Sphinx (63 page)

‘Where am I?’ I asked.

‘On the island of Arachie, in the cave of Horus. But we must hurry. Ra has almost risen and you must place the skybox into the Pharaoh’s arms before then. You know the parable: a king is sacrificed for the greater good of his people, is entombed for a time, then rises again to join his father in the sky. This is the universal story, one that is told again and again.’

He reached up to his neck and, with a jerk, broke the leather thong of the pendant hanging there. He pressed it into my hand. It was a large gold coin embossed with a rearing horse.

‘The coin of Nectanebo,’ he said. ‘This was the first payment made to my ancestor. It will protect you.’

From outside, at some distance, came the sound of running feet. I looked at Yedaniah, wide-eyed with fear.

‘They’ll kill us,’ I said. ‘They’ll kill us both.’

Yedaniah put his hand on my arm to reassure me. ‘Have faith. Come now: it is time you faced your own death.’

I swung my feet around to the dirt floor and he helped me stand. Gingerly, I placed my weight on my injured foot to find that it wasn’t hurting nearly as much any more, then slipped the coin into my pocket. Outside, a cockerel crowed, followed by shouting.

‘We must hurry,’ Yedaniah said. He picked up the astrarium and bowed his head ceremoniously as he placed it into my arms. ‘For you and Nectanebo, my king. May the gods bless you both.’

He led me to the oven at the back of the cave, guided me over the cooling coals and pushed against the soot-covered back wall. To my amazement, it opened, revealing a large cavern beyond.

‘Quickly.’ He bundled me through.

Feeling panicked, I looked around the chamber; there was nothing but the stone walls, a dirt floor and an ancient mural illuminated by two lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

‘But where’s the coffin?’ I asked.

‘You were chosen. The gift of Osiris will guide you,’ Yedaniah told me, and stepped back into the outer cave. ‘May Amun-Re and my God protect you.’

His voice echoed against the walls as he pulled closed the hidden door, leaving me alone in the tomb.

 

The air was dry and smelled faintly of paraffin. The mural painting showed Seth spearing Osiris; an allegorical declaration of victory by Nectanebo’s assassins, I assumed. I put down the astrarium and limped slowly across the dirt floor, my left foot trailing blood. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the ground beneath my naked feet and, for the first time in my life completely unassisted by science and technology, attempted to read the subterranean geology.

I thought I could hear the distant rattle of gunfire, but I pushed it and my fear to the back of my mind as I concentrated on the earth, sensing its very resonance as it spoke to me. It was as if any distrust of my gift that had impeded me in the past had finally evaporated and I could see the strata in the rock around me as clear as day.

I walked slowly into the centre of the chamber, ignoring the dull throbbing in my left foot. My eyes closed, I pushed my naked right sole back and forth across the dirt. I could feel a ridge in the surface.

I kneeled down and with my fingernails dug wildly at the layers of impacted sand and earth. There was a marked line underneath - it looked like a rectangular corner. I cleared more dirt away and soon I had revealed the full outline: about seven feet by four - the size of a coffin. I brushed away a section in the middle and found a cartouche, one I’d now seen several times: the ostrich feather - Nectanebo II’s insignia. But as I kneeled there, my hands flat on the ground, I sensed nothing; the area felt as dense as the rest of the floor.

I stood up and stepped out of the rectangle, moving several feet to the left, closer to the wall. I felt a tingling under my soles. Here the structure changed radically - I could sense it as clearly as I could see the lights above me. The cartouche was a false lead - a trap to entice tomb raiders to dig in the wrong place.

I kneeled again, running my hands over the floor. Beneath the layers of dried mud and compacted stone dust I could feel a slight bump - the raised indentation of a circle. Scraping with my nails, I unearthed a metal ring and, with all my strength, hauled on it. The wound in my foot screamed in protest, but I ignored it. Time was running out. With a great grinding of stone and metal, a door opened in the floor, revealing a wide, deep grave with a single wooden coffin laid in it.

