24 Bones (15 page)

As the sun had arced, his mind drifted—dehydrated and starved—from Zahara, her nakedness, and how she felt beneath him, to his murdered father and his grandmama still squirreled away, firmly ensconced in her life as a nun.

David’s brand ached, reminding him of his father’s disappointment. Anger burst in his mind, and he pushed at the walls of his pen.
Remember the pail. Pail, pail, power in the pail. Maybe tonight. Tonight I can connect to the pail—pail. Tonight I’ll get to explode, too.

He embraced the mad thoughts, believing they drew him closer to the truth, to power.

He began to rebuild the small nest, unaware of the median eye which studied him from beneath a cool rock.

That night, the red scorpion started earlier. With the sun to bed, the scorpion skittered across the sands and began its deadly spiral. As the moon rose, it bested the fort and slid over its side. The man shuddered. It was from the cold and not the scorpion’s passage. Sand hid the man’s ankles and the scorpion slowly traversed the coarse robe until it reached bare neck. Its median eye swung from the crook of the man’s neck to his plump cheeks. The face had blistered where sun had touched too long, its rays having intruded through the mesh covering. The scorpion chose a raised bulge, full of fluid.

The stinger plunged through the blister.

David roared and clapped a palm over his cheek. He scrambled from his hole and stared at the offending scorpion. Already his face burned and swelled as the scorpion’s poison spread.

Caught by its own efforts, the scorpion scrabbled to escape the shallow grave.

Oh my god, am I going to die?
the lucid portion of David’s mind asked. He sweated despite the cold.

“P, p, p, pail, power, pail.” David chuckled into the night.

Hunger and thirst were gone, cold was gone, just the scorpion remained, its sting and the pail … pail. His breathing grew labored, and he thought how his father had died by such poison. Suffocated. David’s vision faded in and out.

At some point later, he fell onto his side, oblivious to the edge of rock that jutted into his abdomen. In and out, his vision throbbed with his heartbeat. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. He imagined it was a code, a question, or a choice that the scorpion’s poison offered. The salty flow of his perspiration ebbed.

“P, p, p, pail” he wheezed. The
In
required focus to hold, constrained by rules and muscle.
Out
was chaos, a glaze of ease, fat with energy.
Connection
. Out
, grab the energy, harvest it and bale it—pail it.

“Pail. Pail. Pail.” The voice was not his own, and David turned his head to see a tall, bearded man with fiery hair and eyes that glowed. Around him was a nimbus of shadow. The sand and rocks, the sky and stars, had retreated.

“David Nidaal, I am Pharaoh, leader of the Shemsu Seth.” Pharaoh’s speech rumbled like an avalanche. David’s physical body shook, and he could do nothing to still it.

“Pharaoh.” The thought formed in his mind, but not his lips. “P, p, pail.”

“You are powerful, David. Your connection to the Void is strong.”

David stared about him at the darkness and saw now that it held a texture, like a heart of tar that beat and shifted. He attempted to pull out of the Void, but he was caught. The sludge clung and mired him.

“Join me, and Zahara will be safe. Bring me the tablet and the deir’s vertebrae, and I will show you power.”

David’s mind whirled. He sensed energy; it was orgasmic in its intensity and filled his mind like a stuperous drug. He recalled Askari’s depression-slung eyes, the dead bodies, and the companions’ defeat.

“Zahara, David,” Pharaoh repeated.

In his heart, David knew that the companions were already lost. His only reasonable course was to save Zahara and learn all he could of this mystic energy. Something bothered him, though; his gut told him he needed more. He needed protection or would risk being killed as soon as the Shemsu Seth had the tablet, just as Faris and Askari had told him. In all his life, the only true power he’d known was knowledge. He must translate the tablet.

The knowledge that he would betray the Shemsu Hor tugged at his conscience even in his dizzy, poisoned mind.
If the Void and Fullness are real, then so is the threat of the Fullness’s demise, heaven’s demise. Pharaoh’s success.

“You cannot touch the Fullness, David. Only the Void.”

