Pyramids

by Fred Saberhagen

  Now, as if suddenly remembering the survey he had begun earlier in the day, Ptah-hotep called to one of his aides who was passing and ordered him to bring the leader of the most recently arrived work-gang to his side.

  In obedience to the aides of the Chief Priest, Sihathor, a gnarled and wiry man of middle age, was soon standing before the two officials in an attitude of humble submission. From this position his downcast eyes were able to see plainly everything that the senior plotters wished him to see: the broad outline as well as many details of the construction down in the pit.

  It was at this potentially awkward moment that Sebek, another of Ptah-hotep's aides, the newly appointed Assistant Chief Priest, chose to reappear earlier than expected from an errand. He was on the scene in time to witness the questioning. Ptah-hotep did not fail to note this fact. He suspected his new assistant Sebek of being one of the eyes of Pharaoh. As if to confirm his suspicions, this official then favored Thothmes and Ptah-hotep with a long, suspicious glance. Both were aware of this inspection, and felt it inwardly, though neither gave any outward sign of having noticed it.

  Sihathor took his apparently slow-witted time about answering three or four routine questions, the same queries Ptah-hotep had put to the other gang leaders earlier in the day. Then he was dismissed, as they had been.

  Next, Sebek, who had been hovering closer than Ptahhotep liked, was dispatched again upon some logical errand, and the two friends were able to resume a relatively private conversation.

  Thothmes, who was intrigued with the details of the actual construction and ever eager to get a close look at them, inspected with great interest the positioning of the granite slabs below. Without looking up from them he asked in a whisper: "What do you suppose your assistant thought of it all?"

  Ptah-hotep shrugged fatalistically. It was too late now to worry about that. "Time and the gods will tell."

  "And our cult-brother the stonemason?"

  "My soul is not that of a stonemason; I do not know. We have done our part in giving him the chance. And presumably he has done his, seeing and remembering the things that we were able to put before his eyes."

  "Of course, my friend." Thothmes stretched his arms and returned to a safer subject. "And what will be the fate of the last legitimate workers in the tomb, after the burial? Those who are to trigger the fall of the stone plugs, and thereby close the last means of access? I have often wondered about that. See the way those plugs are situated? To the eye of a scribe, at least, it would appear that the only way to release them will be from inside the tomb."

  Ptah-hotep held his reply until another chance for free speech arrived. "That I suppose can hardly matter if there is going to be a new plan anyway."

  "I do not know details of the new plan yet. But I wonder how the plugs were to be released, or the men to escape, according to the plan that is in concrete form below us."

  Ptah-hotep made a gesture confessing his own ignorance. "I do not know. I see no method by which those workers might escape. But not all the design has yet taken form here, and it is unthinkable that they should be allowed to remain sealed inside, and thus share for eternity this monument, the Horizon of Khufu himself. In the final plan some means of egress must be provided to allow them to get out alive."

  "Great is the wisdom of Pharaoh."

  "Great beyond imagining. But in this matter he has yet to make his wisdom clear to us."

  Ptah-hotep the Chief Priest looked around him. The chanting of the workmen was louder than usual but none of the aides were near. Now it was again likely, but this time by no means certain, that he and Thothmes could no longer be overheard. He could not quite make up his mind whether it would be too dangerous now to press Thothmes for more details on the revised plans of construction. His curiosity was so great that he could hardly restrain himself from doing so, and yet he managed to maintain restraint a little longer.

  Ptah-hotep summoned one of his personal servants a little closer, and ordered cool beer to be brought for himself and the Scribe. Outside their small island of shade, the naked bodies of the workers passed back and forth continually, either straining at stones or shuffling into position to strain at stones again. Stone and sledge grated upon stone; the noise of the artisans' hammers in the pit reverberated through the heat, and the sound of the workers' chanting droned on and on into the ears, filling the skull until it was no longer heard. Such noise could be of use, though, to help keep unwanted ears from hearing other things.

