Of course, it kept us moving ever down those steps. And they did seem to go on and on – sometimes winding one way, now another; sometimes going down in a straight line. Once or twice, I slipped where the steps had been worn away, and my lamp nearly went out. More often, it was just a matter of keeping my head from knocking against the unsmoothed granite of the ceiling. At last, though, we stood again on level ground. I couldn’t say how far down we were, or which way we were now pointed. I gave the job up as useless. It was impossible to estimate anything. The air continued good, the breeze now more noticeable. I forced myself not to speculate on another entrance. Those bastards still had Martin.
Chapter 62
We were now in another corridor, much higher and wider than the first. Much greater care had been taken with hollowing out and shaping what may also have been a natural fault in the rock. So far as I could see, this followed a more or less straight course, though there was a continued downward slope that prevented us from seeing even as far ahead as the lamps threw their light. How far from the surface were we? I kept asking myself and asking again. How much deeper must we go? No point in asking, I told myself. It went as far as it went. I held my lamp and took a firm step forward.
As said, this was a higher and wider corridor. Its surfaces were more finely chiselled. If wondering how far it went was pointless, I couldn’t help but wonder how this had been carved. Even assuming there had been some original pathway through the rock, this was granite. The work of hollowing and smoothing with such perfection of finish, and of carrying away the rubbish, must have taken whole armies of men, slaving down here for decades. In its own way, this was no less remarkable than the Pyramids. All else aside, why had this been done?
Again, I put the questions out of mind. I looked instead at the reliefs. This time, there was no doubt of them. They stretched along this corridor on both sides. Ugly, depressing things they were, too. They had nothing Egyptian about them. They were in a style more realistic than I’d seen from the Egyptians, though also less varied. Whatever race had produced them showed a partiality for violence and pain unusual by any standards. A recurring theme was the siege and capture of towns. Machines of great ingenuity would be employed to break down or undermine defensive walls. Once through the walls, the attackers would go into a frenzy, sparing neither children nor women and the aged. They would kill by stabbing and dismembering and cutting to pieces as if in a slaughterhouse. Their male prisoners they would take pleasure in hanging on low gallows, so that the feet touched the ground. Sometimes, they would pack straw round the feet of their victims, or wrap them entirely in straw, and then light a fire.
For a full quarter-mile the reliefs extended. When their authors tired of siege warfare, they turned to more individual atrocities: pots filled with burning liquid placed on the heads of tied victims; women strapped on to beds of nails and ravished with immense, heated phalluses; children thrown into vats of corrosive fluid. And every few yards, in couples or trios, embracing or delicately reaching out to touch finger to finger, you could see the insanely grinning perpetrators of these horrors. How old the reliefs were I couldn’t say. They must have been thousands of years old. They might – if Lucas and his odd chronology were to be taken seriously – be tens of thousands. The granite from which they were carved was, of course, unweathered and immortal. But the paint that had once covered the whole in a coat of bright colour was long since faded. In the lamplight, it was barely more in places than a uniform brown. But every one of those mad, evil faces, I could easily see, had once been topped with a mass of golden hair.
Onward along that silent corridor we walked. I say these things went on and on. After a while, though, I stopped looking. After what I’d seen done to living flesh in Alexandria, you might think none of this could have much effect on me. But there is a difference between what is done from some shadow of regard for the public good, and is an admitted deviation from the normal course of government, and what is gloatingly celebrated in what may be the best art of a race manifestly superior in the art of war to those attacked and conquered and eradicated for pleasure. Priscus himself might have learned something from all this. Priscus himself might even have been rattled by the immense iteration and reiteration of horrors.
I tried to start a debate with the Bishop about the orthodox claim that ‘at no point was the difference between the Natures taken away from the Union, but rather the property of both Natures is preserved and comes together into a Single Person and a single Subsistent Being.’ He made a faint effort, and the mere sound of our voices, as we went over words traded again and again on the surface, brought some cheer in that place of dry and ever colder silence.
We ran into trouble after perhaps half a mile of our twisting downward course. At first, it seemed we were reaching a dead-end. As we got close enough, though, for our lamps to make sense of the dim shapes outside the immediate pool of light, I could see that it was a door. Better described, it was one of those stone slabs you read about that drop from the ceiling and close off all access beyond. In Egypt – elsewhere in the Empire too in the days of the Old Faith – the rich would try endless elaborations of these things to keep their embalmed corpses and their grave goods safe. Fat lot of good it ever seems to have done: if not because of tomb raiders, why else are the antiquities markets so often glutted?
‘We could go back and bring down men with tools,’ the Bishop suggested.
I shook my head. I had no wish to turn back now. Besides, getting anyone else down here might be more trouble than it was worth. If there was any way through this door, it wasn’t to be had by brute force. I leaned against the slab and pushed hard. I took the pressure off, then leaned again. There was no movement.
