James Herbert

by Sepulchre

  The two security men inside had noticed his arrival and one was crossing the concourse towards the closed entrance while his companion at the circular reception desk lifted a phone. Mather started forward again, an urgency in his stride.

  The security guard had come to a smaller door beside the main entrance and had already opened it a fraction by the time the Shield Planner was outside.

  'Mr Mather?' the guard enquired, and Mather opened his wallet to display his Shield identity. 'Sir Victor's waiting for you. I'll take you right up.' The guard said nothing as the lift swiftly ascended to the eighteenth floor, but he appeared tense, as much on edge as Mather himself. They trudged the thick-carpeted corridor to the chairman's outer office, passing through, waiting when the guard rapped on the inner door. The guard opened the door after a voice on the other side responded, then stood aside to allow the older man entry, still not uttering a single word. Mather heard the door close behind him.

  Sir Victor did not rise from his seat. In front of him was a tumbler half-filled with Scotch.

  'Good of you to get here so quickly.” the Magma chairman said, taking Mather forward.

  Although on first glance Sir Victor appeared his usual immaculate self—grey, double-breasted suit, thin-striped shirt and now tie—there was an indefinable dishevelment about him. Perhaps it was the weariness in his eyes, the slight sagging of his jowls, a few lapse strands of silver hair hanging over his forehead that gave the impression, the Shield Planner mused. As well as the unexpected laxity in manners, far Mather had not been offered a sent, nor had Sir Victor risen when he had entered the office.

  Hardly a return to Stone-age etiquette, but surely an indication of the stress this usually most civilised of men was under.

  Now the chairman did rise, but not in deference to the other man. 'I want to show you something,' he said, 'after which we must discuss our course of action.' Curious. Mather followed the tall man back into the corridor, and then into another office which, like Sir Victor's, bore no title tan is door. They walked through an outer room where the chairman unlocked a further door into the main office itself.

  Mather drew in a sharp breath when he saw the figure slumped forward across the glass and chrome desk. He hurriedly crossed the room to examine the body.

  'Quinn-Reece?' he asked, already sure that it was.

  'Security discovered the body earlier this evening,' the chairman replied grimly.

  Mather moved around the desk and Leaned close to the prone man's face. He was prepared to feel for a pulse in Quinn-Reece's neck, but realised it was pointless. The blueness of the vicechairman“s lips, the yellowish tinge to his skin, his very stillness, told him all he needed to know.

  'Heart failure?” be ventured.

  °I believe so. But look at his face.' even mare puzzled, Mather slid an arm beneath QuinnReece;'s chest and pulled him backwards. He was stunned at what he saw.

  ' My God he looks as of he . . .'

  'Died of fright?” Sir Victor finished for him. 'He was sitting upright like that when he was found. I ordered security to lay him on the desk. I couldn't bear the thought of him staring that way, his mouth locked open . . .' Mather frowned. 'I think you'd better tell me what's going on. I assume your people haven't yet called for a doctor or an ambulance?' The chairman's guilt was barely apparent. 'Our security guards are under strict instructions never to bring outsiders onto the premises unless someone in authority sanctions it. We regard anything that happens within the walls of Magma as company business, and only I or my executive officers may deem otherwise.'

  'Good Lord, man, this has nothing to do with your business. It's possible that medical attention might have saved him.' Sir Victor was adamant. 'No, I can assure you he was quite dead. Nothing could have helped him, nothing at all.'

  'Well I suggest you call for an ambulance now.'

  'Yes, of course. But first we must talk. Please allow me a few minutes.'

  'Is there good reason?' The chairman looked away from the corpse. 'I believe so,' he said quietly.

  The stairboards groaned under his weight. He thought one or two might break altogether and quickly shifted his footing. It seemed a long climb to the bend in the stairs, as if time itself were being stretched, and at any second he expected someone to appear above him, so strong was the feeling of another's presence inside the lodge-house.

  He stopped for a few moments when his head came level with the landing, and listened again, depending on hearing rather than seeing in such poor light. There were three doors along the upstairs hallway, one to the left of the staircase, one directly in front, the last further down. The latter would have a view overlooking the entrance gates, but it was not for that reason alone Halloran chose to inspect it first: he knew, as surely as if someone were calling him, that he would find what he was searching for inside there.

  As with the rest of the house, bare boards was the only flooring along the landing and he saw no reason to avoid making noise as he walked its length-it was too late for that. Nevertheless, his movement was stealthy and his right hand was kept free, ready to snatch the gun from its holster at the slightest provocation, even though he was there in his role as Kline's protector, not as an enemy.

  The smell of rotting was nauseating as he drew close to the door and he swallowed the wetness rising in his throat.

  Halloran went on by the door, going to the window at the tar end of the hallway. He pushed aside half-drawn curtains, the coarse material stiffened with dust, and rubbed a palm against the dirt on the glass, clearing a section to see out. Moonlight glimmered from the roof and bonnet of the Mercedes below; the iron bars of the entrance gates looked blackly solid; the undergrowth opposite seemed impenetrable. Light withered as a cloud rolled over the moon.

