22
The floor of the entrance chamber was about eight feet beneath the hole. Sand had seeped through directly below the opening, but beyond it everything was clean.
Almost too clean. There was a stagnant feel to the air. Nothing had moved here since the tomb was sealed, time standing still - or pausing, poised, waiting for someone foolish enough to disturb the eternal silence.
Macy shone a flashlight across the walls, revealing the chamber as somewhat larger than the structure above. ‘Hieroglyphics,’ she said, stepping closer. ‘Huh.’
‘What?’ Nina asked, joining her. ‘Can you read them?’
‘Just about, but they’re weird-looking. They must be really old.’
‘They’re beautiful, though.’ Nina slowly moved the beam of her own light along the white wall. The hieroglyphs were as clear and colourful as the day they had been painted, figures from Egyptian mythology standing amongst the text. She recognised some of them as gods: Ra, the sun-god, creator of all things; Nut, goddess of the sky, her naked body arched to form a vault over the entire earth.
But there was one god missing. ‘No Osiris.’ The key figure of ancient Egyptian religion was conspicuous by his absence.
‘No Horus, either,’ Macy added. ‘Or Set, or Isis. Not even Anubis, and since he’s the god of tombs, you’d kind of expect him to be here.’
‘They were all contemporaries of Osiris, or his children,’ Nina reasoned. ‘They hadn’t been deified yet. Which means this place really does pre-date the Old Kingdom - Osiris and the others were already worshipped as gods by 3000 BC.’
‘I was right,’ said Macy. ‘Yay me!’
Eddie explored another part of the chamber. ‘Got a doorway here.’ A pair of decorated pillars marked the exit. ‘There’re some stairs. Pretty steep.’
‘Let’s hold on - this room might tell us something useful.’
Macy examined the texts. ‘Freaky,’ she said. ‘They’re lists of all the trials that newlydeads have to go through in the Underworld. Like the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts.’
‘They sound cheerful,’ Eddie commented.
‘Earlier versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead,’ Nina told him.
‘Oh, perfect bedtime reading. By Stephenkingmun, was it?’
Macy giggled, then returned her attention to the walls. ‘What I don’t get is that in the other texts, all this stuff is basically prayers telling you how to get through each arit, each land, of the Underworld. Like instructions - if you haven’t sinned and you do what it says in the texts, you’ll get through all the trials to meet Osiris. This is written differently, though.’
‘How so?’ Nina asked.
Macy pointed out one section. ‘This is talking about the first arit of the House of Osiris. When you go in, you have to face the Lady of Tremblings, one of the guardians of the Underworld. But it only really says that she’s bad news, “the Lady of Destruction”. In the Book of the Dead it also says that she’ll deliver the person going through the Underworld from destruction if they’re doing things right - I remember it, because I thought the idea of being the Lady of Destruction was neat. Kinda metal.’
Eddie nudged Nina. ‘You know all about being the Lady of Destruction, don’t you?’
She huffed. ‘Only accidentally. But the second part’s not in this text?’
‘Not that I can see,’ Macy said. ‘It’s more like a warning than a prayer. There’s nothing about how to actually get through the arit.’
‘Oh, man!’ Nina complained, looking at Eddie. ‘You know what that sounds like, don’t you?’
‘Booby traps,’ they said together.
Nina put a hand to her face. ‘Just once, just goddamn once,’ she moaned, ‘I’d like to find an incredible archaeological site that’s not filled with Rube Goldberg death machines. Is that too much to ask? No collapsing ceilings, no crushing devices, no frickin’ cherubims waving swords at me!’
Macy was intrigued. ‘Cherubims? As in angels?’
‘Long story,’ said Eddie. ‘Okay, so we’ve got to get past the Lady of Tremblings. What else?’
Macy spent several minutes searching through the hieroglyphics. ‘The Lake of Fire - or Devourer by Fire, it’s talking about the same thing,’ she reported. ‘The Lady of Rainstorms. The Lady of Might, who “tramples on those who should not be here”, sheesh. The Goddess of the Loud Voice—’
‘Nina, they wrote about you!’ Eddie put in.
‘Well, yeah, I am a goddess.’
‘I can just leave, if you like,’ Macy said peevishly, before turning back to the ancient text. ‘So we’ve got the Goddess of the Loud Voice, the Hewer-in-Pieces in Blood, and then the last thing before you reach Osiris is the Cutter-off of Heads. Real subtle. They’re all mentioned in the Book of the Dead, but these descriptions are a bit hinky.’
‘It’s the other way round,’ said Nina thoughtfully. ‘The prayers in the Book of the Dead came from these - this was the source. The booby traps built to protect Osiris’s tomb eventually became part of the religion.’
‘We might need more than prayers to get past something called the Hewer-in-fucking-Pieces,’ Eddie said, shining his light down the sloping passage. ‘There’s nothing helpful?’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Macy replied. ‘The other text’s mostly “Osiris is awesome!” kinda stuff. Lots of curses, too. “Desecrate the tomb of Osiris and suffer a thousand agonising deaths”, yadda yadda.’
‘I don’t want to suffer one agonising death,’ said Nina, joining Eddie. The passage was also decorated, more Egyptian gods ominously watching anyone who dared traverse it. ‘Think we can make it through?’
‘Depends what state the traps are in,’ Eddie said. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here before us, so there’s no chance Indy or Lara’ll have set them off already - but after this long, they might not still be working.’
‘Right, like we’re ever that lucky.’ Nina looked back at Macy. ‘What do you think?’
She seemed surprised to be asked. ‘Me? I dunno, it’s your decision.’
‘It’s your life,’ Nina countered.
Macy considered it. ‘I came this far,’ she said. ‘And you’ve both kept me in one piece, so let’s do it!’ She was about to start down the steps when Eddie grabbed her.
‘Just one thing,’ he said, pulling her back. ‘Stay behind us, okay?’
The passage descended into the inverted pyramid, making two ninety-degree turns before a pair of ornate pillars marked the entrance to another chamber. ‘It’s the first arit,’ said Macy, nervous.
Eddie directed his torch beam into the darkness. ‘It’s big,’ he said. ‘Deep, too.’
‘A shaft?’ Nina asked.
‘Right on.’ He cautiously advanced on to a little ledge. The shaft’s ceiling was about thirty feet overhead, and below it dropped out of sight beyond the range of his light. Two large pipes made from hand-beaten sheets of oxidised copper ran down the height of the far wall, on which was painted a giant female figure, but he was more interested in another object - a long stone beam, extending across the shaft to another ledge on the far side.
‘That doesn’t look safe,’ said Nina. The beam was less than a foot wide, and precariously perched.
Eddie moved to get a better look at the slab’s sides. ‘You’re not kidding. Look at them.’ He illuminated the far end, revealing thick carved protrusions and also mechanisms built into the opposite ledge - two large stone cogwheels.
Metal shone dully in Nina’s flashlight beam as she directed it above the cogs. ‘They’re connected to something up there.’ A large cylindrical piece of stone hung on a chain from a pulley.