24 Bones

by Stewart, Michael F.

  “Is that where we’re headed?” She pointed to the Church of St. George, a small circular stadium topped by a white dome. Churchbells were forbidden in Cairo, which eliminated the need for the traditional bell towers seen on western churches.

  “Actually, no, but why don’t you go there? I’ll have my meeting with Pope Shagar and meet you after I visit with the sister.”

  She swallowed and her lips thinned. Clearly, she hoped to play a larger role in this expedition. She knew he had something big. Perhaps weary from the flight, she relented and turned to the Church of St. George. Rolling one bag and shouldering the other, she left David before the entry to the fort.

  “I’ll make it up to you, Zahara,” he called.

  She wrestled with the bag as it rocked over the cobblestone. When she had it under control, she lifted her arm and waggled her fingers without looking back. “Oh, I know you will.”

  A sign under the tunnel entrance into Coptic Cairo stated that this was where Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had fled King Herod, and within these walls, Moses had once knelt.

  David walked down the stairs and through the doorway below the vaulted walls of Fort Babylon, and then trudged up steps he had once run to El Muallaqa, the Hanging Church. Sweat poured down his back and plastered his shirt. As he climbed, he shook his head at a new mural. It depicted the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. Angels hovered, pouring a dome of water over Jesus’ head. It was a theme repeated stylistically in half the ancient Egyptian temples.

  The pope met him inside the narthex, where he stood near a heavyset woman and a spinner of paperbacks and pamphlets.

  No hint of black hair edged Pope Shagar’s beard, which sprouted from under an even more hawkish nose than David remembered. His robe, a deep scarlet, was threadbare, and the crucifix seemed to weigh down his head, making it droop. Only his eyes remained hard.

  “David.” He clasped David’s hands in his own. “Thank you for responding to my call.” Gnarled bones poked awkwardly into David’s palm. “When I heard you were coming, I was most anxious to see you.”

  David couldn’t help but feel lured here. First the email of the rubbing, then the pope’s phone call, seemingly out of the blue, to his office in Toronto. Surely there were others that could have made the translation, someone with a better relationship to those involved?

  “Come,” the pope said in thickly accented English. Pope Shagar ushered him to the left-hand side of the nave where a stairwell led down. David paused at the top of the flight. When he was a child, these stairs had been strictly out of bounds. Even now, a chain between its newel posts warded away tourists.

  David glanced at the pope, who smiled as he unhooked the chain. “Please, go ahead.” Pope Shagar lifted a small kerosene lantern beside the banister of the stairs and lit its wick. “We will have privacy below.”

  As they descended, the smell of mold and humidity increased. Despite the cooler air, the moisture finished the job of David’s sweat glands; drips fell from his fingertips. The stairs spiraled into the foundation of the fortress over which part of the church hung, supported by beams of palm trunks, giving it its name.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Pope Shagar unhooded the lantern; the rock walls glistened. A door, studded with iron, stood open. Only the clergy used this passage. This was not an escape; David knew. Although under the congregation’s pews, two trapdoors each led under the fortress and out of the Coptic city. The passages had been used during the church’s siege or threat. This clergy’s passage, however, ended at an altar. To obviate any last-minute departure from their duties, there were no exits. Here the priests, during an attack on the fortress and church, completed the rites of the Eucharist and hid the sacred chalice.

  “Do you have the translation with you?” the pope asked when they reached the end of the tunnel and faced the simple alcove set in the wall. Not even a crucifix adorned the sacred spot.

  “Yes, your Holiness.” David shrugged off his bag and began to unbuckle it.

  “No, no,” the pope cautioned. “I don’t wish to see it.”

  David looked into the pope’s face. In the flicker of light, his eyes danced madly. David thought he understood the reason for the pope’s involvement. The scroll in his pack told a prophecy. It used scripture from the Bible and yet the writing was a form of demotic used before the birth of Christ. The pope wanted to make one last plea for David not to go public with it.

