by Paul Sussman
‘Hello!’ he cried weakly. ‘Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?’
His voice was barely strong enough to fill the space he was in, let alone penetrate the solid rock all around. He called again, and again, the lamp in his hand – the only lamp – starting to fade as its battery ran down. The shadows grew thicker and more menacing, gathering around the margins of the krypton bulb’s weakening glow like a wolf pack around a campfire.
‘Please!’ he moaned. ‘Please help me, somebody. I’ll pay. I’m rich. Very rich. Help me!’
He began to weep, and then to scream, a high-pitched, hyena-like wail as he pounded his fists vainly against the unyielding stone, calling on God, any god – Christian, Muslim, ancient Egyptian – to come to his aid, save him in his hour of need. Everything remained as it was, the silence every bit as intense, the rock cage every bit as solid, and in the end, exhausted, he slumped down on the floor with his back against the wall. Above him, barely visible in the fading light, an enormous painted snake’s head hovered, its jaws levered wide open.
‘Get away,’ he moaned, scratching at his neck and limbs, the feel of cockroaches on his skin more intense and unbearable than ever. ‘Get off me! Disgusting! Disgusting!’
His scratching grew more furious, fingers clawing and slapping at himself, the sensation of scurrying insects so loathsomely realistic that, drained and despairing as he was, he couldn’t bear to sit motionless and staggered back onto his feet. As he did he caught sight of something dribbling down the wall where he had been sitting. Chips of stone and grit by the look of it, a whole rush of material, although the light was now so weak he couldn’t be sure. He leant closer, trying to see what was happening, terrified that the tunnel was starting to cave in. But what he saw was worse than that. Worse than anything he could ever have imagined, his most terrible nightmare made real. Cockroaches, dozens upon dozens of cockroaches, hundreds of them, thousands, were streaming out of the mouth of the serpent on the wall like a surge of dirty brown water. He looked down – they were on his jacket, his arms, his legs, his shoes.
Howling, he reeled backwards, frenziedly trying to slap the insects away, his feet making a moist, crunching sound as he stumbled across the floor. He slammed against the opposite wall and dropped the lamp, its light momentarily shining brighter, clearly illuminating the entire space. There were other serpent mouths – to his right, his left, above, in front – all of them spewing hordes of cockroaches. The entire cavity was alive with movement, a scuttling tide of insects sweeping towards him, surging up, down, across and over his body, enveloping him in a glistening shroud of wings and legs and feelers. The light only lasted a few seconds, just enough to bring home to Girgis the full horror of what was happening to him. Then it dimmed and went out, leaving just darkness, the click and skitter of millions of tiny feet and Romani Girgis’s crazed shrieking.
When Flin reached the top of the steps he paused, the extra height affording him a clearer view of what was going on in the oasis as a whole.
The scene was one of spectacular and increasing devastation. The pristine paradise of a few hours earlier was now barely recognizable as the cliffs continued their unstoppable advance, churning everything in their path, palm groves and flower meadows, orchards and pools, avenues and statuary slowly disappearing like debris beneath a pair of industrial vacuum cleaners. At the very bottom end of the gorge the cliffs already seemed to have clamped tight together, although it was hard to be sure because of the swirling dust. Further up there was still clear space between them, a wedge of greenery that grew wider – or rather, less narrow and compressed – the closer it came to the top of the canyon, although even this was fast being devoured as the cliffs swung remorselessly inwards, obliterating everything in their path. Flin guessed he had about fifteen minutes until they reached the sides of the rock platform and started demolishing the temple buildings. And maybe another ten after that before they closed altogether and the oasis was gone. Fifteen at the outside. Not enough time. Not nearly enough time. He turned and started sprinting.
He passed through the first courtyard – the rock walls towering to left and right, the force of their approach causing the paving to warp and heave beneath him – and then the second courtyard, where half the obelisk forest was now lying jumbled on the ground like driftwood. And then the third. The giant obelisk at its centre still stood erect and defiant, unbowed in the face of encroaching chaos, albeit with a ragged patch of gold sheet missing from its bottom left-hand corner, an act of vandalism he barely registered, so intent was he on getting to Kiernan.
