by Wilbur Smith
hieroglyphics that spelled out the stem warning: "Stranger!
The gods are watching. Disturb the king's eternal rest at your peril!'
reaking the seals on the doorway was a momentous act, and despite the
fact that the time before the onset of the rains was fast running out,
neither of them was prepared to undertake it lightly.
They had to make every effort to keep permanent re ds cor of everything
they discovered, and to inflict as little damage as possible while
gaining access.
They spent one of their precious remaining days preparing for the
break-in to the tomb. Naturally, Nicholas's first concern was the
security of the tomb area. He asked Mek Nimmur to place an armed guard
on the causeway over the sink-hole in the approach tunnel, and access
beyond this point was restricted. Only Nicholas, Royan, Sapper, Mek,
Tessay and four of the monks whom Nicholas had selected were allowed
across the bridge.
Hansith Sherif had proved himself repeatedly during the clearing of the
lower tunnel. Physically strong, willing and intelligent, he had become
Nicholas's principal assistant. It was Hansith who carried the tripod
and spare camera equipment while Nicholas photographed the approach
tunnel and the sealed doorway. He shot three rolls of high-speed film to
make certain that they had a complete record of the unbroken seals and
the doorway surrounds. Only when the filming was completed would
Nicholas allow Hansith and the other three monks to bring up the tools
needed for the break-in.
Sapper moved the Honda generator up as far as the sink-hole, to reduce
the voltage drop over the distance that the current had to travel down
the cable. Then he set up, the floodlights on the upper landing of the
staircase and focused them on the white expanse of the plastered
doorway.
VAen they assembled at the threshold they were all in a sober mood.
Despite the fact that the tomb was thousands of years old, it was still
an act of desecration that they were about to perpetrate. Royan had
translated the hieroglyphic warning on the sealed doorway to Sapper, Mek
and Tessay, and none of them was prepared to take it lightly.
Nicholas marked out the square opening he intended cutting through the
plaster covering, This was large enough to afford access, but it also
enclosed the royal cartouche and Tatia's maimed hawk seal. He intended
lifting these out in one piece, and preserving them intact. In his
imagination, he could already see them displayed in a prominent position
in the museum at Quenton Park.
Nicholas began on the right'hand upper corner of the opening. First he
used a long, needle-sharp awl as a probe.
He pressed and twisted the needle point through the dried clay in an
attempt to determine exactly what lay beneath the surface. Very soon he
found out that the plaster had been laid over laths of finely interwoven
reeds.
"That makes it a lot-easier," he told Royan. "The reed mat will help to
hold the plaster together and prevent it cracking and breaking up."
He kept working the point of the awl deeper, until suddenly the
resistance gave way and the blade ran in Its full length.
"Six inches," he said, measuring the thickness of the door off the
blade. "Taita never skimps, does he? It's a heavy bit of work."
Still using the awl, Nicholas drilled all four corners of the square
opening he intended cutting. Then he stepped back and gestured for
Hansith to bring up the heavy four-inch gimlet to enlarge them. This was
the type of drill that fishermen use for cutting through lake ice in
winter.
As soon as the gimlet broke through, Nicholas impatiently pulled Hansith
aside and peered into the hole.
Beyond the opening all was completely dark, but he caught a whiff of the
faint breath of ancient air that washed through the opening. The odour
was dry and dead and austere, the smell of the ages long past.
"What do you see?" Royan demanded at his elbow.
"The light! Give me the light!" he ordered, and when Sapper handed it to
him, he held it to the opening.
"Tell me!" Royan was dancing beside him with impatience. "What do you
see now?"
"Colours!" he whispered. "The most marvelous, indescribable colours." He
stepped back and, lifting her around the waist, held her so that she
could look into the aperture.
"Beautiful!" she cried. "It's so beautiful."
The men rigged up the heavy-duty electric blower fan which would
circulate the air in the shaft, while Nicholas prepared the chain-saw.
When he was ready, Nicholas handed Royan a pair of goggles and a dust
mask and helped her to adjust them. Then he made her fit a pair of wax
ear plugs.
Before he started the chain-saw, he sent the rest of them back down the
tunnel as far as the causeway over the sinkholes In the confined space
the exhaust fumes from the chain-saw and the dust, together with the
noise of the petrol engine, would be overpowering, but apart from that
he wanted only Royan with him at the moment of the break'in.
When they were alone, Nicholas switched the blower fan to its highest
speed, then donned his own mask and goggles and plugged his ears. He
pulled the starter cord of the chain-saw motor and it burst into life in
a cloud of blue exhaust smoke.
Nicholas braced himself and pressed the spinning chain blade into the
gimlet hole in the plastered doorway.