  The two men exchanged fragments and morsels of relatively innocent information, reviewing the latest gossip each of them had heard. The rumors of several years ago persisted, concerning the Pharaoh's encounter with the sky gods in the Western Lands. Such durability in a rumor was often an indication that it contained some truth. Often, but by no means always.

  The size of the golden treasure in the story had now become more definite. Even two such officials of the Court were awed by the amount, even when they discounted it by half, as the treasure in all stories must surely be discounted. The feelings of these particular officials were intensified by the fact that it was the robbery of this very treasure that they had long been engaged in plotting. For what else would any Pharaoh do with his greatest treasure, except to bury it with him in his tomb, and thus keep it with him for eternity?

  "I have heard it, friend Ptah-hotep, from the mouth of the Overseer of the Treasure himself—there are always wild rumors, of course, but this one I have heard from the man himself—"

  "Yes?" Ptah-hotep prodded, when the nearest man who could understand them was again safely out of earshot.

  "I have heard that the smiths and other metalworkers, using their fine balances, have discovered, to their awe, that this gold from the sky is even heavier than ordinary gold."

  The Chief Priest did not know what to say. But he did not want his friend to think him dumbfounded, so he replied: "Perhaps something of the kind was only to be expected, given the origin of the metal."

  "Perhaps."

  Presently the Scribe spoke again. "It was found in pieces of a peculiar shape, or at least it was in such pieces when the smiths were given it to work on. And there were pieces of another metal found with the gold. An unknown material, dark and lustrous, which has proven impossible to work with because of its hardness, and because of a tendency of the pieces to return to their original shapes, even when deformed by great heat and force. And I understand that some of the smiths who tried to work with the strange metal sickened and died soon afterward, despite all that the priests and physicians could do for them."

  "And have you seen any of these arrivals for yourself?"

  "No. No, I have not been able to see anything of the sort. The Palace is full of secrecy, as always."

  Ptah-hotep was silent. It had occurred to him, just in the last few moments, that possibly this whole story about gold from the sky, strange metal from the gods, was nothing more than an attempt to frighten away potential tomb-robbers. What, after all, had he or Thothmes really seen of any such divine intervention? Only one peculiar cloud.

  The Pharaoh certainly partook of divinity, and his will was not to be thwarted lightly. But tomb-robbing was among certain people an ancient and honorable profession. To some it was even a form of worship; and Ptah-hotep had observed with his own eyes that those who were engaged in that worship and that profession often led long and prosperous fives.

  Khufu might be of truly divine cunning. But his was not the only divine power. Thieves, of whatever rank and station in life, had their god too, and around the neck of the Chief Priest there hung his hidden amulet of Set.

  Ptah-hotep prayed.

  SIX

  Late on the first morning of the new year in Chicago, some hours after his first look at the Great Pyramid, Scheffler at last had his chance for breakfast with Becky. He had returned her phone call on New Year's Eve and had invited her over, and again she had slept with him. This time neither of them had mentioned or even looked at the cage of golden
treasures. They had dined on Scheffler's cooking, toasted each other with champagne at midnight, listened to the radio, and talked of a number of things. They had spent the first hours of the New Year in bed. Scheffler had said nothing at all to Becky about his adventure in the elevator.

  After her late breakfast Becky went back to her own apartment, this time in a better mood. Scheffler didn't understand the change, but he was grateful for it.

  He cleaned up the dishes. There would be no interference from Mrs. White today, a holiday. He plunged into Uncle Monty's library, looking for helpful information.

  Quickly he realized that if the thousand books held anything that would be useful to him, he had no idea how to get at it. None of the titles he looked at said anything about magic elevators.

  Settling on the antique record player as the oddest thing in sight, he got it out of its cabinet and considered trying to play one of the ancient wax cylinders on it. The old records were all tagged with homemade labels, lettered in fading ink with cryptic titles, such as SIHATHOR ON STONEWORK, March 1937.

