24 Bones (13 page)

A jet plane growled across the sky, but he stared at where the pail had lain.

Chapter Seventeen

The Temple of Isis, Philae

B
isher hadn’t stopped smiling since Jamal had selected him to claim a portion of the Spine of Osiris.

He rowed his small boat across the surface of Lake Nasser and regarded two somber men who hauled in a net. Droplets of water scattered from its thin mesh as they took it in; their skiff traced the invisible line that still lay submerged.

The Temple of Isis’s six pylons climbed out of an island’s jungle of date palms and fig trees. Bisher would have preferred to be earlier; already feluccas ferried tourists to and from the island in full view of his work. The piece of the Osiris was buried under the temple at Philae, but the temple was not in its original location. The Temple of Isis had been moved, stone-by-stone, to its new location on the Island of Agilkia.

The Island of Philae lay beneath Lake Nasser not five hundred yards from where the tourists tramped. The construction of the Aswan Dam had swallowed the temple. In 1960, UNESCO drove steel pilings around the original island, which it used to create a wall, and then pumped the temple free of water. The pilings were the last above-water vestiges of the original Philae. Bisher tied his boat’s painter to a rusted I-bar.

He smiled at the fishermen and thanked Horus his hands were not scored by the netting’s web. He did recognize the irony of his cheer. It was because of his affinity for water that Jamal had selected him for the task. In his youth, Bisher had dived the coast of the Red Sea. His family had not only hauled in nets of grouper, parrotfish, and eel but also dived the reefs for sea urchins and secret oyster beds for pearl. Bisher inspected the cracked rubber flippers and mask in the skiff. His falcon squawked at the prow.

Most Egyptian temples had similar construction, and although Bisher had never been to the Temple of Isis, he knew that it would have had a sacred lake, pylons, a hypostyle hall, and an inner sanctum. The relic was buried at the Nilometer’s base, the device the temple priests used to set the taxes based on the height of the Nile’s flood. If Jamal was correct, the artifact would be in a small niche under the Nilometer’s foundation.

Bisher shrugged off his coarse brown robe and cinched tight his swim trunks. The mask clutched his face, and he reveled in the scent of hot rubber and the familiar suction. He pulled the wetted flippers over his bare feet and strapped a black dive knife to his thigh. A felucca sped past, its motor spewing blue smoke. He slipped into an iridescent slick of oil.

After his night of travel and the already hot morning sun, the waters refreshed. He pumped the flippers to stay afloat and drew slow deep breaths. His head grew light as he hyperventilated. With a last gulp of air, he ducked under the surface and down. He had not dived in many years, but the skill came back as easily as the thrill of sliding weightlessly through the water.

A scarred mess of weeds and rotted tree stumps lay only twenty feet deep. The island was little more than a hump with depressions where each of the temple buildings had been removed. He was careful not to disturb the silt bottom and muddy the waters. The Nilometer would be near to the island’s edge and, according to Jamal, near the birthing house. Bisher’s visibility through the green-gray waters was twenty-five feet. As he swam, his lungs burned.

Just as his lungs rebelled, Bisher spotted an excavated hole that led down the Island’s side. His throat gulped reflexively in spasm. The Nilometer was usually an enclosed stair, with a series of markings counting down the level of the flood. The placement and declination were right, but the housing had moved with the rest of the temple. As he swam closer, Bisher’s lungs contracted in glottal throbs. He marked his quarry and then made for the surface, arms stretched out.

Upon breaking free of the water, he gulped air for several moments and surveyed the area. A felucca drove near to the former island, and Bisher drew another lungful before submerging until the boat passed. The buzz of its motor traveled swiftly under the water, and he sank lower to escape the propeller. After it crossed, well away from his location, he returned to the surface. His skiff bobbed in the wake of the boat. The falcon was missing, and he looked to the sky and pilings where it might have perched. He shrugged and made his final dive.

As he kicked, strange whistles and clicks, like those of a porpoise communicating, chirruped and tapped. Goose flesh rose on his arms, and he kicked harder, passing through a band of cooler water. The Nilometer had followed a large rock that the UNESCO organization had failed to move. Beneath the mask, Bisher smiled. Despite the extraction of the steps and walls, he could count down the rock’s markings in both Egyptian and Roman numerals. The additional depth pained his ears, and he squeezed his nose. The sinus pressure equalized with a squeak. He continued deeper and the markings stopped; the island fell sheer away.