  Halloran returned to the door, his torch haloing the handle. fie pressed his ear close to the wood, but heard no sounds from the other side. Hitching the bag so that it was secure on his shoulder, he reached for the doorhandle.

  He was sure the door would be locked. It wasn't.

  He expected to use force to push the door open. It opened smoothly.

  He thought he would confront the lodge-keeper, the guardian of the gates.

  Instead he met his past.

  34 INTO THE PIT

  Kline moaned as Khayed ministered the lotion to his ruptured skin. The burning would soon pass, the Arab assured him, and Kline knew the truth of what he said; his loyal servants had soothed him with their oils many times before. But that was when the sloughing of his skin had been expected, had become a ritual, a ceremony to be indulged in, to be celebrated, for it was the outward sign of spiritual rejuvenation.

  And a continuance of his own servitude.

  He uttered a cry, more in fear than in pain. Daoud misunderstood and hurried forward with the syringe.

  'Mouallem?' Kline saw the needle and raised a hand to deny the morphine, for the drug would dim his thoughts, euphoria would blunt the danger that was so close. Yet his senses were already hindered, for dread gnawed at them like some avaricious parasite. The killing that day of the enemy within had not calmed his unease, as he thought it would; instead the mental effort had further drained his psyche, and weakened him physically. The death of Quinn-Reece had not resolved his own anguish, but had merely contributed to his present condition.

  He beckoned Daoud forward again, speaking to the Arab in his native tongue. 'A moderate amount, Youssef. Enough only to soften my . . .' he almost said fear'. . . my pain.' The needle was like a blade heated by fire, but Kline's scream swiftly relaxed to a sigh as his senses began to float. Soon he dreamed, but in truth, it was a memory . . . . . he lowered himself into the pit, terribly afraid. It was so deep, so black. But for that reason, it would yield even greater treasures. Why else should it be so skilfully concealed from the other sepulchres? The reward for his courage would indeed be great! The Jewish merchant in Jerusalem had promised him that. Journey to Ur, find employment with the English archaeologist. He needs men of ed
ucation, people who can direct the lazy and treacherous labourers, and who will appreciate and understand the cultural value of his great discovery. The Arabs will obey because the Englishman will put his trust in you and they will have little choice. You are clever, you are cunning. Bring back to me what ,small treasures you can easily steal and I will make you a rich man, for I have collectors who will pay kings' ransoms for the most meagre of items from the fabulous and glorious era! These Arabs are plunderers, destroyers, scum of the earth, and care nothing for their heritage. They will allow their own history to be taken from them by foreigners. But we will profit by their stupidity, my young friend. And we will bring great joy to those who honour such relics.

  The journey to the Royal Cemetery of Ur had been long and wearisome and he had worried that the dig would be over by the time he arrived there; but no, there was still much work to be done, many more tombs that lay at the bottom of deep shafts beneath thousands of surface graves to be revealed. And the merchant had been correct: the team of foreigners needed several of his ilk to organise the transient labour force, arrange permits and payroll, maintain supplies and medicines, as well as sectoring the site against thieving infiltrators. He had worked diligently, never becoming too greedy with his own finds, taking only those objects small enough to be smuggled safely from the camp to the single roam he had rented inside the city, a place where he could hide his private cache and where every so often, the merchant from Jerusalem would arrive to relieve him of the treasures. The system worked well and when all was complete, the merchant assured him, the profits would be admirable.

  He had not come upon the secret tunnel leading to the pit by accident, for he had always had the gift, the seeing in the mind, the ability to predict a death before it was claimed, a birth before conception, to judge beforehand good fortune for some, tragedy for others. Even when he was a child, should his mother lose a needle, it was he whom she urged to find it; .should his father misplace an article, it was the boy who sought out its hiding place. Later, when his gift became known to others, it was he who was taken into arid territories to locate a source of water beneath the soil so that new settlements could be built around it. Rewards for that rare inner knowledge had paid for his welfare and education after his entire family had been taken by disease (strangely a tragedy he had not been able to predict). So it was that the merchant realised the young man's potential when the great find outside the distant city of Ur in the land where the ancient Sumerians had once reigned became world news. Who better then to seek out those exquisite but concealed antiquities that would end up as mere exhibits in some stuffy London museum unless re-directed elsewhere?

  On his very first day inside that vast labyrinth of shafts and corridors, hidden rooms and sepulchres, lie had become confused and almost overwhelmed by mourning voices of the dead, whose spirits were locked beneath the earth, for their human vessels had taken their own lives to be with their deceased kings and queens, and their high priests. Over the weeks that followed he had learned to shut out those incorporeal murmurings from his mind; yet one sensing persisted throughout, something that was not a spiritual utterance, but a kind of pulse, a split-second shifting of atmosphere, as if time itself had hiccuped.

  He would feel it but once or twice a day, never more than that. At first he had believed it was a physical phenomenon, a faraway subsidence, but no one else ever noticed the brief disturbance. The deeper he worked his way into the complex layers of tombs, the louder- or more sensed the unheard 'sound'

  became. Then one evening, when the day's labour was done, the workmen returned to their tents or hovels outside the city walls, and the foreigners retired to their lodgings, he had wandered alone through the lowest chambers, drawn by he knew not what, but compelled towards a destiny he had never dreamed of.