  “Unfortunately I only have a few minutes,” David said.

  “I’ll be brief. I wish to warn you,” the pope replied.

  “To stop me.”

  “Stop you?”

  “Yes, from researching the origins of the tablet.”

  “David, I wish we could argue over such simple matters. No, news has come that companions are dying across the world. I fear that you too are at risk.”

  The weight of the church above and the closeness of the walls pressed. “I don’t understand,” David said. “Why would I be at risk?”

  “If you’ve translated the rubbing, then you know it tells of a prophecy.” The lantern cast a yellow glaze on the bearded pope and jaundiced his skin.

  “Yes,” David said. “Wait—if you know the translation then why was I even sent for?”

  “As I said, the Shemsu Seth have resurfaced, David, and they are bold. They believe the time of the prophecy is nigh. The sisters believe you are part of this prophecy.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, being the son of a companion. The sisters play a dangerous game by bringing you to Cairo.”

  David straightened and cracked his head on the low ceiling. “I still do not understand. What does the prophecy have to do with me—it’s been twenty-five years since my father and I even looked upon each other? And why would Coptic nuns believe in an ancient Egyptian prophecy?”

  “These are not nuns, David; they are Sisters of Isis.”

  David struggled to recall his father’s teachings. A Companion of Horus, his father had tried to make David memorize the role of various cults, but even at eight years old, David resisted. What had his father said about the sisters? It was like trying to recall a myth, and then hearing that some people thought parts of it were true.

  “The nuns. The sisters who raised me. They are cultists?”

  The pope nodded. “The Coptic faith is enmeshed in an older religion still.”

  David wavered on his feet. “Let’s assume you’re right. Aren’t these sisters dedicated to good?” If the Shemsu Seth sought to kill companions then why bring David closer to them? Why not leave him in Toronto?

  Pope Shagar shook his head. “No, David. The sisters believe only in maintaining the balance between good and evil.”

  “Wouldn’t that still mean helping the Shemsu Hor if the Shemsu Seth are killing people?” David’s lips twisted in consternation. He remembered the sisters watching, doing nothing as he was branded. That, at least, made sense now. His mind had skipped over something that the pope had said, something important.

  “They are mediators between good and evil, the keepers of the Tablet of Destiny and the neck of the Spine of Osiris,” Pope Shagar explained. “At one time they sat above the Shemsu Hor and the Shemsu Seth and controlled the power of each.”

  “So Tara, the sister who sent me the rubbing, she’s a Sister of Isis?” David asked; jetlag and heat dragged at his capacity to think. He frowned, considering the implications and annoyed that this was so complicated. He was here for one reason. “Are they going to grant me access to the original stele, or not?”

  “David … Whether you like it or not, you’re a part of this—despite your refusal to join the Shemsu Hor.” David looked at him sharply. Few knew about that—and fewer acknowledged it aloud. “I don’t blame you. But although you refused them, the sisters must still think you can at least help translate
the engraving.”

  “And why do they need its translation? If you know, surely they do, too!”

  “They do. But the tablet has two sides. The opposite side is believed to hold the locations of the spinal column. The twenty-four bones of Osiris’s spine. Only the tablet inscribes them all and it is indecipherable.”

  David pressed his palms against the ceiling; there was no mention of any twenty-four bones in his translation. “You said the Shemsu Seth are killing the progeny of the companions.” He stared at the pope and hoped he might solve the riddle of what nagged at him.

  “If they’re killing everyone then … why am I not dead?”

  Pope Shagar remained silent, his message finally clear.

  David sucked air through his teeth as realization struck.

  “They think I will lead them to the stele. And when I can’t or they acquire it, I’m a dead man.”

  Chapter Nine

  Beneath the City of the Dead, Cairo

  In the dark underworld, Faris felt roving eyes. The monastery jeeps required repairs and so Faris had embarked on a bone-rattling, half-day train ride from Nag Hammadi to Cairo.