  Struck by an idea—it seemed a sane and logical one for once—Scheffler compared the wax recordings with the cassettes stored in a box beside the small modern recorder. The cassettes too were labeled, and many of the titles were the same. Maybe the old man had simply re-recorded them for convenience.

  THOTHMES READING STELE, 9/37, was not the most promising title Scheffler could imagine, but neither were any of the others. He put the tape on the machine anyway. It was noisy, poor quality audio, doubtless, as he had suspected, a re-recording of one of the wax cylinders. At the start a man's voice, recognizable as Uncle Monty's, recited: "This was recorded during the second year after our first contact. My date of home departure for this one is September 8, 1937. Return same date."

  Following the introduction another man's voice, unknown to Scheffler, performed a lengthy, halting recitation in a language Scheffler did not think he had ever heard before. He supposed it might be Arabic. Or, for all he knew, it might be the tongue spoken by the builders of the Great Pyramid. One was about as useful to him as the other.

  If this example was typical, all that the recordings seemed likely to prove was that Uncle Monty had been studying languages as well as archaeology. And it would take days to listen to them all.

  Scheffler turned the machine off, giving up on the recordings, at least for the time being.

  He got to his feet and moved around the library again. So far he had been examining things that were in plain view. A man with secrets would probably keep them hidden. Near the fireplace a low, sliding door built into the wall suggested the presence behind it of a closet or cubbyhole designed to hold firewood; but the door, Scheffler discovered, had been lightly nailed shut. He'd already noticed there were some tools, in a small closet near the kitchen.

  With the nails pried loose he swung the door open and found himself looking into a deep, low closet, almost filled with an assortment of things, everything but wood. Most conspicuous was a modern outboard motor, of modest size and lightweight construction. It was obviously brand new, still tagged with some of the manufacturer's paperwork which confirmed it as a very recent model. Behind the motor, and further concealed under a pile of miscellaneous junk, were several opened boxes of dynamite—modern also, if the red plasticized shells of the sticks were any indication—along with a battery-powered detonator, some wire, and a small box of blasting caps.

  Scheffler put the objects back. He nailed up the door again, and sat in a chair to think.

  If he'd come across this treasure trove before he'd found the elevator, he'd have been certain that his uncle was crazy, just flat-out crazy, plotting bank robbery or terrorism. But the elevator, and what it led to, made the whole world crazy. With the Nile so handy, an outboard was probably perfectly relevant�

  And with a Pharaoh's tomb, and doubtless a lot of smaller ones around, so was dynamite.

  Around the middle of the day Scheffler felt he had to get out of the apartment for a while. The need to outfit himself for his next expedition to the land of the pyramid—he had no doubt that he would have to go at least once more—provided a reason, or at least an excuse. He had five days before school started again, and he had to get this settled. In a few minutes he was walking out of the apartment building, braving a fall of freezing rain.

  Walking west, toward a street where he knew there were a couple of surplus stores, Scheffler blinked into the rain. Between Becky and his other distractions he hadn't managed to get a whole lot of sleep during the preceding night.

  There had been moments during that night when he had thought wistfully of locking up the grillwork door again, losing the key, and trying his best to forget about the whole thing. But it wasn't the kind of thing that you could very well forget.

  When he had seen a little more of pyramid-land for himself, Scheffler decided, it would probably be a good idea after all to call up his mother in Iowa, and probe her for some more information—any scrap might help—about her uncle's past. He'd talked to her at Christmas, of course, and they'd discussed his house-sitting job. His mother had agreed he ought to take it even if it kept him from visiting home over the holidays. But if he talked to her in the mood he was in now, she would know that something was seriously wrong.