David’s thoughts contorted with toxins. An image of his twisted brand bloomed and chased away the face of Askari’s disappointment. He was a game piece, shuffling around the Senet board.

“I can teach you to control it.”

I started on the wrong Senet square. I choose the ankh, the key of life.
He stared into the luminous eyes of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh placed a hand on his shoulder and then faded away.

At the bottom of the pit, the scorpion burned. No sun threatened the horizon, but the temperature was higher than any rays of desert light. The scorpion wanted darkness, but would not die in sunlight. This heat it feared. It scrambled for the wall and stared up; David’s swollen face grinned down. He held a long thin stick that stabbed the scorpion’s back. Its stinger curled and repeatedly struck its own carapace, beating, stinging, until it crumpled, legs balling like a dead spider.

Chapter Twenty

T
he stone colonnades of Luxor Temple, lit from below, vaulted like the pillars of Shu, god of air, to the heavens. Ramesses II stared from the cracked throne that flanked the gate, stony eyes lingering on Faysal, one of the companions selected to reclaim the missing pieces of the Osiris.

A small brown companion, Faysal’s skin was the color and consistency of
aish baladi
dough kneaded too long. A red granite obelisk blocked his view of the statue’s twin. In ancient times, the obelisk’s peak would have been tipped with electrum, a blend of gold and silver, the seventy-five-foot rod reflecting the sun and moon to guide worshippers like a church steeple. A ray of Re. The French had its sister in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, guiding cars around a traffic circle.

The Avenue of the Sphinxes guarded Luxor Temple’s outer pylon. Great palm trees ran the length of the sand-brown complex, their fronds black against a sky bruised by the lights of the surrounding city. Faysal crouched behind the haunch of a sphinx and watched the guards.

The white uniformed soldiers were a small matter. Although more particular than those who shepherded tourists in and out of forbidden areas, they still operated under the same principles, which made Faysal’s entry a question of adequate baksheesh.

He was glad to be away from the deir and death. He smiled; the reflex as out of place as always. One of the eldest companions, he was not surprised he had never reached the exalted status of high priest. Even in the darkness, his smile shone, supercilious, but not purposefully so; his was an expression of constant cheerfulness, which in time had marked him a fool. A fool whose task was to claim Osiris’s heart! His smile twisted. Faysal’s connection to the Fullness had always been weak, useful only for telepathy.

His hand shook as he reached for the sphinx’s paw. He noted the tremor of age and fatigue. Of late, he wanted little more than to lie down and rest, to join his brothers in the Fullness.

Faysal peeked around the chin of Amenhotep III, the pharaoh whose face adorned the sphinxes of Luxor. A cigarette burned in the shadow of the pylon. Faysal stepped into the pools of light that spilled between each pair of sphinx and strode down the avenue as if he were Amenhotep III himself.

“
Tisbah ‘ala kher.
” Faysal smiled.

“
Wenta bikher
,” the guard replied formally. His gun, scratched and worn, was leveled at Faysal’s gut. It looked very functional.

“I’m sorry,
pasha
, but I am conducting research on an area of the temple difficult to view during the daylight. The relief is so shallow it requires special lighting. Could you humor an old man and allow me entry?”

“The temple is open nights until eight PM.” The guard straightened and peered into the shadows beyond Faysal.

The old bull and the young one scratched their hooves on the earth.

“These walls are filled with tourists then who crowd the sacred symbols. They are distracting.”

The guard shrugged.

“I am old, friend,” Faysal continued, “I would not remain long.”

The guard ignored him.

At this point Faysal had expected that the guard would hold out his hand for an appropriate sum, a sum Faysal had stashed in the deep pocket of his pale brown galabayya. Faysal muttered a curse in the language of the companions.

The guard started in recognition.

Faysal’s heart leapt.

“Friend, I did not realize you were a companion. What is your name?” Faysal asked in ancient Egyptian. He realized that it meant the heart remained safe, under the protection of the companions.

“Ahmed, of Deir Abd-al-Fu’ad,” the guard replied.

