Sphinx (60 page)

‘You mustn’t let anyone or anything take this from you, Oliver, do you understand? No matter what you see, or what you think you see.’

I scanned the plateau of waving date palms, then looked further, to the edge of the dunes. The only other individuals I could see were a few Berber boys collecting dates. Beyond, on the great sea of sand itself, a black serpent of Bedouins wound its way towards the medieval city of Shali. If Mosry or Hugh Wollington had followed us, they were well hidden.

Amelia checked her watch, then, with her hand shading her eyes, gazed at the sun, a crimson disc starting to dip towards the tops of the palms. ‘We have twenty minutes before the journey begins. We should get started.’

I gazed at the horizon. Was this to be my last night alive? The dunes were beginning to cast long rounded shadows that seemed to become more sinister with the fading light. Suddenly a strange haunting birdcry sounded out above us, echoing in the valley below. I peered up at the violet darkening sky. I could see nothing. Yet I had the uneasy and now familiar sensation that we were being watched; not just by unseen enemies, but by the mountains themselves.

I followed Amelia up the mound of earth and rubble towards the base of the temple. Surprisingly small, the building stood high on a hill, obviously positioned to impress an audience standing below and looking up at the priests conducting their ceremonies at the entrance - a smoke-and-mirror show designed to inspire and intimidate. I tried to rationalise to myself that what I was about to experience wasn’t dissimiliar - phantoms plucked from my subconscious. They can’t hurt you, I told myself, but a childhood memory of being terrified by the images of hell in my schoolbook Bible floated into my mind. I looked at Amelia’s broad back ahead of me, her grey hair reassuringly real and maternal. She would be my anchor.

She paused to catch her breath. ‘You know, most worshippers never actually entered the temple. Can you imagine what it must have been like for visiting military leaders seeking religious legitimacy? Climbing up here alone, dusty, exhausted, sweating into ceremonial armour, already humbled by the climb, to confront a half-demented seer whose blessing could either make or break your strategies? I came up here myself with my husband in April 1943 to pray to the gods for a victory.’ She smiled ironically. ‘I suppose it worked, but my prayers had a price.’

The temple’s classical portico, flanked by columns, had been eroded by wind and sand; only a few alcoves remained, which must once have held icons or statues. Inside, it was a series of small rooms, no doubt designed to maximise an air of mystery through the use of light and shadow. It reminded me of a De Chirico painting, and I half-expected Isabella or some Grecian goddess to step into the dreamlike interior.

Amelia crouched in the doorway and pulled a flask from her backpack, followed by a small brown envelope. She unscrewed the top of the flask and filled the cup with what looked like wine, then opened the envelope and crumbled a bluish powder into the cup.

‘This is for you: the ceremonial cup that will give you the sight of the gods.’ She held it out to me. ‘You lucky man.’

I eyed the concoction warily, hesitant after my recent experience in the catacombs.

‘Oliver, take it. You’ve got no choice - you must open yourself to other ways of seeing.’

‘I have no intention of making myself that vulnerable again. What if we’re attacked?’

‘I’ll protect you.’

I eyed her. Even armed and with her military training, it was hard to imagine her fighting off seasoned killers.

‘Oliver, I have the element of surprise on my side, and besides, I know the terrain a lot better than Mosry or Wollington do.’

I shook my head. ‘I was lucky to survive the last time. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Listen, do you think Faakhir and all the others who wish to protect Sadat would have left us to do this alone if they didn’t think I was capable of protecting you? You have to see what the priests saw, you have to recognise the symbols when they appear. Please . . . it’s too late to stop trusting me now.’

Amelia thrust the cup under my nose; the rich, pungent smell of red wine and a finer perfume, like that of a flower, drifted up.

‘This is wine mixed with a bouquet garni of mandrake and blue lotus - you’ve probably seen them painted in reliefs in the tombs. The Egyptian priests would drink the concoction to attain a state of heightened spirituality. You need to drink it too.’

‘I’ve told you: no.’

Suddenly enraged, Amelia rose to her feet. ‘Okay then, I’ll leave and you can work out what you want to do next! You can risk your life on the gamble that all this is some elaborate charade put on solely for your entertainment. Or you can decide actually to commit fully to something for a change!’

She glared at me and turned away. I glanced up at the sun; my heart was really pounding now. I had to drink the potion, I knew. My fear pushed me kicking and screaming to do something, anything. Amelia was walking away with a determined stride.

‘Wait!’ I yelled out, stumbling across the sand.

She still had the cup in her hand. She held it out and I drank the bitter contents.

As Amelia and I sat there, our backs resting against the stone that was warm from the day’s sun, I found my mind clearing. My memory erased itself into a white blankness. It was as if I had been pushed into the present tense in a way that was infinitely more vivid than I’d ever experienced before. The grain of the stone magnified, the pale mauve of the sky intensified, and the heroics of a large ant carrying a grain of sand across the rock wall by my knee became absolutely fascinating - an allegory for my own struggles.

Something moved at the perimeter of my vision. I lifted my head. Through the stone-framed opening I could see the silhouette of a large ram standing proudly on a boulder just beyond the temple. The sunlight painted his fleece gold and the noble length of his curling horns and his beard marked him as the patriarch of his herd.

‘Amun-Re the divine is here,’ Amelia whispered.

‘Can you see the animal? Is it real?’

‘What is real, Oliver?’ She smiled. The animal stepped closer. Now I could see the vertical slant of its pupils, the green-golden irises. It stared directly at us, then cocked its head in the direction of the desert and took a step backwards.

‘You must follow.’

The tone of Amelia’s voice gave me no choice. The animal turned and began to leap nimbly over the ruins towards the remnants of the Temple of Amun-Re. I followed, abandoning any attempt to make a rational analysis of my actions.