It cut through the thick white plaster and the laths beneath it like a
knife through the icing on a wedding cake.
Carefully he ran the cutting edge down the line he had marked out.
A cloud of flying white plaster dust filled the air.
Within seconds they could see only a few feet in front of their eyes.
Doggedly Nicholas kept the cut going, down the right -hand side, across
the bottom, then up the left side. Finally he made the last cut across
the top, and when the square trapdoor began to sag forward under its own
weight he killed the engine of the chain'saw and set it aside.
Royan jumped forwards to help him, and together in the eddies of dust
and smoke they steadied the square of plaster and prevented it from
crashing to the paving and shattering into a thousand pieces. Gently
they lifted it out from the opening and, with the seals still intact,
laid it against the side wall of the landing.
The open hatchway they had cut through the plaster was a dark square.
Nicholas adjusted the floodlight to shine through it, but the dust was
still too dense for them to be able to see much of the interior.
Nicholas climbed through the hatch into the space beyond. All was
obscured by a dense fog of dust that not even the lamps could penetrate.
He did not attempt to explore further, but immediately turned back to
help Royan through the opening after him.
He recognized her right to share every moment of this discovery. Beyond
the wall they stood quietly together, waiting for the blower fan to
clear the air. Slowly the dust fog began to dissipate, and the first
thing they became aware of was
the floor beneath their feet.
No longer made of stone slabs, it was covered with tiles of yellow agate
that had been polished to a gloss and fitted together so cunningly that
no joints were visible. It was like a single sheet of lovely opaque
glass, dulled only by the film of fine talcum dust that had settled upon
it.
Where their feet had disturbed the layer of dust the agate sparkled
through it, catching the light of the floodlamp.
Then the fog of dust that surrounded them thinned, and gradually a
miraculous blaze of colours and shapes began to appear through the murk.
Royan lifted the dust mask from her face and let it drop to the agate
floor.
Nicholas followed her example, and took a breath of the stagnant air. No
draught had disturbed it for thousands of years and it had the odour of
great antiquity, the musty smell of the linen bandages of an embalmed
corpse.
Now the miasma of dust faded away and before them opened a long straight
passageway, the end of which was hidden in shadow and darkness. Nicholas
turned back to the opening in the sealed door behind them, and reached
through it to bring in the fioodlight on its stand. Quickly he arranged
it to illuminate the full length of the passageway ahead of them.
As they started forward, the images of the old gods hovered around them.
They glowered at the intruders from the walls and hung over them,
watching them with huge and hostile eyes from the ceiling high overhead.
Nicholas and Royan passed on slowly. Their footfalls on the agate tiles
were muted by the thin carpet of dust, and the dust that still hung in
the air reflected the light and cast over them a luminous net that had
an ethereal, dreamlike quality.
Inscriptions covered every inch of space upon the walls and the high
roof. There were long quotations from all the mystical writings, from
the Book of Breathings, the Book of the Pylons and the Book of Wisdom.
Other blocks of hieroglyphics recited the history of Pharaoh Mamose's
existence on this earth, and extolled those virtues that made the gods
love him.
Further along they came to the first of eight shrines set into the walls
of the long funeral gallery. This one was the shrine of Osiris. It was a
circular chamber, the curved wall decorated with texts in praise of the
god, and in its niche a small statue of Osiris in his tall feathered
head-dress, with eyes of onyx and rock crystal which stared at them so
lacably that Royan shivered. Nicholas reached out and gently touched the
foot of the god.
He said one word, "Gold!'
Then he looked up at the towering mural that covered the wall and half
the domed ceiling above and around the shrine. It was another gigantic
figure of the father Osiris, god of the Underworld, with his green face
and false beard, his arms crossed upon his chest, holding the flail and
the crook, wearing his tall feathered head-dress and with the erect
cobra on his brow. They gazed up at him with a sense of awe. As the
lamplight wavered in the shifting dust cloud LEI the god seemed to
become imbued with life, and to move and sway before their eyes.
They did not linger at the first shrine, for beyond it the gallery ran
on, straight as the flight of an arrow to its target. They followed it.
The next shrine set into the wall was dedicated to the goddess. The
golden figure of Isis sat in her niche, upon the throne that was her
symbol. The infant Horus suckled at her breast. Her eyes were ivory and
blue lapis lazuli.
Her murals covered the walls around her niche. There she was, the mother
with great kohl-lined eyes as black as night, wearing the sun disc and
the horns of the sacred cow pon her head. All around her, hieroglyphic
symbols covered the wall, so bright that they glowed like a cloud of
fireflies; for she possessed a hundred diverse names.