He reached the temple building and raced through the succession of monumental halls and chambers. The boom of the Benben, which had been all but smothered by the roar of the disintegrating oasis, gradually became more audible, muscling its way back into his hearing, a repetitive, pulsing counterpoint to the clash and rumble of collapsing rock.
‘Come on!’ he cried, trying to push himself on even faster, force every last ounce of energy into his legs. Showers of dust and grit rained down from above, chunks of masonry were starting to shift and dislodge – and this before the cliffs had even reached the temple platform and started to exert their full compressive force on it.
He passed through the hall filled with giant tree roots, the one with the alabaster offering tables, more and more of the building starting to crack and move around him, on and on until eventually he emerged into the small courtyard at the heart of the temple. Its pond was now empty and drained of water, a deep fissure cutting across its bottom, pink and blue lotuses lying slumped and forlorn on the drying stone. With a cry of ‘Molly!’ Flin ran directly across it and through the doorway of the squat stone building on its far side, barging past the twin reed-curtains and into the room beyond. The external sounds suddenly faded, the pulsing of the Benben Stone growing commensurately louder, filling his ears. ‘Molly, you have to get out! We have to go! Come on!’
The room was empty. Flin stood on its threshold, taking in the abandoned banks of monitors, the glass isolation chamber, the Benben itself – its interior ablaze with spiralling rosettes of colour, a soft golden mist seeming to rise off its surface. He was just starting to turn away, thinking she must already have fled, that she’d been with the group they’d seen rushing through the temple gates earlier and they’d simply missed her, when there was movement within the chamber. He wheeled, staring aghast as from behind the stone Molly Kiernan slowly came to her feet.
‘Hello, Flin.’
She sounded like she was welcoming him to a tea party.
‘God Almighty, Molly, are you crazy! Get out of there!’
She just smiled at him. Perfectly calm, perfectly relaxed.
‘You saw what it did to Usman!’ he cried, frantically waving at her. ‘Get out! Come on! We’ve got to go!’
Her smile broadened.
‘Honestly, Flin, do I look like Usman?’
She spread her arms, like a magician inviting an audience to examine him, to reassure themselves that despite having been sawn in half he was still very much in one piece.
‘See? It’s not hurting me. It’s not doing anything to me.’
She swished her hands up and down her body, then leant forward and, to his horror, hugged the Benben, pushing her cheek right up against it. She appeared to suffer no ill-effects and after remaining still for a moment to prove her point, she came upright again.
‘It’s not going to harm anyone we don’t want it to harm, Flin. It’s a tool, no more, no less. And like any tool you’ve just got to know how to use it.’
She reached out and wafted a hand across the top of the stone, the pulsing sound seeming to slow and quieten as if she was indeed able to bend it to her will. Flin looked on in disbelief.
‘It’s our friend,’ she purred. ‘Just like it was friend to the ancient Egyptians. What was it they called it? Iner seweser-en – am I pronouncing that right? – the stone that made us mighty. And now it’s going to make us mighty too. That’s why it�
�s been revealed to us, why we were led here. It’s a gift, Flin. A gift from God himself.’
Around them the walls of the building were starting to shudder, ten-ton blocks of stone trembling and jumping as if they were made of nothing heavier than polystyrene.
‘Please, Molly, there’s no time! We’ve got to get out! Now!’
‘And this is just the beginning,’ she said, ignoring his entreaties, her voice disconcertingly placid and composed, as if she was operating in a completely different reality from the one in which Flin found himself. ‘The first tiny glimpse of its power. Think what it’s going to do for us when we really unleash it, what it’s going to help us achieve.’
‘Please, Molly!’
‘A new world, a new order, an end to wickedness. God’s kingdom on earth, with the Benben as security and not an evildoer in sight!’