As we climbed, I began to see the temple better: a pile of toppled columns with one standing wall, one side patched up with modern bricks. The ram stopped beneath a mural of hieroglyphs clearly visible on the inside section. Amelia scrambled to join me about a yard away from the ram. I stood transfixed by the animal’s stare: it was of a piercing intelligence, neither malevolent nor benign.

‘What do we do now?’ I found myself whispering as if in church.

‘Kneel,’ Amelia said, and dropped to the ground.

Rather self-consciously I joined her. The ram disappeared around the wall and down the hill as silently as it had appeared.

Amelia pointed to the characters carved into the reddish sandstone. ‘The top row indicates the higher deities.’

I could see the line of gods. In the middle, flanked by the other deities in profile, stood a figure with both hands outstretched, his headdress adorned with the horns of the ram.

‘The central figure is that of Amun-Re himself,’ Amelia explained, ‘with Isis on one side, Nephthys on the other, and on either side of them Horus and Osiris. But concentrate on the figure of Amun-Re - he is the key.’

The sun’s rays formed a perfect half-circle above the top of the wall, directly above the figure of the god. The light grew brighter and brighter until the figure was surrounded by a magenta halo. It seemed to become three-dimensional, suspended in the air before me, and I was filled with an intense sense of well-being and invincibility.

Then a shadow crossed the crescent of the sun. It was a bird, a falcon. It landed on the wall, arched its neck and let out one piercing cry.

‘We are entering the second hour.’ Amelia’s voice had taken on an echoing, reverberating quality. ‘Horus is upon us. He will lead you into the Waters of Osiris.’

This time I didn’t doubt her.

She grabbed my arm and together we clambered down the rocky slope on the other side of the temple, following the falcon as it plunged into the tops of the palm trees that bordered a lake. We reached the thicket of palms and stumbled through the undergrowth, over dead palm fronds and desiccated dates. Finally, the skyline cleared again as we reached the edge of the salt-encrusted lake. The falcon, swooping like a black arrow, was once more overhead, guiding us. My boots squelched in the marshy ground and were soon covered with the snakeweed and algae that floated in the shallow waters.

A crash sounded behind us and I swung around. ‘Is someone following us?’ I whispered to Amelia.

We stood still and watched. At a far distance, set against the dusk sky, two torch beams swung across the foreshore, their passage broken by the lattice of palm trunks and low bushes. To me it seemed that the beams of light were being reflected back by the glinting eyes of hundreds of animals crouching in the undergrowth. I began to sweat with terror, as the low murmuring of male voices was carried towards us on the breeze. I was certain that I recognised Wollington’s voice and I couldn’t shake the thought that he was following close behind.

‘Let’s go, as quickly and silently as you can,’ Amelia commanded in a low voice, gripping my arm again and hurrying me towards a vessel moored to a log. It was a traditional felucca, made of reeds and with a primitive sail hanging limp from a single mast and an oil lantern on a pole at its other end. With a flurry, the falcon landed on the side of the boat, its head cocked, waiting.

Night was falling quickly, as it does in the desert. Only the distant glow of the medieval town of Shali - a scattered shower of pinpricks glowing from those buildings still occupied - lit the horizon. I clambered into the boat after Amelia. She cast off the rope, trying to be quiet, but my clumsy movements sounded impossibly loud in the night air. I looked around, trying to pierce the darkness. I couldn’t see anyone but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. I touched the straps across my shoulders that held the astrarium securely on my back, aware that my senses had become distorted. My imagination elaborated shade and shadow into fantastical creatures; my heightened sense of hearing made it impossible to discern what was close by and what was distant. Above us, the moon, a three-quarter, crater-pocked orb, was now visible. It was as if it was beckoning me - a thousand white arms bending and glowing.

Amelia followed my gaze. ‘The Ancient Egyptians believed that the moon was the midpoint for ascending souls,’ she murmured.

What had I got myself into? I settled lower into the boat, horribly aware that we were clearly visible from the foreshore.

Amelia pushed the boat off, the falcon took wing, and we floated away from the shore and out onto the shimmering water. Apprehensively, I glanced at Amelia. Her figure seemed to have grown in height and authority and I could see a radiance dancing about her features. She hoisted the sail and announced, ‘We are now entering the Waters of Osiris.’

The limp sail swelled and filled like the white wing of an ibis. With a creak, the boat gathered speed, insects trailing behind it as the prow cut a ripple into the huge white spectre of the moon that undulated across the water’s surface.

I looked into the moonlit lake. The sound of water lapping against the sides of the boat grew louder until it built into the crashing sound of huge waves against rocks. Despite the noise, I couldn’t see anything except gentle ripples on the lake’s surface. Fear began to churn my guts again. Irrationally, I kept expecting a tidal wave to appear on the horizon, a massive wall of water. My perception of the boundaries of matter had begun to blur, as if the very laws of physics had altered and the molecular structure of all that I knew had been transformed. I huddled even lower in the boat and forced myself to match sound with vision; gradually the roar of the crashing waves subsided. You can control this, I told myself, you can control the demons. I reminded myself that I was doing this for Isabella and for the Egypt we both loved. I would finish her journey, even if it killed me. The reality of that thought shot through my mind and dissolved into the core of my being.

Then, just as I was congratulating myself at having regained control of my senses, a pale flash of bluish-white broke the surface of the water and then submerged again. I heard the distinctive thud of something bumping against the wooden hull of the felucca. As I forced myself to look over the edge, a body floated into view: white legs, the split peach of a naked vulva at their apex, small breasts barely breaking the surface, long hair streaming over the face. I recognised her immediately - Isabella. The current dragged the hair away from her face and her eyes opened and stared at me.