At the name, Faysal celebrated.

Ahmed grinned broadly and placed an arm around Faysal’s shoulders. “Welcome to Luxor.” He swung the strap of his gun over his neck so that it rested at his side and then fiddled with a keyring. He unlocked the wire mesh gate. Ahmed ushered Faysal inside and signaled to another guard who stood opposite the shrine of Tuthmosis III.

Faysal blinked to see yet another man stationed in the interior. Other shadows shifted, hidden in the columns of the peristyle court of Ramsesses II, and his brow furrowed.

“How many of your deir remain, Ahmed? We lost many.” Faysal’s smile fled for a moment.

Ahmed placed a finger to his lips.

Immediately beyond the first pylon was Faysal’s destination. He longed to search the engravings of Luxor Temple, to enter the inner sanctum, the sun court and the birth house, where Akhenaten’s divinity was proclaimed. There the wife of Amenhotep III was confirmed by Thoth to have sired Amun-Re. He pictured Amun placing the ankh to the pharaoh’s lips, delivering the breath of life.

Flanked by papyri bud columns, the statues of a striding Ramesses II and the miniature Nefertari regarded him somberly. The statues’ stone eyes reminded him of the gravity of his task.

Faysal instead turned to the thirteenth-century mosque of Abu el-Haggag to the left of the shrine of Tuthmosis III and just behind the pylon. The mosque rose above the temple floor, built on the site of a Christian monastery long ago constructed on the site of the then buried Luxor Temple.

Luxor was once called
Ipt rsyt,
meaning “southern sanctuary,” during a period when the metropolis of Luxor was called Thebes. Faysal knew the secret of its location. The early Christians built on the location in order to protect its treasure—the Heart. It resided here at the temple devoted to the royal
Ka
, the heart of the divine Kingdom ruled by Horus.

“I need access to the mosque, friend.” Faysal hesitated to tell Ahmed what he sought. It was entirely possible that their deir had lost their keeper and with him the location of their relic. Faysal’s orders were to return immediately after recovering the Heart. If he were to tell Ahmed of his goal, Ahmed might not be willing to let him leave without first conveying the news to his high priest, who, Faysal expected, was also dead.

“We were expecting you, Faysal,” Ahmed said, nodding. “A falcon arrived yesterday.”

Ahmed motioned for Faysal to skirt the base of the mosque twenty feet above them. A barred door surrounded by a faintly colored mosaic opened onto the courtyard. Faysal knew where he headed but allowed Ahmed to lead him out of the courtyard and back along its wall to the mosque entry. Its whitewashed steps rose to an Islamic arch and an open door. This solved what Faysal had expected to be his second problem, a locked mosque. He grinned.

Ahmed respected Faysal’s unspoken request for privacy and stepped away from the mosque’s doorway, waving him through and shutting it behind. Inside, the chandeliers, at one time filled with oil but now wired for electricity, burned fiercely, illuminating the interior. The mihrab, a niche in the wall that marked the direction of Mecca, graced the far wall and an ornate minbar stood as an island; its steps rose to a pulpit where the Imam spoke.

Faysal had never been inside this mosque, but he surveyed the surroundings and noted the Luxor Temple capitals incorporated into the architecture. From these markers, he traced several paces to his right until his gaze rested on a portion of the wall that retained hieroglyphics. The wall was precisely opposite the mihrab. Not having heard him enter the mosque, Faysal started when Ahmed shuffled to his side and nodded encouragement. Faysal had hoped the man would lose interest, but Faysal hadn’t the right to ask him to leave.

Faysal strode to face the mihrab and slipped a small mallet from his robe. With an apologetic smile, he struck. The hammer pierced the thick layer of plaster. Fragments scattered into the darkness. Soon a gap large enough for his wiry body cleared. Ahmed stepped forward. With the butt of his gun, he knocked out more of the plaster until the border was framed by stone blocks. Ahmed coughed in the dust. Stale air exhaled from the alcove. Faysal drew a flashlight and probed the darkness with its beam.