  The secret tunnel was behind an empty room at the furthermost extremity of the Royal Cemetery, a square space that had puzzled the learned archaeologists, for it seemed to have no purpose: its walls were bare and there were no casks or ornaments within. It was merely an isolated chamber, one that was reached by crouching low along a lengthy corridor which had many turns and dips.

  The pulse had come as he had stood in that soulless room, and this time it was as though he had really heard the sound. The walls themselves had seemed to tremble. Startled, he had swung his lamp around and the light had caused a shadow on one wall. He moved closer to inspect the shadow and found a mud brick jutting out a fraction from its neighbours. He had used the trowel he carried, standard equipment along with brushes for the diggers, to cut round the brick and ease it from the wall. The stench of released gases sent him reeling backwards.

  He approached again more cautiously, and the smell was still strong but less of a shock. Other mud bricks easily came loose and soon a passageway was exposed. A dreadful fear had overcome him then and he had almost run from that place. But a curious fascination stayed him.

  He crawled into the narrow passage, holding the lamp before his face.

  The passage led downwards, so steeply at certain points that he had to use his strength to prevent himself tumbling forward.

  Before long it opened out into a wide circular chamber, at the centre of which was a gaping hole, an open pit. Around the opening lay human bones, their rotting robes those of high priests and priestesses.

  Resting against the walls were clay tablets of cuneiform writing, wedge-shaped signs that represented words or syllables. He trod carefully to the edge of the pit and stared dawn at the blackness. That was when his fear became too much to bear, for something was urging him to descend, an inner compulsion inviting him to leap.

  And the mind-sound was a sound, disgorging from the pit.

  THUD-UP He had fled.

  Despite his terror, he had resealed the opening to the secret passageway, using dirt from the floor to cover the cracks (not that the room was of any interest to Sir Leonard and his team of archaeologists, who had treasures in abundance to drool aver without bothering with empty chambers). This discovery would be his alone.

  Four days went by before he gained enough courage to venture down to that pit again, four days of nagging agitation and four nights of feverish nightmares. He knew he would go back; the difficulty was finding the will to do so.

  He waited until evening once more when all digging had stopped, only a few guards that he, himself, had helped organise left on duty above ground. This time he returned to the pit with rope and stanchion . . .

  . . . Kline wailed as he slept and Khayed and Daoud leaned over him anxiously . . .

  . . . and fearfully, his limbs trembling so badly that lee almoyt lost his grip, lowered himself over the edge of the pit. He descended slowly, drawn by an allure he could not comprehend, his lamp dangling below him, attached to his waist by thick string. He was aware that something evil awaited him, something ancient and cruel, for his dreams over the past few nights had revealed that at least to him, although no images, no visions of what it was, were presented. For in his sleep he had tasted the joys of carnality, had been seduced by the delights of depravity, had been pleasured by the thrill of vileness. The dreams had promised that those glories would be his if . . . if . . . if . . . he would but claim them. And to claim them, he would have to descend the pit.

  THUD-UP!

  The pulse was thunderous, reverberating around the shaft, causing a tremor, dislodging dust. His grip on the rope slipped and he plunged.

  But not far.

  For the pit was not deep at all. Its very blackness had created that illusion.

  His legs buckled and he crashed onto his back, the lamp toppling over, fortunately still burning. Without pause to regather his breath, he reached out and righted the lamp lest he be cast into complete darkness.

  Only then did he suck in the foul air and feel the pain of his jarred body.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position, his back against the crumbling wall, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and frightened.

  Opposite wa
s a niche. A square hole that was no more than two foot high, cleverly concealed in shadow so that no one above would ever realise it was there.

  It was some time before he was able to crawl towards the niche.

  The lamp revealed a closed receptacle of some kind inside, its surface dulled by centuries of dust. He brushed shivery fingers across the front and felt metal; bumps and ridges that might have been symbols were embossed on what must have been a door, for set in one side was a small projection that served as a handle.

  He stared. He did not want to open it. He knew he was going to.

  His hand shook so violently he could barely grasp the handle. Squeezing his fingers tight around it, he tugged.

  The door opened easily.

  And his scream threatened to bring the walls of the pit down on him. . .

  . . . Kline's scream caused Khayed and Daoud to leap away from the bed in surprise. They quickly ran forward again and babbled soothing words to their master, assuring him it was only a nightmare, that he was safe under their watchful protection, nothing would harm him while they lived and breathed.

  He looked from one to the other, his face a cracked mask of seams and ruptures. Suddenly he understand. 'He's dying,' Kline rasped.

  35 THE WAITING GAME

  He watched the Granada cruise by, its headlights brightening both sides of the narrow road. Keeping low and pulling aside minimum foliage so that he could observe but not be seen, he checked that there were still only two occupants in the patrol car. When it was gone, he stood and held up his wristwatch, waiting a moment or two for the moon to re-appear from behind rolling clouds. Just under twenty minutes this time. The driver varied his speed during the circuit around the estate so that there was never a regular time interval between certain points. The driver of the second patrol car did the same.