The Seventh Scroll

by Wilbur Smith

  This whole length of the tunnel had also been submerged, for it lay below the natural level of the river before it had been dammed. The paving under their feet was wet and covered with a slime that had not yet had time to dry out since it had been exposed by the receding waters. The roof and walls of the tunnel ran with moisture, and the air was dank and cold and smelled of mud and rot.

  They waited for Sapper to string the cables for the lights across the causeway. He set up the lamps and switched them on. At once they were aware that ahead of them the shaft had begun to rise at an angle of about twenty degrees.

  ‘You can see what the old devil Taita was up to here. He has taken us down well below water level to flood the tunnel to a length and depth that nobody would be able to swim along. Now he is angling up again,’ Nicholas pointed out to Royan. They started forward, moving slowly up the ascending shaft, and Nicholas counted aloud each pace he took.

  ‘One hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten—’ suddenly they came to the recent low river level. It was clearly marked as a dry line on the walls of the tunnel. The paving under their feet was also dry and free of the slippery coating of slime. Fifty paces further on they passed the high flood level of the river, which was just as clearly etched on the rock floor and the walls. Beyond that the tunnel had never been immersed, and the walls were in the same condition as the Egyptian slave workmen had left them four thousand years earlier. The marks of the bronze chisels were as pristine as if they had been inflicted just days before.

  Only ten feet beyond the highest point that the river waters had ever reached, they came out upon a stone landing. Here the floor levelled out, and then the tunnel turned sharply back upon itself.

  ‘Let’s spare a minute just to think about this as a feat of engineering.’ Nicholas took Royan’s arm and pointed back down the tunnel. ‘Taita has placed this landing on which we are standing precisely above the high-water mark of the river. How did he work it out so exactly? He had no dumpy level, and only the crudest measuring equipment. And yet he calculated it as accurately as this. It’s a hell of a piece of work.’

  ‘Well, he tells us repeatedly in the scrolls that he is a genius. I suppose we will have to believe him now.’ She pulled against his grip. ‘Let’s go on. I must see what lies around this corner,’ she urged.

  Side by side they turned through the one hundred and eighty degree corner and Nicholas held the hand lamp high, with the electrical cable trailing back down the shaft behind him. As he lit the way ahead, Royan exclaimed aloud and seized Nicholas’s free hand. Both of them froze with astonishment.

  Taita had designed the turning of the ascending ramp for dramatic effect. The lower section of the shaft through which they had passed was crudely constructed, the walls irregular and undressed, the roof lumpy and cracked. Taita had calculated his levels so finely that he had known that the lower levels of the shaft would be submerged and damaged by the water. He had wasted no effort on beautifying them.

  Now before them rose a wide stairway. The angle of its ascent was such that, from where they stood on the landing, the top of it was hidden from their view. Each step stretched the full width of the tunnel, and rose a hand’s breadth. The treads were cut from slabs of mottled gneiss, polished and fitted to each other so precisely that the joints between them were barely visible. The roof of the tunnel was three times as high as it had been in the lower reaches of the tunnel, perfectly domed and proportioned. The walls and the curved roof were of beautifully dressed blue granite blocks, keyed into each other with marvellous precision and symmetry. The whole was a masterpiece of the mason’s art, majestic and portentous. There was both a promise and a menace in this vestibule to the unknown. Its simplicity and lack of ornamentation made it even more impressive.

  Royan tugged softly at Nicholas’s hand and together they stepped on to the first tread of the stairway. It was carpeted with a fine layer of dust, soft and white as talcum powder. The dust rose in soft eddies and wisps around their knees and then subsided as they passed on upwards. It muted the harsh glare of the electric lamp that Nicholas carried high in his right hand.

  Gradually, as they went on upwards, the top of the staircase came into view ahead of them. Royan dug her fingernails into the palm of Nicholas’s hand as she saw what lay ahead. The staircase ended on another level landing, across which a rectangular doorway faced them. They stepped up on to the landing and stood before the doorway. Neither of them had words to express this supreme moment: they stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity, holding each other’s hand with a fierce and possessive grip.

  Finally Nicholas tore his eyes off the gateway, and looked down at Royan. He saw his own feelings mirrored in her face, her eyes shone as though lit from within by an incandescent passion. There was no other person alive with whom he would wish to share this moment. He wanted it to last for ever.

  She turned her head and looked at him. They stared deeply and solemnly into each other’s eyes. Both of them were aware that this was a high tide in their lives, one that could never be repeated. She tightened her grip on his hand, and looked back to the doorway facing them. It had been plastered over with white river clay, a surface that had mellowed to the shade of ivory. There was no crack or blemish in its smooth expanse, like the flawless skin of a beautiful virgin.

  Their eyes fastened avidly on the two embossed seals in the centre of the expanse of white clay. The upper one was in the shape of the royal cartouche, the rectangular knot surmounted by the scarab, the horned beetle that signified the great circle of eternity.

  Royan’s lips formed the words as she read them from the hieroglyphics, but she uttered no sound. ‘“The Almighty. The Divine. Ruler of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt. Familiar of the god, Horus. Beloved of Osiris and of Isis. Mamose, may he live for ever!”’

  Below this magnificent royal seal was a smaller, simpler design in the shape of a hawk, with one broken wing drooping across its barred breast, and the legend: ‘I, Taita the slave, have obeyed your command, divine Pharaoh.’ Underneath the maimed hawk was a single column of hieroglyphics that spelled out the stern warning: ‘Stranger! The gods are watching. Disturb the king’s eternal rest at your peril!’

  Breaking 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 records 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.

  When 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 warni
ng 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 marvellous, 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.’

  Sapper 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 sink-hole. 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 of 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 floodlight 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 implacably that Royan shivered. Nicholas reached out and 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 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 upon 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 carnelians.

  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 manifest power, Mighty one amongst all the gods, whose strength has vanquished the foes of his divine father, Osiris.’