Amongst these were Ast and Net and Bast. She was also Ptah and Seker and
Mersekert and Rennut. Each of these names was a word of power, for her
sanctity and her benevolent aura had lived on where most of the old gods
had withered away for lack of worshippers to repeat and keep alive these
mystic names.
In ancient Byzantium and later in Christian Egypt they had bestowed the
old goddess's virtues and attributes upon the Virgin Mary. The image of
her suckling the infant Horus had been perpetuated in the icons of the
Madonna and child. Thus Royan responded to the goddess in all her
entities, the mingled blood of Royan's forefathers in her veins
acknowledging both Isis and Mary, heresy and truth mingling inextricably
in her heart, so that she felt at once both guilt and religious elation.
In the next shrine was a golden figure of Horus, the falcon-headed, the
last of the holy trinity. In his right hand he held the war-bow and in
his left the ankh, for life and death were his to dispense. His eyes
were red carrielians.
Portraits of his other entities surrounded the statue: Horus the infant,
suckling at the breast of Isis, Horus as the divine youth Harpocrates,
proud and lithe and beautiful, one finger touching his chin in the
ritual gesture, striding out on sandalled feet under his short, stiff
kilt.
Then Horus the falcon-headed, sometimes with the body of a lion and then
with the body of a young warrior, wearing the great crown of the south
and the north united.
Beneath him was the inscription: "Great God and Lord of Heaven, of
nunifest power, Mighty one anwngst all the gods, whose strength has
vanqUished the foes of his divine father, Osiris."
the fourth shrine stood Seth, the arch-fiend, the god of violence and
discord. His body was gold, but his head was the head of a black hyena.
In the fifth shrine stood the god of the dead and of the cemeteries,
Anubis the jackal-headed. It was he who officiated at the embalming, and
whose duty it was to examine the tongue of the great balance when the
heart of the eceased was weighed. If the beam of the scales were
exactly horizontal, then the dead man was declared worthy, but if the
balance tipped against him Anubis threw the heart to the crocodile
monster and it was devoured.
The sixth shrine was dedicated to the god of writing, Thoth. He had the
head of a sacred this and his stylus was in his hand. In the seventh
shrine the sacred cow Had stood squarely on all four hooves, her piebald
body spotted black and white, her face benignly human but with huge,
trumpet-shaped ears, The eighth shrine was the largest and most splendid
of all, for it belonged to Amon-Ra, father of all creation. He was the
sun, an enormous golden disc from which the slanting golden rays
emanated, Nicholas paused here and looked back down the long gallery.
Those eight -sacred statues comprised a treasure that matched anything
that Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon had discovered in the tomb of
Tutankhamen.
He felt in his heart that it was crass even to consider their monetary
value. However, the simple truth was that even one of these
extraordinary works of
art would be sufficient to pay off all his debts
many times over. But he thrust the thought aside and turned once more to
face the commodious chamber at the far end of the gallery.
"The burial chamber," Royan murmured with awe. "The tomb."
As they walked towards it the shadows retreated before A them, like the
ghost of the long-dead pharaoh scurrying back to its final resting
place. Now they could see into the tomb, Its walls were aflame with
still more magnificent murals. Though they had gazed upon so many of
these already, their eyes and their senses were not yet jaded or wearied
by such profusion.
A single elongated figure rose up the far wall, and then stooped across
the ceiling. It was the supple, sinuous body the goddess Nut, giving
birth to the sun. The gold
en rays poured forth from her open womb, suffusing the sarcophagus of
the pharaoh and endowing the dead king with new life.
The royal sarcophagus stood in the centre of the chamber, a massive
coffin hewn from a solid granite block.
How many slaves must have laboured to bring this mass of stone along the
subterranean passages, Nicholas wondered.
He could imagine their sweating bodies gleaming in the lamplight, and
hear the grating squeal of the wooden rollers under the immense weight
of the coffin.
, Then Nicholas looked down into the coffin, and felt the plunge of his
spirits as he realized that the sarcophagus was empty. The massive
granite lid had been lifted from its seat, and flung aside with such
violence that it had cracked across its width and now lay in two pieces
on the floor beside the coffin.
They moved forward slowly, the bitter taste of disappointment mingling
with the dust upon their tongues, until they could look down into the
open sarcophagus. It contained only the shattered fragments of the four
canopic jars. These vessels had been carved from alabaster to contain
the entrails, liver and other internal organs of the king. The broken
lids were decorated with the heads of gods and fabulous creatures from
beyond the grave.
"Empty!" whispered Royan. "The body of the king has gone."
Over the following days, while they photographed the murals and packed
the statues of the eight gods and goddesses from the funeral gallery,
Royan and Nicholas discussed and argued the disappearance of the royal