  Squinting into the frozen mush hurled at him from the skies, Scheffler felt a soreness across the bridge of his nose, and wondered if his brief exposure in pyramid-land might have started to give him a sunburn. Certainly the first essential for his explorer's outfit was going to have to be some kind of broad-brimmed hat. If no appropriate hat turned up in the surplus stores he was about to visit, he would try ransacking some of the remoter closets and cabinets in the apartment—such poking around as he'd done already suggested that there might be rich resources. And a really thorough search, for information as well as useful items, would be a good idea anyway.

  What did he need for exploring besides a hat? There were shoes to be considered. A pair of high, ankle-protecting gyms ought to be just what that rocky desert called for, and Scheffler already owned a pair of those.

  The neighborhood changed fast in this part of the city when you walked west. He hadn't been squinting into the sleet for very long before he reached the street where the surplus stores flourished. Entering the one he thought might offer him the best selection, Scheffler picked up a plastic basket just inside the door, and started shopping.

  Here was a very cheap plastic canteen, which he at once dropped into his basket. But then on second thought he put the plastic bottle back and selected instead a couple of metal ones that came with cloth covers, and a webbed belt to hang them on. Two canteens were not going to be too many for a man walking around in that dry heat for any length of time; and that, Scheffler expected, was just what he was going to have to do.

  He'd have to wear a long-sleeved shirt; but no problem, he had some of those. He rubbed his nose gently, and grinned. Becky hadn't mentioned it, maybe she thought he'd been to a tanning parlor. He could see himself going back to school after New Year's with a good case of sunburn, and his friends asking him where he'd gone skiing. And here they'd all been thinking he was about to apply for food stamps.

  He moved along the aisle. Now hunting knives appeared before him, a cheap-looking selection carefully locked up inside a sturdy case. The grillwork protector on the case was not nearly as strong as some he'd seen. Fortunately he already had a good knife—somewhere. He'd had it since his fifteenth birthday, as he recalled, at a time in his life when he'd been very enthusiastic about hunting squirrels and rabbits. God, that seemed like twenty years ago, though it was only five.

  Trouble was he was pretty sure that his hunting knife wasn't in Chicago. Back home in Iowa seemed more likely. Well, with his extra expense money he could certainly buy one if he had to. But first he'd see if he could find one when he went through the apartment. A good knife would be expensive.

  Scheffler turned a corner in the store. Down here in the next ai
sle were camouflage pants. But Scheffler already had some old khakis, that he thought were even more likely to blend invisibly into that desert background. Ought he, when he went back to look at the pyramid, try to hide and sneak and keep himself from being seen? Hell, yes, he supposed so. Who would he be hiding from, ancient Egyptians? He shook his head; he must be crazy. But then he ran a finger over the gritty reality of the small Band-aid on his hand. He wasn't imagining that. And that pyramid he'd seen hadn't put itself together. That was another thing he could be sure of.

  Here were some compasses. A good idea, also cheap. He picked one up and dropped it into his basket. And waterproof matches. Matches were like a knife, something that you always took along when you didn't know where you were going. You never knew when they might be needed.

  Halfway along the next aisle, Scheffler came upon some first aid kits. He looked at them without enthusiasm. He'd formed the opinion that most of the medical kits sold in stores were inadequate in one way or another, a ploy to get rid of assorted cheap supplies of doubtful utility that weren't selling very well on their own. He'd do better to make up a kit of his own, from materials in the apartment. Maybe he should have started his outfitting there, and only gone to the stores for what he failed to find in the closets. Well, he had wanted to get out of the apartment, and here he was, so he'd seen what he could find.

  There was a snakebite kit, cheap. Scheffler passed it by, then came back and dropped it into his shopping basket.

  Backpacks. The one he used for school was small, but he thought it would be okay. He wasn't intending any extended camping trip.

  Here was another locked display case, this one containing the binoculars. Sure. Great. But now that he thought about it he seemed to remember, on a high shelf inside the case of rifles in the apartment, a couple of pairs of binoculars in leather cases. The gun case was locked up, but given the circumstances he intended to find a way to get it open.