Sphinx (58 page)

Faakhir.

‘Down here!’ he said as he bundled me into a side alley and then into a darkened entrance of what appeared to be a halal butcher’s shop.

 

‘I suppose you imagined I was the Antichrist incarnate.’ Amelia Lynhurst stood at her desk, a vast Victorian construction covered with maps and papers. An elegant cabinet stood against one wall, covered in framed photographs. Several showed a younger Amelia in uniform; one was of her sitting atop a tank, flanked by a couple of grinning British soldiers.
Sinai, 1944
was scrawled across the bottom.

‘A sort of a demon goddess in tweed?’ She smiled, beginning to stride around the room.

It was a rectangular chamber hidden behind the back of the small halal butcher’s shop - the door to the chamber had been concealed by cured goat and sheep carcasses hanging from hooks, and I’d been amazed at how spacious was the room that existed behind the heavy steel door.

The walls were lined from ceiling to floor with shelves crammed with papers and books. One whole wall was dedicated to Jung: I spied
Man and His Symbols
,
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
,
Psychology and Alchemy
,
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
amongst others. Another shelf contained books on physics, including several on the latest developments in quantum physics.

‘Just tell me again why I should trust you,’ I responded warily.

‘Because she allowed you to keep the astrarium,’ Faakhir said. He sat down and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. ‘She could have told me to keep it.’

‘And how do you fit into all of this?’ I asked him, my mind a blur, trying desperately to connect the dots.

Amelia put her hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘I had to make sure there was someone close to Isabella who could protect her.’

‘But you failed.’ I couldn’t keep the fury out of my voice.

‘This was my tragedy as well as yours.’ Faakhir’s face was grave with emotion.

‘Just tell me who you are!’ My patience had finally snapped. I slammed my fist on the desk but Faakhir didn’t even flinch. It was obvious that his previous naivety had been a façade.

I was horribly aware of the clock hanging over Amelia’s desk, the fine black second hand ticking by, notch by notch. I’d had enough of enigmas, of people who weren’t what they seemed.

Faakhir exhaled slowly. ‘Let’s just say I was trained by the Israeli navy.’

‘Mossad?’ I persisted.

He chose not to answer.

‘None of us predicted the earthquake,’ Amelia said. ‘We all thought that Isabella would reach the astrarium in time to influence her death date. Faakhir and I had made plans for every eventuality we could anticipate.’

‘How do I fit into those plans? Why did I inherit the astrarium?’

‘You are the Diviner, you embody Osiris. It must be you who reunites the astrarium with Nectanebo’s mummy. This is the only way we can avoid Maat - political and emotional chaos - and the era of Seth.’

She pointed at a black-and-white television in the corner. The sound was turned down but I recognised the footage: Sadat meeting with Assad - the president’s last stop before his secret meeting with Begin, the meeting that Rachel would be attending.

‘Is that what the era of Seth is - a failed peace initiative?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Don’t play the idiot, it doesn’t suit you,’ Amelia snapped. ‘Your fear keeps you holding on to the small known world you’re more comfortable with. Prince Majeed will use the astrarium not only to destroy Sadat but to create a devastating war in the region that will destabilise all neighbouring countries. It will be a version of hell, believe me—’

Faakhir interrupted her. ‘Enough, Amelia, we’re running out of time. Mosry is bound to track us down soon. Do you have the Was, Oliver - the key to the mechanism?’

‘Thanks to Amelia’s old friend Professor Silvio, I do - but then, you stole it in the first place, didn’t you, Amelia?’

‘I had to put it out of reach of the others. I was frightened they would abuse the power of the mechanism - turns out I was right.’ Amelia stopped suddenly, reading the ill-concealed anxiety in my face. ‘So you have used the machine. That was very foolish, Oliver. Very bloody arrogant.’

I collapsed into a chair, shattered by the barrage of recent events. ‘The sin of hubris,’ I volunteered.

‘It usually is with scientists. So when is your death date?’

‘Can you help me?’ I asked. ‘I know you were part of the original sect.’

‘I left after the first manifestation of Seth. I wish Isabella had, too. From that moment, her whole career was directed by Giovanni - in some ways, even after his death. Then she fell under the influence of Hermes Hemiedes.’

‘And he sent her to Goa.’

‘When I got that teaching position at Oxford, and once I felt I’d gained her trust, I explained some of the terrible things that her grandfather had done, the events he had manipulated. She wouldn’t believe me, couldn’t believe me. Then, when you both returned to Egypt this last time, Hermes heard that Isabella was close to finding the instrument. He persuaded her to attend a few of the rituals and, naively, she agreed.’

‘I had no idea. If only she’d told me.’

‘Would you have believed her?’

I didn’t need to answer.

Amelia’s expression was one of sympathy. ‘I’m afraid, Oliver, that you have a part to play, no matter how reluctant you are. As I tried to tell you at the opera, this is a great love story. You see, when Banafrit, chief consort and sister of Nectanebo, realised the assassination plot, I think she might have died trying to save her lover. Who knows if she succeeded in saving him or not? You can imagine the scene: Banafrit, party to the Machiavellian politics of the priest clan, desperate to reach Nectanebo to warn him. It couldn’t have been easy. There were many who plotted against the pharaoh, some in his own family, and the future of a whole nation rested on Banafrit reaching him in time. What I know for certain is that the assassination attempt was organised by a religious cult that worshipped the god Seth; a cult that Hugh Wollington wishes to recreate. Their manifestation of the god is one that thrives on chaos; the personification of amoral evil, the fascistic shadow self.’

‘Wait - the manifestation I saw in the catacombs - how was that staged?’

‘What makes you think it was staged?’

I didn’t answer. The idea that the manifestation might have been real was profoundly disturbing.