‘There may be some hidden lever,’ I said. There was any number of concealed openings in the Imperial Palace back in Constantinople. Three centuries of palace intrigue around emperors, sometimes driven mad by fear of being trapped, had left the place riddled with secret tunnels. Most had been forgotten on the death of the commissioning Emperor. Many led to the least likely places. I’d seen enough of these on my exploratory trips with Heraclius to know the ingenuity with which the rocking levers that opened them could be blended into the surroundings. As said, the decorative scheme here tended to the elaborate, and it was a matter of feeling round for a concealed depression.
Whatever we did next, there was no point in hurrying. By unspoken agreement, this was an opportunity for rest and reflection. We sat down on the floor. We chewed slowly and in silence on some bread and dried dates and drank some of the water the Bishop had been carrying on his back.
‘My son,’ he said, now looking for words of greater directness than he’d needed for theological dispute, ‘for what little comfort it may bring, I will say that, if I had influence over any but the unarmed Sheep of Christ, I would never allow what is happening. As it is, I will, if required, excommunicate the renegade Egyptian and write to the Greek Patriarch in Alexandria about the shameful conduct of the Lord Priscus.’
I nodded. Flowery thanks would have been less convincing. So too would a pretended conversion to the Monophysite heresy. Martin had done good work with the man. We might yet have a way out of this mess. The Bishop prayed awhile in Egyptian, interpreting every line into Greek for my benefit. I tried to look solemn as I thought again how stingy Priscus had been in not having any wine packed for us.
‘I am wondering, My Lord’ – Macarius spoke for the first time since we’d left the surface – ‘if these tunnels might not be an elaborate ruse to throw us off the true path. Might not this doorway be nothing more than a carving into the solid rock? I have heard of such in tombs.’
I continued chewing on the rough bread. I’d been thinking the same. If this were a diversion, it might mean retracing our steps all the way to the surface, and examining every inch along the way. There might be another concealed way from the entrance chamber. There might even be another entrance from the surface, and the function of the one through wh
ich we’d entered was to draw attention from this.
‘No,’ I said after a long silence. I got up and pointed. ‘Those torch brackets have been used too often to suggest this is just a dead-end. Look at the soot marks on the ceiling. There must be centuries of deposits there.’ I was about to mention the good air: it had to be coming from somewhere. But I found myself staring back along the way we’d come. I was at just the right angle to see. ‘Look at the floor,’ I cried eagerly. I pointed again, now downward. It was so plain, I could hardly understand why we’d not seen it as we came here. The floors nearest the walls were as rough as when first chiselled out of the rock. The central couple of feet, however, were worn smooth, and in places shiny, from the passing and repassing of many feet. This smooth smear on the granite came from as far along the corridor as we could see, but stopped short about six feet from where we were sitting.
‘There’s a hidden door in the wall!’ Macarius hissed. There might be. Or there might have been some hidden entrance in the floor or the ceiling. One thing for certain was that people had come to and gone away from a certain point in that corridor, but then had come no further towards where we were sitting.
It was in the floor. Now that we were looking, the slab in the floor couldn’t have been more obvious. Though of the same granite as everything else, the more finished texture of the stone would have shown its nature even without the tiny shadow made by the gap that ran about it. Running my hands over it, I could feel that this was the source of the draught that had kept the air pure around us. Less obvious was how to lift the thing. I must have fumbled my way over every square inch of wall space several yards either way along the corridor. I ran hands over the grosser or more theatrical tortures shown in the reliefs. I tapped on every carved protrusion from the background of burning cities. I found no hidden lever. I had little doubt there was one. If not on the walls, it would be on the ceiling or on the floor. It was a question of looking.
‘See – it moves!’ the Bishop suddenly cried, stepping back from one of the torch brackets. He’d pulled gently on the ring that was to hold the base of any torch. With a gentle rumble, the slab in the floor had moved upwards a fraction of an inch. This should have been the mostly likely suspect, and I couldn’t understand how I’d not thought of it first.
‘After so long,’ Macarius said as he bent down to look at the slab, ‘the mechanism may have perished. I suggest you pull gently. The moment there is a gap opened, I will push in this water flask to stop it from falling back.’
Good idea, I thought. I took a deep breath, then pulled firmly but slowly on the bracket.
With a sudden rush of air, the slab flew upward on powerful hinges, and flipped over on to its back. The crash was deafening. It echoed up and down the way we’d come as if a hundred other doors had smashed all at the same time on to the granite floor. If it hadn’t been heard right back at the entrance, it would have been a surprise. As it was, I barely noticed at first how the rush of air had blown our lamps straight out.
‘We must go back after all,’ the Bishop said mournfully out of the blackness. ‘We must go back for more light.’
I felt his hand reach out for me. I took it in the darkness and squeezed – as much to receive as to give reassurance. It felt suddenly colder without the light. I was much more aware of how loud our breathing was in the surrounding silence. Everything seemed suddenly so much more open, but also more oppressive. Until I wasn’t able to see them, I hadn’t realised how comforting those ghastly reliefs had become. It would be impossible to get lost on the way back. The single corridor led, with whatever twisting, to only one place. However far it might be, the way back was clear and open. Still, I had to fight with all my courage – and all my pride – against the urge to turn and bolt.