After jumping in I walked around the simple coffin: its wood was decaying at the corners, the grain eaten by time. The only ornamentation was the painted door for the occupant’s Ba to escape. The rest of the coffin was starkly bare, as if Nectanebo’s buriers had given him the minimum possible for his journey into the afterlife. I stood over the wooden lid, my legs shaking in nervous anticipation, my body racked with a terrible fear and tremendous excitement. What was I afraid of? Dying? Or seeing the great Nectanebo himself?

I climbed out of the grave and fetched the astrarium. The date of my death was unchanged. The two pointers had almost fused into one, announcing that my final moments were imminent. I had no time to waste - whatever happened to the astrarium, Mosry would probably kill me anyway. My only hope was to complete the task and then hide or try to run.

I stepped back into the grave and used a rock to break the lid of the coffin; the ancient wood splintered, sounding impossibly loud. I paused, listening. Then, reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the feather from Isabella’s Ba and placed it into the coffin. If I was to die I could at least try to ensure that she found peace.

Suddenly, shouting came from Yedaniah’s cave, then gunfire and the sound of furniture being broken. Frantically, I tore off the rest of the lid. There was a mummy inside, a gold mask over the face. I frowned and looked closer. I recognised the features despite the curl of the royal beard: it was the moulded face of a beautiful woman. I’d seen it on the sphinx that had toppled down onto Isabella, causing her to drown, I’d seen it in the shadow cast by the astrarium. I’d seen it again in Amelia’s thesis, and once more in Gareth’s drawing: Banafrit, Nectanebo’s high priestess and lover. I lifted the mask off and underneath - desiccated, skin blackened like leather but still beautiful - was the face of the woman herself. Now I noticed the outline of breasts under the brownish linen bandages that ran in long lines down the body, a filigree of beaded string stretched over the torso.

Despair washed over me, and I leaned against the side of the grave, staring down at the golden mask I’d left by the side. This was supposed to be Nectanebo’s coffin. Had this whole journey been in vain now that I had failed to unite the astrarium with its rightful owner? For a moment, the enormity of my quest overwhelmed me. Then, as I looked more closely at the mask, I noticed a line of hieroglyphs carved into its forehead. I immediately recognised Gareth’s cipher. ‘When the singing reed is placed in the lion’s mouth, the sands will echo.’ Now I noticed that the headdress engraved on the mummy’s mask looked like a lion’s mane. Why was this familiar? I racked my memory desperately, then remembered Gareth telling me that the translation of ‘Lion’ was also ‘Hathor’ - the lion-headed revengeful goddess, sister of Isis. What if it was Banafrit not Nectanebo, the feminine not the masculine, who needed to be reunited with her skybox? That still didn’t solve the riddle of the singing reed. Outside, the sound of gunfire was very close now. Using every ounce of concentration, I tried to calm my thumping heart. I picked up the astrarium - the key was still inserted into the mechanism, its long thin stem sticking out of the side. Think, think - my mind began putting facts against images against facts . . . Reed. Was. Singing. Quickly I pulled the key out. The key end - the two prongs - was delicate and longer than an ordinary key. It was then that I suddenly remembered my very first impression of the Was: a tuning fork.

The banging from the direction of the secret door to the chamber came closer. I had no time left. I stared at the dial of the astrarium. The black pointer continued ticking towards the moment of my death. I had no choice. I had to take the gamble. I pulled the Was out of the astrarium and tapped it sharply against the stone floor. Immediately, a single note, impossibly pure and clear, rang out from the key. The Singing Reed. I placed the vibrating key between the dried lips of the mummy. The tone intensified: like sunlight, it filled the whole chamber, almost as if the stone itself was vibrating with it.

I lifted the astrarium to place it on Banafrit’s torso. Just then the door of the cavern was kicked open. ‘Don’t move!’ a man shouted in heavily accented English.

I froze.