‘Hermes and his friends’ games, a dangerous charade that led to a summoning of arcane evil. Hermes still has some influence and he has gathered a small group of dedicated followers, much like Giovanni did.’ An image of the young woman, Isabella’s likeness, flashed into my head. Hermes must have picked her for the similarities, knowing that I would follow her.

‘You have to remember that when a group of followers come together,’ Amelia continued, ‘their desire and their will unite. That in itself is a hugely powerful force, an energy that many charismatic political leaders have exploited. Think of Hitler, Stalin, Mao - individuals capable of galvanising hundreds of thousands of people at a time. Jung also believed in the idea of mass hypnosis, an alchemy of faith. There, Oliver, I have given you a psychological explanation that you may feel more comfortable adopting.’

‘I’m due to die in . . .’ I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall ‘. . . sixteen and a half hours. It’s hard to find anything comforting at the moment.’

I laughed cynically but the others stayed grimly silent.

‘What about Hugh Wollington?’ I asked. ‘Who’s he working for? Was he involved in the ritual that was designed to terrify me?’

‘He was. Hermes was playing a dangerous double game. He is terrified of Wollington but he needed him as Horus. I suspect he would have tried to beat him to the astrarium to take it for himself. It wouldn’t have worked, poor man. Wollington is too powerful. He struck a deal, I’m sure of it. I imagine he is to get the astrarium after Majeed has abused its power. And, let’s face it, if Majeed gets his hands on the astrarium, the consequences will be just as devastating as the era of Seth: a whole country sinking into chaos, darkness, abject poverty, all under a dictatorship - even Seth couldn’t do much better. Wollington wants to be the rewriter of biblical history. He is hugely ambitious academically. He also want immortality - just a different sort of immortality to that sought by Hermes or Majeed.’

There was a knock on the door, which startled us all. After a nod from Amelia, Faakhir went to answer it. We could hear him conversing in Arabic. A moment later he came back.

‘Hermes Hemiedes has committed suicide. He hanged himself in his cell.’

I buried my face in my hands. ‘Jesus Christ.’

Amelia put her hand on my arm, her cool touch reassuring.

‘Oliver, concentrate. We have to move fast.’

I sent Faakhir to the apartment with a letter for Moustafa, giving him our pre-agreed code word. What seemed like minutes later he returned with the astrarium. Amelia lifted it from its wrapping and I witnessed the same reverence in her face that I’d seen in Hermes’s when he first saw the device: an expression of religious rapture. But in seconds she switched back from worshipper to scientist. Using what looked like a dentist’s stylus, she pushed at the base from one end. To my amazement, it shifted and slid outwards. She carefully removed it and picked up a magnifying glass to peer at its surface.

‘As I thought.’

Amelia offered the magnifying glass to me. A set of hieroglyphs and a line drawing were clearly visible on the tiny panel: I recognised the symbols for Osiris, the sun god Ra, and Thoth, but that was all.

‘This is an Amduat,’ she explained, ‘a map of the afterlife to help the deceased become an Akh Aper, a prepared spirit. It describes how the spirit must travel to the mansion of Osiris - an early prototype of Hades - and to the Field of Hetep in a twelve-hour journey that mirrors the journey of Ra, or the sun, in the hours between dusk and dawn. The map shows us how the spirit of the deceased must travel from east to west along a blue waterway across the inner sky. Then back again, from west to east, on a black land-path across the outer sky. Finally the spirit becomes a star in the sky next to the god Thoth. However, I suspect this particular map is more than allegorical; it is a deliberate smokescreen. I have seen this ruse once before on the back of a hand mirror found in the tomb of Nectanebo’s uncle.’

Amelia reached over and pulled a cigarette lighter from Faakhir’s shirt pocket. Flicking it open, she ran the flame over the metal surface. Shocked, I grabbed her wrist.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing . . .’

Smiling, she shook my hand off. ‘My dear man, of course I don’t! It’s always ten per cent fact and ninety per cent guesswork. But the flame can’t hurt it.’

As the surface of the metal blackened, the lines of another map appeared. I heard Amelia’s sharp intake of breath. The distinctive shape of the Nile, like the delicate branches of a wayward tree, was instantly recognisable. At the bottom, Aswan, with the ancient city of Memphis near the top; and the cities of Luxor and Thebes in between, small pale dots on the tiny illustration. A route was etched into the metal, from Alexandria along the coastline to Marsa Matruh, then swinging inland to the south-west near the Libyan border.

Amelia nodded several times. I could see her eyes misting over slightly. ‘So, he really was killed,’ she murmured. ‘This is the true map - added later, I suspect, after Nectanebo’s murder - a cartogram describing the route the Pharaoh’s mummy was taken along before being placed in a secret tomb. The assassins would never have left him unburied without some ceremony - the danger of angering the gods was too great. Oliver, we have finally solved the mystery of Nectanebo’s disappearance.’

‘And how will following this map help me?’

‘Your role is to return the astrarium to its rightful owner, to place it into the arms of Nectanebo’s mummy. The astrarium’s soul will unite with that of Nectanebo and the device will cease to function, maybe even to exist. It’s not only the one hope for keeping Egypt safe - therein also lies your own redemption, Oliver.’

I peered down at the small soot-laden map - it looked terrifyingly tenuous to me, the silvery etchings of a smoky dream. I still found it difficult to believe completely in the powers of the astrarium, but I had fallen under the spell of the death pointer and its quiet insistent ticks. And, as I noted bitterly, my supposed disbelief hadn’t prevented me from becoming embroiled in the events surrounding it. My own ambivalence aside, it was clear that Amelia believed in what the astrarium might achieve in the wrong hands and I had nothing to lose by trusting her. It was a calculated gamble: go with her plan, which might switch off the mechanism, or not. According to the astrarium I had only hours to live.