‘Stand where you are and be silent!’ Macarius hissed beside us.
I heard him go through his satchel. He cursed and muttered in Egyptian. I heard things drop on to the floor and then his rummaging among them. Then I heard the striking together of flint and steel, and saw the bright sparks. Four – perhaps five – times, the sparks jumped and went dark again. At last, I saw a comforting glow as the dried weeds caught fire. Another few moments, and he was pushing the horn protector into place on his own relit and now refilled lamp.
Chapter 63
While Macarius refilled the other two, I pushed the lamp that was now lit down as far as I could reach. It flickered in the upward draught and nearly went out again. What it showed was another flight of steps. Though worn, these were of better workmanship than the first. How far they led I couldn’t say. But, four feet wide, they led straight down. On either side of them now were walls of smoothly shaped and mortared stone. As if reading my thoughts, Macarius tugged at the displaced slab. It was enormously heavy. Even with my help, it couldn’t be lifted back into place. Of course, we were all alone down here. No one would follow us in. Anyone who might follow us in had no interest in closing the stone over us. But we strained and shuffled and gasped for breath over that slab before we felt confident enough to give our full attention to this new flight of steps. As ever, I went first.
I counted a hundred and seventy-nine steps, and each one had a regular drop of perhaps ten inches. That made near enough another descent of a hundred and fifty feet. I was beginning to shake again with fear. It didn’t matter that the air was as fresh as on the surface, or that granite was the least likely of any rock to collapse upon us. It reminded me of the journeys into the Underworld described by the poets of the Old Faith.
We were now in an immense cavern. Even holding up our lamps and straining to see into the gloom didn’t give us more than a vague idea of its walls and ceiling. From what I could see, there had been a limited effort to reshape its features. The floor had been smoothed, and there were a few courses of stonework. Otherwise, it was much as nature had left it. Now we’d emerged from the narrowness of the steps, the draught was no longer perceptible. Its only evidence was the continued dry smell of nothing in particular. Had we now reached the level of the Nile? I wondered. If so, there had been no seepage of damp into this cavern. I stepped forward.
‘A moment, please, My Lord,’ Macarius said.
I stopped and waited while he got out one of the spare lamps, lit it and set it on the fourth step leading up. He was right. We’d need some reference point for getting back. But now, which way? Should we try to hug the walls and trace the limits of the cavern? Or should we strike out for its centre? I chose the latter. My lamp threw a pool of light that was reliable within a six-foot radius. Beyond that was gloom and then darkness. By looking back at the glow on the steps, we were able to navigate a straight path across the floor. This was far less regular in its finish than in the corridors. It was also more cluttered. There were pieces of smashed furniture and scraps of cloth that might once have been clothing.
Perhaps a hundred feet from the bottom of the stairs, we came across a stone block. Of shaped granite, it was about six feet long and three wide. Its top was about a yard above the floor, and had depressions carved into it that reminded me of a bed that the slaves haven’t yet had time to pat into shape. Even without the ancient stains that showed dark on the darkness of the stone, it was plain what function the block had served. As the Bishop muttered more of his prayers in Egyptian, I stepped back. I felt something crunch and give underfoot. I bent down and picked up some strips of withered leather. Restraining thongs look the same in all times and places. I dropped them again and wiped my hands on my outer tunic.
‘Why bring victims down all this way?’ I asked. ‘Those reliefs don’t indicate any sense of shame about their tastes. Why bother with any secrecy at all?’
The Bishop folded his arms and pushed his head even further onto his chest as he continued praying. Macarius had gone off about twenty feet. He’d set his lamp on the floor and was making scraping sounds nearby. Good idea! I thought. I left the Bishop to his communion with God and joined Macarius in gathering up some of the broken furniture.
We arranged it into a tight pile on top of the block. It was so dry that the merest touch from the flame of one of our lamps was enough to set it burning. The ancient wood made almost no sound as the flames consumed it. The slight and pale smoke was carried gently back towards the steps where the lamp still burned. For the first time, we had enough light to see properly round this cavern.
The roof was too high or too dark to be seen. But we could now see the continuation of the reliefs, carved into the stonework that ran in stretches round the walls. At regular spaces, we saw doorways set into the walls. Each of these was flanked by statues of alarming ugliness and ferocity. Our eyes were drawn, though, to what must have been the centre of the cavern. Here, a single statue rose about fifteen feet and glowered down at us from eyeholes cut deep into the stone. It had nothing about it of the smooth serenity the Greeks in their best days gave to their art. Nor had it the dull smoothness of the Egyptians. Instead, the thing radiated an arrogant nastiness that made me want to look away. ‘It’s your business to know who I am,’ it seemed to sneer. ‘Who you are is a matter for you alone.’ Rising diagonally from the waist was a giant erection that much attention had polished to a gleam. The arms, pressed together, were outstretched slightly downward over a stone tub about the size of an Egyptian sarcophagus. A flight of steps led up to a stone platform about five feet below its shoulders. I swallowed, guessing what I’d find, and went over to climb the steps. I looked down into the tub.
The Blood of Alexandria Page 46