Letting out some air, he let his body sink and trace the rock. Layers of chill water slipped up his calves, thighs, and then waist. A slim panel of hieroglyphs on the natural rock led deeper. His heart thudded in his ears. He estimated he was at a depth of sixty feet and equalized again. Only a limited spectrum of green light reached this depth and cast the world in dirty emerald. The clicks and whistles closed in, louder here. Although his lungs began their familiar throb, he exhaled to descend faster. The thin row of hieroglyphs gave way to a larger panel.

A winged Isis supported the mummified Osiris, who held aloft a staff tipped with the head of Anubis, god of mummification. Shadows flashed overtop of Bisher and he looked for the cause, but they were gone. His knife refracted the surface light as he worked at the relief. The centuries of weeds had added to the crumbly mortar that sealed it, and as he cut, bits floated past his mask, clouding the water.

Suddenly, something large struck his back and forced him against the stone. Underwater, his grunt honked. He twisted to see a dark shape swim away. He swallowed. Nile crocodiles were rare, but sightings still occurred. He needed to return for air, but knew he wouldn’t be able to reenter the water with a crocodile nearby.

He wouldn’t break Jamal’s trust. It had to be now.

The blade of the knife jammed under the corner of the panel. With one hand on the rock and the other the hilt, he pried and rocked the blade as though he cut the hinge from an oyster shell. The bas-relief separated from the wall a crack, and bubbles exploded from the broken seal, zigzagging to the surface. He pulled with rapidly declining strength. The lack of oxygen in his blood diminished his urgency to swim to safety. The section pulled free, hung for a moment, and then slowly sank to the river floor.

A golden block rested on a miniature altar to Re. Bisher’s lungs heaved. He snatched the object and drove his fins back and forth. A cloud of silt billowed beneath them. His vision narrowed to a small circle of green faceted waves on the Nile’s surface.

When he cleared the bottom of the Nilometer, the first crocodile snatched Bisher’s calf and hauled him deeper. Water smothered his scream. The second crocodile caught his arm as he hammered his foot against the first. Pain shot through his chest. Lake Nasser flooded his lungs. Jaws bit through his wrist and, with a snap of its head, a crocodile tore away Bisher’s hand and with it the vertebra of Osiris.

Pulled deeper still, Bisher watched a crocodile disappear, its hide decorated by silver rings. And then a mist of black blood and pain obscured all else.

First Quarter Moon

‘I shall not die again.’

-Egyptian Book of the Dead

Chapter Eighteen

“I
t’s a brilliant idea.” David waved his hands at the companions.

The tablet lay across the table’s thick planks with the companions hunched over it, trying to understand what he explained. They stood in the deir’s library. Decaying scripts, scrolls, and leatherbound texts lent the air a venerable seasoning.

“I don’t think it’s a code. The letters or words are only jumbled.” But David knew that a jumble could be as good as or better than a code, being a series of potential letter combinations. The tablet had hundreds of characters.

The trick to unscrambling a jumble was to discover the pattern. Religion created the art of code breaking and the Romans had been particularly adept. One method employed to evade detection was called steganography, the art of hiding. A message might be written on the shorn skull of a courier who then grew out his hair. He would travel to the intended recipient and shave his skull once more.

“Explain again what you propose, David.” Askari’s voice was low. Blue bags hung under his bloodshot and yellowed eyes.

“To hide messages the Romans wrote script along the lengths of leather wrapped staves and then unfurled the leather to hide its meaning. The message would be in no discernable order unless the recipient knew the appropriate diameter of staff to wrap the leather back around.” He waited to see if they caught on. When no one spoke, he continued. “What if they did this and then inscribed the characters on a tablet? It would appear like code, or a jumble.” David clapped his hands and smirked. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything the size of a staff?”

Askari regarded him, eyes glazed and too tired to see what was before him.

“The spine,” whispered a small voice. Faris stared at David.

“The Spine of Osiris might be a place to start,” David agreed.

“We only have four pieces.” Askari hung his head.

“That shouldn’t matter. We should still be able to read some portion of the script and perhaps guess at the rest, using that as our crib.”

All eyes fell to Askari. The relic’s keeper sighed.

“Faris,” he said, “will you fetch it for me?” Faris hurried from the room. Askari turned to Essam, one of the remaining companions. “A pen and ink, lengths of soft leather or cloth, and scissors and then return,” he ordered. Some hobbled. Another limped.

Alone with Askari, David slunk closer. “Askari, you asked before that I join you, and I understand that I need to learn how to connect … to reach. I would like to become a true companion. Can you train me? Will you?”

David’s eyes gleamed, but Askari’s head hung below his shoulders, supported by his white-knuckled grip on the table.

Askari nodded.

Sam
returned from Sudan with the heads of two boys, a girl, a woman, and a man. In the Temple of Seth, the heads formed a squat pyramid in her arms. She stretched out over the pit and let them tumble.