Mosry stood above the grave, his gun pointed directly at me. I looked at the astrarium and the death hand - and it was in that one single moment that I surrendered completely to belief in the device. Waiting for the bullet to pass through my body, I dropped the astrarium onto the mummy. In the same instant, a shot was fired.

I shut my eyes, expecting a searing pain to shoot through me. Nothing happened.

Slowly, I turned to see Mosry sprawled on the chamber floor, blood seeping from a fatal head wound. Behind him in the doorway was Yedaniah, on his hands and knees, cradling an ancient Uzi, blood streaming down his face. The note emanating from the Was suddenly stopped and a terrible silence rushed in to take its place.

Then came a soft but unmissable click from the astrarium. I swung around. As I watched, the small black hand with its Seth figurehead disappeared from view and a strange but liberating mixture of fear, resignation and relief rushed over me. This was the moment. Almost in slow motion, both the astrarium and Banafrit’s youthful face began to crumble, until there was nothing left of either but a fine reddish sandlike dust. ‘When the singing reed is placed in the lion’s mouth the sands will echo.’ The prophecy and Isabella’s last wish had finally been fulfilled. For one wonderful moment I felt nothing but relief and joy and a wave of post-adrenalin rush. Then I ran back and crouched by Yedaniah’s side. Blood was now pooling beneath him.

‘Such is God’s will.’ He groaned in pain. ‘You must go. You have succeeded in your task.’

I hesitated, staring back into the cavern, at the plain wooden casket, Mosry’s broken body, and the allegory of Seth spearing Osiris.

‘Go . . .’ Yedaniah fell back as his spirit finally left him.

 

Outside, the new day was breaking. I collapsed against a rock and stared out over the valley. I would have to go back to take care of the two dead men in the cave behind me and the bodies of Hugh Wollington and Amelia further in but just then, my face flooded with the first rays of the morning sun rising vast and golden over the horizon, I allowed myself to feel a great sense of completion. I had succeeded; I had returned the astrarium to its proper place and fulfilled my promise to Isabella. I had saved myself and I had saved Egypt from certain ruin. Elation quickly mingled with a sense of loss.

A sparrowhawk flew out of the cave behind me. She circled above me, then sailed out over the shimmering lake below, its surface a mass of sparkling diamonds. I watched the bird for as long as I could, until I lost her in the sunlight.

 

Hours later I sat on the veranda of a café, looking out over the tiny runway at Siwah Oasis. My initial exhilaration had faded and I was exhausted: physically, emotionally, existentially drained. I’d gone back in, retracing my steps, to bury Amelia and Wollington, then Yedaniah and Mosry, and that final physical effort had depleted the last of my energy. Now the real grieving had begun.

Sipping my mint tea, I stared past a plane to the sea of desert that yawned beyond, the horizon with its wavering bands of heat. My odyssey was already beginning to feel like an extended dream, and I wasn’t sure what my future held.

Inside the café someone turned up the volume of the television. I thought I heard the word ‘Knesset’, the Israeli parliament, when shouts of disbelief from my fellow diners made me swing around. The screen was showing live footage of Sadat in the Knesset, one Arab within a mass of Israeli politicians. He glanced almost shyly from under his thick black-rimmed glasses, then began to read a statement in a clear and confident voice.

‘In the name of God, Mr Speaker of the Knesset, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to thank deeply the Speaker of the Knesset for affording me this opportunity to address you . . . I come to you today on solid ground to shape a new life and to establish peace. We all love this land, the land of God, we all, Muslims, Christians and Jews, worship God. I do not blame all those who received my decision when I announced it to the entire world before the Egyptian People’s Assembly. I do not blame all those who received my decision with surprise, even with amazement, some gripped even by violent surprise . . .’

So the convoy and Rachel had arrived safely in Jerusalem. The peace initiative would continue, I thought, satisfaction and relief mingling as my fellow diners fell into a stunned silence.

I leaned back in my chair and felt something in my pocket - the gold coin that Yedaniah had given me. I pulled it out and examined the noble profile of Nectanebo II. I tossed the coin into the air, then caught it face up.

Epilogue