The ceiling blocks were starting to pull apart, slits of dusty blue sky now visible above.
‘You could be part of it, Flin,’ Kiernan went on, extending a hand to him, apparently oblivious to the fact that she’d only recently ordered his execution. ‘Why not work with us? You know more about the stone than anyone, even me. You could advise us, help us realize its full potential. The others were weak, but not you. Come with us. Help us build a new world. How about it, Flin? Are you with us? Will you help us?’
‘You’re mad!’ he yelled, backing away, eyes flicking from Kiernan to the ceiling and walls of the chamber which were juddering ever more violently, breaking open like a hatching egg. ‘It’s not something you can control! It’s beyond you. It’s beyond all of us!’
She laughed, wagging a finger at him, like a Sunday school mistress chiding an unruly pupil.
‘Oh ye of little faith. Oh ye of such shamefully little faith! Do you really think He would have gifted us something that we couldn’t use? Can’t control it? Does this look like I can’t control it?’
She spread her arms again and, opening out her palms, slowly brought them down onto the head of the Benben. To Flin’s consternation, the pulsing sound slowed and quietened further until it had faded altogether, the colours within the stone dimming and disappearing. The walls and ceiling ceased to tremble. Everything fell eerily still and silent. Flin looked around, unable to believe it.
‘My God,’ he murmured. ‘How do you … My God.’
Kiernan beamed.
‘Like I told you, He wouldn’t give us something we couldn’t use. And believe me, we are going to use it, with or without your help.’
She drew a breath, exhaled, dropped her head back, closed her eyes.
‘Be silent before the Lord,’ she murmured. ‘For the day of the Lord is at hand; the Lord has prepared—’
She was cut short by a deafening rumble. The building started to shake violently again. At the same moment the Benben resumed its pulsing, the sound much harsher than before, angrier, like the growl of a lion. The interior of the stone once again blazed with colour, just a single shade now: a livid, furnace-like red, as if everything that had gone before – the swirling hues, the bright flashes of light, the golden aura – had simply been a preamble, a warming-up exercise, and now, finally, the Benben was revealing its true nature.
Kiernan’s eyes snapped open and her head jerked forward, the smile shrinking on her mouth, her arms suddenly rigid as if she was being electrocuted.
‘Out!’ cried Flin. ‘Get out!’
She didn’t seem to be able to lift her hands from the surface of the stone. She started to shake, her eyes growing wider and wider, her mouth levering open until it looked as if the jaw would snap. Flin took a step forward, thinking to try to help her, to drag her from the glass tank, but even as he did a patch of her cheek started to turn yellow and then brown, like paper held over a candle, the patch expanding and darkening before suddenly bursting into flame. Other patches appeared – on her hands, her neck, her forehead, her scalp, her arms – these too browning and catching alight, the flames spreading and joining, wrapping around her, swaddling her in a fiery embrace. Her entire body was ablaze, a raging fireball with at its centre something that looked vaguely like the outline of a human form.
For a moment Flin stood rooted to the spot, too shocked to move. ‘Charlie!’ he thought he heard her scream. ‘Oh my Charlie!’ Then, as spear-like streaks of light erupted from the top of the Benben, piercing the supposedly impenetrable glass of the isolation chamber and punching right through the ceiling of the room, vaporizing everything in its path, he spun and ran for his life.
Outside the disintegration of the oasis had progressed faster than he had feared. Much faster. The cliffs were now locked tight around the rock platform, contorting and crushing it, towering above him like a pair of converging juggernauts. The temple buildings were starting to fold in on themselves, columns and pylons and walls and roofs swaying, buckling and slowly toppling in an avalanche of dust and debris. Any hope he might have had of getting out the way he had come in, or else through some gateway in the side of the temple, evaporated. With no other option open to him he wheeled and made for the back of the complex, praying there would be a rear exit through which he could escape.