“Ahmed, please guard my back. I have been given a task by the last surviving high priests.” Ahmed nodded confirmation, and Faysal relaxed. “I must go alone. I will return, but would like to know if my return has been compromised.”

“I understand, Faysal. It is written.”

Faysal smiled at Ahmed and then crawled through the hole. On the first block, he realized that he traversed a bridge. Beyond the narrow width of the bridge, the interior dropped into darkness. He spat into the depth and listened for the result. A distant splat. The light shone along the stone and illuminated three additional blocks that ended in a black passage. On his hands and knees, he shuffled to a stairwell. With his hand outstretched for balance, he stood, and then descended the swirling path, drilling deep into Luxor’s foundations, below where its modern excavations stopped. His pulse raced, and the whole of him tingled.

He hugged his chest from the cold. His breath misted in the light. At the base of the stairs was a large finished chamber replete with deeply etched hieroglyphs. No depictions graced the walls. In his decaying beam of light, scrollwork lined every surface—the Book of the Dead. On a pedestal in the centre of the room rested a dilapidated boat.

Faysal shook off the chill and strode to the boat. Its oars and rigging had failed in the centuries of its rest and its ocean-faring hull listed. Faysal pulled at the fragile cabin, and its slender boards snapped.

He gasped. The faceted Heart shone in the dim light of his flashlight. By proportion, the surrounding gold of the vertebra was a mere setting for a red diamond the size of Faysal’s fist. He could not begin to imagine the worth of the stone, the rarest color of diamond, and he immediately realized he could not show it to Ahmed.

He checked the room for alternate exits and secreted the Heart in his robes. The light cast a sallow yellow. He needed to leave before it died. He climbed the stairs, and this time walked across the narrow concourse to kneel at the edge of the hole to the mosque.

“Ahmed,” he whispered. Faysal nearly fell off the bridge when the guard’s face appeared in the hole.

“Come, Faysal,” Ahmed hushed.

Faysal exited, concerned by Ahmed’s tone. He toppled onto the marble floor of the mosque. As he tried to stand, Ahmed’s rifle struck his jaw.

Splayed on the ground, he groaned. The rifle barrel hooked into his ribs and turned him over. Faysal stared up into Ahmed’s wicked grin. Other guards exited from surrounding columns.

Faysal recognized the treachery too late.
He reached for the Fullness, but Faysal’s powers had always been weak. At best, he could send word of his failure. The thrill of the Heart, which had filled him, leaked away. His jaw throbbed.

“The Heart, friend.” Ahmed laughed. Faysal spat blood and spittle trailed across his chin and chest. Ahmed probed with the gun barrel until it struck the stone. He reached into the pocket of Faysal’s robe, batting away the vain attempts to repel him, and pulled free the gem. It blazed like a torch in the bright light.

“Seth!” Ahmed cheered, and the cry echoed about Luxor Temple.

Faysal struggled to his feet. While Ahmed shouted, Faysal slumped into the alcove of the mihrab, hauled himself back onto the bridge, and wormed into darkness. Faysal’s feet cleared the outer wall of the mosque, when someone yelled. Hands clawed at his ankles, and he kicked backward, rewarded by a grunt. He scrambled forward, careful not to slip over the edge into dark.

He allowed himself to topple over the stairwell’s lip. Gunshots barked in the cavern. A bullet bit into his thigh, and he cried out. Another shot hit his back at such an angle that the bullet flew through the top of his shoulder. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he rolled the first several steps, out of range of the final shots.

For several moments, he remained unmoving. His blood poured down the steps, and he realized his time was short. Stair by stair, useless lights burst into his mind. The pain kept him lucid. He reached the chamber of the Heart.

He fumbled in his pocket and was relieved to find the flashlight. In its mortifying light, he could just make out the words of the Book of the Dead.

Faysal recanted his sins until the glow finally died. Death saw better in the dark. And in the Halls of Ma’at, the feather of justice was weighed against Faysal’s well-intentioned heart.