The Seventh Scroll tes-2

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