“What’s this?” said Gideon. “Magic?”
“In a way. The magic of capillary action. The dry wood takes the water in through the capillaries and the pegs swell up. Presto—the rock splits.”
“You’ve gone barmy,” Imogen said.
“Think so? This was a tried-and-true method of splitting rock for hundreds of years, in New England and elsewhere. It’s called water wedging. I estimate it will take two hours, maybe more.”
“Two hours?” Gideon asked, looking at the moon again. “We won’t have any time left for exploration!”
“O ye of little faith.”
“Even if this works,” said Imogen, “and the door splits open, you realize the guards or whoever keeps watch on the valley are going to see it’s been entered.”
“That assumes it’s actively patrolled,” Garza told her. “You speculated they’ve been protecting this tomb for thirty-five centuries—and that its location is probably sacred and secret, known only to a few. I’ll bet they only check up on it once or twice a year. Why else would they maintain that fiction about a Demon Valley? And just look at the sandy ground around here: if they were constantly patrolling, we’d see a trail, or at least footprints other than our own. I’ll bet at most only a few elders know about it—maybe just Lillaya and the chief. Otherwise, people would realize there’s a second way out of their valley.”
It was a reasonable argument, Gideon thought. “But that door is basalt. One of the hardest rocks there is.”
“Hard, yes. But brittle.”
They sat cross-legged in the sand and fell into silence. A distant owl began to hoot: a low, mournful sound that seemed to shift about in the maze of canyons. Every twenty minutes or so, Garza would rise and pour a little more water on the rags. An hour went by, then two.
Gideon again glanced skyward as the minutes crawled by. The full moon had been gradually making its way across the sky, the shadows moving with it. They’d left around midnight, and with the hike in they’d arrived here around two thirty AM. Now it had to be at least four thirty. The sun would rise at six.
He rose. “Forget the possibility of bagging any game. If we don’t leave now, we won’t even get back to camp before dawn. People are going to wonder where we are.”
In that moment, they heard a sudden kak! It wasn’t overly loud, but it cut through the stillness of the night air like the crack of a whip. A fresh diagonal split had formed across the door, running through the line of pegs. A moment later the abrupt cracking noise was followed by another, this time hollow and mysterious. The stone slab began shifting, its two halves grinding against each other, under the irresistible pressure of their own massive weight—and then they fell atop one another in a kind of slow motion, hitting the ground with a shuddering boom and raising a huge cloud of dust.
Gideon waited for the dust to settle and the boom to stop echoing across the canyon walls. He looked around to make sure the noise hadn’t been overheard, then he stared back into the dark maw of the tomb. Garza was already taking out three small pitch torches he had brought along. He pulled out a little fire drill he’d fashioned, produced a small flame, lit the torches, and passed them out.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They approached the door, the yellow lights faintly illuminating a long stone corridor.
“Are there likely to be booby traps?” Gideon asked Imogen.
“Only in the movies,” she said. “If there’s any trap here, it would be a welclass="underline" a deep pit directly inside the door. But…” She advanced, holding her torch before her. “There doesn’t seem to be any well at all. How odd.”
The corridor, cut out of the living rock, sloped downward into the mountain at a gentle grade. They proceeded cautiously. Colorful paintings decorated the incised and plastered walls, a great procession of people in the Egyptian style, surrounded by panels of hieroglyphics.
A little farther along the corridor, Gideon saw that it came to an end in another door. But this was of wood, not stone, with a tiny second door built into it. The wood had once been gilded, and bits and pieces of gold leaf shone in the torchlight. The image of a golden chariot was carved into the door, with a pharaoh standing in it, holding the reins of four horses, surrounded by more hieroglyphics.
“What does all that say?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t want to wait to decipher it,” Imogen said breathlessly. Despite herself, she was tremendously excited. “Let’s see what’s inside first.”
Garza knelt and examined what appeared to be a bronze locking mechanism on the small wooden door. As he fiddled with it, the lock came apart in his hand, the wood crumbling to dust. With a low creak, the door inched ajar.
They all looked at each other.
“Who’s first?” asked Imogen.
“Garza,” said Gideon. “He got us in here.”
“No,” said Garza. “Imogen’s the Egyptologist. She should go first.”
There was no further discussion. Eyes shining, Imogen got down on her hands and knees and, holding the torch before her, crawled through the opening. The flickering light streamed back toward Gideon and Garza, wavering this way and that.
“What do you see?” Gideon asked.
There was a long silence. And then: “My God. Things. Amazing things.”
Gideon couldn’t stand it any longer. He dropped to his knees. “I’m coming in.”
He crawled through and Garza followed. They stood up and, in the flickering torchlight, found themselves in a surprisingly small chamber, perhaps fifteen by fifteen feet square. The walls were covered with paintings and hieroglyphics, and the barreled ceiling was painted a deep azure, decorated with golden stars and a silver moon. In the center of the chamber was a great granite plinth supporting an upright cabinet made entirely of chased and beaten gold. The cabinet doors were shut and sealed with lead tapes.
Gideon turned slowly, struck dumb, moving the torch this way and that in order to see better. Set on the stone floor surrounding the cabinet were a great many things, and it took Gideon several moments to take them in. There was an alabaster bowl, filled with heavy gold nuggets; a slate tray covered with polished pieces of lapis lazuli and turquoise; and another tray of gold amulets inlaid with precious stones. There were gorgeous hand-carved bowls and elaborate vases of snow-white alabaster; solid gold slippers; daggers of fine workmanship with handles of ivory and sheaths of gold; scepters and crooks of gold, silver, and lapis; an entire bowl filled with gold rings and necklaces…and another filled with cut gemstones—diamonds such as Gideon had never seen or even heard of before, the color of the golden sun. Nearby lay the head of a leopard in beaten silver, a jackal in ebony…the array of treasures went on and on.
And the walls. One held a magnificent, life-size painting of a pharaoh mounted in a golden chariot, whip in one hand and reins in the other, driving a team of richly caparisoned stallions across a landscape. The other wall depicted an immense battle scene.
Gideon finally tore his eyes away. Imogen was pale, her face a sheen of perspiration. For what seemed forever, no one spoke.
And then Imogen said: “It’s incredible. Almost unbelievable. But it’s not a tomb.”
Gideon stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“Where’s the sarcophagus? Where are the canopic jars and ushabtis? And it’s so small. Even King Tut’s tomb had half a dozen rooms.”
Gideon looked around. There were no other doors leading out. This was the only chamber.