They knocked like coconuts, bouncing from the sides and through the hole to thud on the ground somewhere below. The blood of the companions stained the sloped walls. Their bodies had clogged Sobek’s hole until Pharaoh had ordered Trand to have someone force them all the way through. The carrion stank. If Sam had known, she would have realized that the tossing of the heads was anticlimactic.

“Seth’s will, Pharaoh,” Sam announced and lifted her arms. At the altar, Pharaoh fidgeted with the newest piece of the Osiris. Sam dropped her arms to her sides.

“I need the four vertebrae protected by the Shemsu Hor, Sam,” he said. Sam threw the sack she had used to carry the heads into the pit. Trand, who stood in the shadows to avoid the dim light, squinted at her. Her expression curdled. Sawing flesh, muscles and even the spines of bodies to bring back her proof had taken hours. Despite the unpleasant task, however, she had enjoyed the days away from the temple. Sunlight had darkened her bleached skin and energy throbbed within her, although the connection to the Void had weakened in her absence. This brought an unexpected change that increased her edginess. The Void’s grasp always seemed like clinging to a surging electrical line. Now, the Void swirled. When connecting, it repelled; tendrils snaked from its centre and lashed. Though her connection weakened, the Void’s power grew, and she didn’t understand what was happening to her.

Sam looked into the pulse of Pharaoh’s eyes.

“The Shemsu Hor’s vertebrae—bring them to me with the tablet or I will kill your mother. The full moon approaches.”

Sam swallowed her rage before Pharaoh noticed. In the deep shadow of the balcony, however, Trand marked it and lowered his gaze.

“Pharaoh, you said that I had only to retrieve the tablet,” Sam stated in a monotone.

“The vertebrae of Osiris.” Pharaoh slammed his fist on the altar. His eyes shed red ochre light. “The tablet now resides with the four pieces and David Nidaal.” His voice rang out in the cavern.

“What of the other vertebrae?”

“Let me worry about those, but the companions protect four.”

“I have just returned, Pharaoh. Why not—”

“Keep the party of Shemsu Seth small. You will lead. When you return, I will reveal my plan, and you will have power within your reach such as you’ve never dreamed.”

Sam regarded Pharaoh’s intense gaze. Sweat trickled down her back. She nodded and retreated across bloodied tiles.

“To be
useful to you in battle, I’ll need to learn how to empower an arrow or aten.” David inclined his head.

While the companions searched for a coherent portion of the tablet to transcribe, Askari had ordered David to enter the desert. Faris stared at his feet and quaked in anger, unable to believe that this man would achieve his most ardent desire.

They stood outside the kitchens in the courtyard near the altar to Re. David could see the Wedjat inscribed on its top.

“The power is in the connection, David. It is difficult to let your senses go. The desert … its cold, its heat, its stars, they will help you.”

“Can I take food?” David had lost ten pounds since his arrival. Bread, water, and fish were staples of the deir, not his usual pizza.

Faris rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t weigh a hundred pounds and I’m not used to fasting,” David said, the last days catching up to him.

“I understand,” Askari said; “but fasting is necessary. You will only take a robe.”

David had abandoned his cords and the ratty dress shirt. He’d been unable rid them of the stink of camel and armpit and wore instead a coarse brown robe that scratched. Heat shimmered from the sands.

“Remember to build a mound around you to keep the scorpions at bay as you sleep.” Askari had explained that the nocturnal scorpions could not effectively climb slopes.

“How could I forget?” David replied, eagerly turning to begin to hike from the deir into the desert.

Faris glared at his back.

David walked with the setting sun behind him. He could think of little else to do but stride further into the desert. It consisted of more rock than he had expected and less sand. He obsessed over where to build his mound and searched out the best rise with the most sand to pile around him, but one not too far from the deir.

He grimaced at the irony of searching for sand in a desert, but selected a small dune with sides that sloped from its peak. He dug out a large groove, scraping away the hot sand with a flat shard of stone. When finished, a two-foot ridge encircled a shallow pit. The dune resembled a squat volcano.

He checked the angle of the sun. A figure on a ridge was silhouetted against the horizon. David shrugged at the distant Faris and climbed into his nest.

Cool sand carpeted the base of his fort. Barely three hours into his strange vision quest, his throat already scratched with thirst and his stomach burned with hunger. The sun dipped below the horizon and the red light, hazy with fine blowing sand, decayed into night. The temperature grew comfortable, and his robes at last began to dry of sweat. In his makeshift bed, shrouded by soil, he listened for scorpions.