  Four hours had passed since his arrival under the crypts. Several of the underworld’s entries had been unguarded. Perhaps much of the Shemsu Seth host had yet to return from their attacks on the Shemsu Hor deirs. The blanket of darkness and the white noise of rushing water clogged Faris’s senses. He missed the desert’s harsh, predictable light. Only the hieroglyphs his fingers traced told him he closed in on the Shemsu Seth’s temple.

  The presence of the wall’s carvings meant he had reached the outer pylon of the Temple of Seth. He needed to find the passage that would lead through it. He shivered, and pins and needles pricked at his hands and forearms as he neared the entry of the temple dedicated to the power forbidden to him. His access to Void would be greatest here.

  A noise startled him, and he pressed against the wall until he decided that his sandals scuffing the rocks was the cause. His fingers held tight to the glyphs. Without light, he was forced to depend on feeling for depth and slope. Faris yearned to use either the flashlight stowed in a satchel hanging over his shoulder or the Void, but dared not for fear of detection. The deeper he drove, the better the chance he had of finding the Temple of Seth’s heart and answers for Askari. Perhaps even returning with the missing pieces of the spine.

  “I do not believe the killing was random, Faris,” Askari had explained. “Even the Shemsu Seth does not kill over two hundred companions without reason, Katle’s treachery confirms this. They knew the location of the vertebrae. That secret has been passed orally, only the high priests and one other knew, its keeper.” Askari pointed to his chest. “I told no one. Katle’s father was a keeper as well, and his piece is missing. Why are they gathering the Osiris? Who is telling them its locations? And why are they killing our young?”

  The spring that had at first accompanied Faris’s steps diminished. The image of him returning to Askari with not just reconnaissance but also the missing pieces of the Osiris faded. Perpetual darkness sank fangs into his hope of glory.

  Faris stopped when he kicked a stone that glanced off the pylon. The sound of rushing water shrouded most noises but the rock skittered across the wall. He silenced his thoughts. The hair of his neck and forearms lifted like miniature antennae. Someone watched.

  Time passed, but in the lightless cavern, there was no way to discern how much. No birds fled or beetle scurried. No sun rose or fell; only the dead decayed in their tombs above, and Faris’s heart thudded in the underworld below. He swallowed and took three quick steps while running one arm along the wall.

  Water as warm as drool trickled over his fingers. He took another step. Between the random drips of stalactites, another rock knocked off the stone. He bit his lip. This time it wasn’t he who kicked the pebble. The darkness was perfect.

  Sometimes caves seemed to breathe, the atmospheric pressure being different inside than out. This cavern breathed slow, regular breaths; he could feel them tug at the hem of his robe. Faris reached out to the Void and hesitated. To touch the Void would alert any Shemsu Seth nearby to his presence.

  He hugged the sloped wall, as water slathered over his chest and cheek. The leather of his sandals was slippery with wet, their straps stretching. A few more steps. The breathing slowed. A few more paces. His fingers wrapped around a corner in the wall, a passage. He panted, hyperventilating as if he prepared to swim underwater. One more step. He shifted around the corner. His foot slid. The strap broke, and he tumbled forward.

  “Speak and die.” The woman’s clipped speech was as sharp as the blade held to his throat. “Keep your sundiscs to yourself, I’ll sense if you try to use them.”

  Faris gasped when she gripped his hand and hauled him onto his feet. She bent his arm behind his back, and her nails bit into the tendons of his wrists. She pushed him to the pylon’s opposite wall near the Nile tributary. A door banged against the rock, stone on stone.

  “Inside is a stairway. Go. There is no escape once I close this door, but a woman imprisoned below knows a path to freedom. Find her and free her,” she said this in a secretive rush. “If I return and find you again, you will die.” She shoved him over the threshold. “If you shout, and they find you, you will die.”