Swerving and side-stepping to avoid the masonry crashing down all around, a wave of collapsing stone seeming to snap at his heels, he sprinted through a further succession of courtyards and hypostyle halls. The complex went on and on and he was starting to wonder if he would ever find the end of it when he emerged into yet another courtyard. In front of him rose a wall, fifteen metres high and made of solid stone blocks. Without gate or opening, and with similar walls hemming him in to left and right: he realized he’d brought himself into a giant cul-de-sac. He was trapped.
He screamed in frustration, running up to the wall and slapping his hands despairingly against it, knowing that this was it, there was no way he was going to be able to backtrack, not through all the chaos behind him.
‘You bastard!’ he bellowed, slapping again, and again. ‘You stupid fuck …’
The ground beneath him gave a particularly violent heave and, as if it were made of nothing more solid than children’s play bricks, the wall simply disappeared, lurching away from him and out of sight down the incline at the rear of the temple platform. Through a swirling veil of dust, the top end of the oasis came into view directly ahead – a rearing cliff of vertical rock along whose face the gorge’s side walls were slowly creeping. The sun hovered above it, a ball of fiery red.
Stunned, Flin clambered over the remains of the wall’s lower courses and started down through the trees beyond. A pair of kneeling figures were just visible far ahead at the base of the cliff. They seemed to be examining something on the ground.
‘What the hell are you doing!’ he yelled at them. ‘Climb! Start climbing!’
His voice was barely audible to himself, let alone anyone else. He could do nothing but charge on downwards, weaving his way through the collapsed blocks of masonry, the oasis closing around him, another bolt of fiery light erupting from the Benben behind.
The moment Flin had disappeared up the steps towards the front of the temple, Zahir had beckoned Freya and his brother forward, leading them around the foot of the rock platform and on through the trees to the top end of the oasis – a vertical, 200-metre precipice that connected the sides of the gorge like the base of a triangle. When Freya had first entered the wadi earlier in the day – Christ, it seemed like a lifetime ago; a dozen lifetimes – its upper end had appeared to be 400 or even 500 metres across. Now it was only half that, and closing.
‘How long do you think we’ve got?’ she cried.
Zahir held up a hand, spreading his fingers, and opened and shut it four times.
‘But it’s not possible! How are we going to get up there in twenty minutes? I’m a professional climber and I couldn’t do it in under two hours!’
Zahir just sprinted on towards the cliff. The trees around them gradually thinned and then dropped away altogether, leaving them running across clear ground. To left a
nd right the sides of the gorge were now clearly visible, surging waves of dust churning along at their base as they steamrollered mercilessly forward. Ahead, blocking out the sun, carpeting the valley floor in deep shade, rose the cliff face they had to climb. A towering expanse of alarmingly blank, smooth-looking stone, its only noticeable feature – apart from very occasional ledges and cracks and protrusions – was some sort of meandering seam that ran right up the middle of it. Initially Freya assumed this was just a vein of slightly different coloured rock cutting through the limestone. Either that or a thin arête standing proud of the otherwise flat cliff surface. Only as they came closer did she see that it was neither of these – that it was not a natural feature at all, but an enormous ladder. Or rather a whole series of ladders. Wooden, rickety-looking, their rungs held fast by rope lashings, they ascended the rock wall from base to summit like a procession of giant centipedes, picking out a zigzagging route from ledge to ledge, crack to crack, protrusion to protrusion, using whatever natural anchors were available to work their way upwards, connecting earth with sky. Freya stared in wonder.
‘The ladder of Nut,’ she murmured, recalling the inscription she and Flin had found back in Abydos.
‘Very strong,’ said Zahir, coming up to the base of the cliff and giving the bottommost of the ladders a hard yank, demonstrating how its frame had been secured to bronze spikes driven deep into the bare rock. ‘My family use many hundred year. We fix. We keep good. Long climb, but safe climb. Now go!’
He stood away from the ladder and waved Freya onto it, jabbing a thumb upwards, indicating that she should start ascending.