately, then remembered Gareth telling me that the translation of ‘Lion’ was also ‘Hathor’ - the lion-headed revengeful goddess, sister of Isis. What if it was Banafrit not Nectanebo, the feminine not the masculine, who needed to be reunited with her skybox? That still didn’t solve the riddle of the singing reed. Outside, the sound of gunfire was very close now. Using every ounce of concentration, I tried to calm my thumping heart. I picked up the astrarium - the key was still inserted into the mechanism, its long thin stem sticking out of the side. Think, think - my mind began putting facts against images against facts . . . Reed. Was. Singing. Quickly I pulled the key out. The key end - the two prongs - was delicate and longer than an ordinary key. It was then that I suddenly remembered my very first impression of the Was: a tuning fork.
The banging from the direction of the secret door to the chamber came closer. I had no time left. I stared at the dial of the astrarium. The black pointer continued ticking towards the moment of my death. I had no choice. I had to take the gamble. I pulled the Was out of the astrarium and tapped it sharply against the stone floor. Immediately, a single note, impossibly pure and clear, rang out from the key. The Singing Reed. I placed the vibrating key between the dried lips of the mummy. The tone intensified: like sunlight, it filled the whole chamber, almost as if the stone itself was vibrating with it.
I lifted the astrarium to place it on Banafrit’s torso. Just then the door of the cavern was kicked open. ‘Don’t move!’ a man shouted in heavily accented English.
I froze.
Mosry stood above the grave, his gun pointed directly at me. I looked at the astrarium and the death hand - and it was in that one single moment that I surrendered completely to belief in the device. Waiting for the bullet to pass through my body, I dropped the astrarium onto the mummy. In the same instant, a shot was fired.
I shut my eyes, expecting a searing pain to shoot through me. Nothing happened.
Slowly, I turned to see Mosry sprawled on the chamber floor, blood seeping from a fatal head wound. Behind him in the doorway was Yedaniah, on his hands and knees, cradling an ancient Uzi, blood streaming down his face. The note emanating from the Was suddenly stopped and a terrible silence rushed in to take its place.
Then came a soft but unmissable click from the astrarium. I swung around. As I watched, the small black hand with its Seth figurehead disappeared from view and a strange but liberating mixture of fear, resignation and relief rushed over me. This was the moment. Almost in slow motion, both the astrarium and Banafrit’s youthful face began to crumble, until there was nothing left of either but a fine reddish sandlike dust. ‘When the singing reed is placed in the lion’s mouth the sands will echo.’ The prophecy and Isabella’s last wish had finally been fulfilled. For one wonderful moment I felt noth
ing but relief and joy and a wave of post-adrenalin rush. Then I ran back and crouched by Yedaniah’s side. Blood was now pooling beneath him.
‘Such is God’s will.’ He groaned in pain. ‘You must go. You have succeeded in your task.’
I hesitated, staring back into the cavern, at the plain wooden casket, Mosry’s broken body, and the allegory of Seth spearing Osiris.
‘Go . . .’ Yedaniah fell back as his spirit finally left him.
Outside, the new day was breaking. I collapsed against a rock and stared out over the valley. I would have to go back to take care of the two dead men in the cave behind me and the bodies of Hugh Wollington and Amelia further in but just then, my face flooded with the first rays of the morning sun rising vast and golden over the horizon, I allowed myself to feel a great sense of completion. I had succeeded; I had returned the astrarium to its proper place and fulfilled my promise to Isabella. I had saved myself and I had saved Egypt from certain ruin. Elation quickly mingled with a sense of loss.
A sparrowhawk flew out of the cave behind me. She circled above me, then sailed out over the shimmering lake below, its surface a mass of sparkling diamonds. I watched the bird for as long as I could, until I lost her in the sunlight.
Hours later I sat on the veranda of a café, looking out over the tiny runway at Siwah Oasis. My initial exhilaration had faded and I was exhausted: physically, emotionally, existentially drained. I’d gone back in, retracing my steps, to bury Amelia and Wollington, then Yedaniah and Mosry, and that final physical effort had depleted the last of my energy. Now the real grieving had begun.
Sipping my mint tea, I stared past a plane to the sea of desert that yawned beyond, the horizon with its wavering bands of heat. My odyssey was already beginning to feel like an extended dream, and I wasn’t sure what my future held.
Sphinx Page 46