  He did not cry out even though he toppled down the first few steps. His back rested against a slick wall, and he sensed the lightless stairway fall away to his left. The door boomed closed. His heart raced, and he wondered what had just happened. He was caught. But by whom, and why? Why was he not dead? Was one of the Shemsu Seth trying to help him?

  He stood, one hand resting on a wall permeated by the Nile waters. The vibrations of its flow rushed beneath his fingers, rumbling in the narrow stairwell. He groped along the wall of the entrance, searching for a door or handle. Nothing. The door was a single slab of stone with no discernible catch on the inside.

  Faris drew his small flashlight from the leather satchel that also contained food and spare batteries. In its beam, a stairway curled downward. The sweating limestone reflected the light. After repairing the strap on his sandal, he switched the light off to preserve its power and began to descend.

  The deeper he moved, the cooler and more humid the air, until his robe was soaked and water dripped like rain. The underground river coursed nearby. After an interminable descent, he stopped at a barrier. He had counted forty flights of stairs; one flight for each day required to prepare the dead. He flicked on the light and stifled a scream.

  The crocodile was sixteen feet long; four ridges of angled teeth jutted from its open mouth. He whirled and faced a second. Stumbling back into the stairwell, he prepared for their strike.

  But it didn’t come.

  Neither moved. The tails and bodies fused with the rock floor. He collapsed against the stairs and drew short breaths.

  The woman had buried him in the mud like a crocodile saves its prey. Askari had told Faris about the crocodile labyrinth—told him to avoid it. Faris had thought it a legend. He concentrated and attempted to seek out a thread of Askari’s reach, but Askari would need the help of the deir in order to penetrate so much stone. Faris wasn’t supposed to be there, and no one wished to touch a Void-user. He stopped.

  Reaching provided a mental connection between people. It was a melding through which one could offer strength to another or to an object. Although most companions had the ability to create a psychic connection on their own, few had the strength to do anything with it. By reaching and drawing from Fullness, their combined efforts could perform significant feats, even at a distance. But the user risked drawing too deeply on those who provided the energy. To do so could kill. And if Faris attempted to reach through rock, he too could reach out too far and be lost—worse still, Void-lost, a terrible undeath.

  Faris shuddered and itc
hed at his close-cropped beard. Frustrated by his reaction to the statues, he lashed out at a crocodile’s snout and rolled in pain. The skin peeled back where his foot struck, and he cursed his idiocy. He sighed and climbed to his feet, using the statue’s nostrils as handholds, and checked left and right. No additional stones blocked his path. He was safe from monstrous statues.

  Without another option, he decided it was best to follow the woman’s orders. His sandals slapped at his heels as he started down the right hand tunnel. Every dozen yards, he came to a junction that offered passage left or right. The side passages led to catacombs stacked with long, thin coffins. Humidity permeated the air, dampening noise and infusing the passages with the feel of disuse.

  The ground of the main tunnel held small tracks. He crouched and traced them; the tracks of bare feet were too small to be of an adult and too wide to be that of a child. He shivered when his imagination offered a picture of what made the marks. The dwarfs were legend, too, a long buried race that worshipped Seth and prepared for the day of his return. A smattering of paw-prints crisscrossed the mud—hounds of Seth. Faris’s fingers stroked the smooth inner rim of a sundisc, and he unthreaded the thong from the aten’s grasp.

  Faris guessed he had wandered for an hour. After the fourth turn, he created a trail of his own, worried he might lose his way to return. The toe of his sandals scraped against the moist floor as he shuffled forward. A path would allow anyone, or worse, anything, to track him, but he needed it more.

  He stopped. He had passed a number of crossroads, but each of these passages had been as narrow and well formed as the one he moved along now. The passage continued, but to the left and right, a broad cave cut through. Faris entered the larger cavern. The natural ceiling hung with the teeth of stalactites. The sandy ground was scattered with rounded river rocks. A pool of water glistened. He stooped to drink from the depression and found it tasted cool and clean.