Sphinx (62 page)

Nothing came; just the sound of Amelia chanting what I assumed was a spell from the
Book of the Dead
. The creature’s legs began to shrivel and his distorted face flattened into the snout of a hippopotamus as he convulsed and writhed on the ground. Then his jaw stretched wide, cavernous and red, and a sparrowhawk burst out of his mouth and began to fly wildly around my head.

‘It’s Isabella’s Ba,’ Amelia whispered. ‘You will carry her to the end - you must help her spirit reach the afterlife.’

Awed, I reached out to the bird. The fluttering of its wings formed a thousand after-images that enveloped me in Isabella’s scent, in the soft whispering of her voice. Finally it landed on my shoulder.

Amelia took the gun from me and tucked it back into her belt. As she did, we heard an explosion in the distance - the tunnel’s entrance being unblocked.

 

We ran along the narrow passage for what, to my tired limbs, seemed like hours. When I was sure I could go no further, dragging myself along, mustering every last ounce of strength, we emerged into a massive underground limestone cavern deep within the mountain - a vast temple with multifaceted crystal stalactites glistening like hundreds of diamonds.

‘This is where you will meet your Ka, your spiritual twin,’ Amelia said.

In the middle of the huge stone floor flickered a large lake of flames that illuminated the ceiling that arched over us like the sweep of a cathedral roof.

‘Walk towards the fire,’ Amelia told me, and pushed me forward.

Tentatively I moved towards the blazing lake. Curiously, the nearer I got, the less heat I felt on my skin. Encouraged that the flames too were an illusion, I moved quickly closer and stopped about a foot from the edge.

The flames became iridescent and reflective at the same time, winding around themselves to fuse into the smooth surface of a mirror. Reflected in it was an image of myself. I stared at the tousled, bearded man with scratches covering his forehead and cheeks, barely recognising the dirt-stained face, the bewildered blue eyes staring through the red dust. I lifted my hand and he lifted his too. Then, to my amazement, he extended his hand towards me, the flesh becoming real as it reached out of the swirling reflective surface.

I stumbled back and my double stepped out and steadied me. His touch burned, and as his fingers closed around my arm he began to merge into my body. I blacked out.

When I regained consciousness, I seemed to be hovering high above, next to the glistening limestone ceiling. I looked down. Amelia stood below me - an aerial perspective, her figure foreshortened against the stone floor. Shocked, I plummeted downward for a second, then regained my balance. As I did, feathered tips came into my peripheral vision. I had wings. I had transformed into my own Ba. Sensing a presence behind me, I turned my head and saw a sparrowhawk swooping towards me. Isabella.

We flew together, twisting around each other like acrobats, swerving and swooping and narrowly missing the rock walls of the cave. I chased her, revelling in the power of flight, wanting to catch up with her, wanting to feel her spirit engulf me as if we were one being. Memories of our marriage streamed through me: our first night together; her first visit to an oilfield and her amazed expression as she watched me reading the ground; the way we laughed together at an unspoken joke; how we fell asleep in each other’s arms. And I knew then that despite all I’d learned since her death, all that Hermes had told me about our marriage being arranged by others, our union had been true, her love for me had been genuine. Isabella might have married me to fulfil the prophecy, but she had loved me above and beyond that - I was certain of it now. All these certainties seemed to tumble with us as we plummeted down to climb again in blind joy. Then, in the grip of my epiphany, I crashed into the cave wall.

I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the sandy ground. The sparrowhawk, perched on my outstretched arm, cocked its head quizzically at me. I tried to sit up. My whole body ached. It felt as if the hallucinogen pumping through my blood was receding.

The sparrowhawk hopped down onto the sand and pushed against my leg with its beak, as if to make me stand. All around me the sand started to undulate.

‘Oliver!’ Amelia shouted. ‘The mehen serpent!’

Two glistening eyes emerged, then a reptilian snout blowing grains of sand. The mottled head of a huge rock python followed, its smooth scaly body now stretched in a huge circle around me. The sparrowhawk dived at the snake with claws outstretched and the snake hissed and lunged back.

I struggled to my feet. The serpent reared up, sand cascading either side of its patterned skin. It stared at me with indifference, as if I were little more than a fly. I held my ground, determined not to show fear. Then, almost as suddenly as it had appeared, the serpent collapsed into dust and I realised that I was standing on a vast mosaic, its design a serpent holding its tail in its mouth.

The last of the blue lotus left my body and I became aware of the cold dampness of the stone tiles, the straps of the rucksack cutting into my shoulders, the sharp throbbing of the scratches on my arms and legs. Uncontrollable shivering gripped my limbs. I looked at Amelia. Her solid figure was also dusty and scratched and very definitely human.

Above us, the sparrowhawk screeched.

There was a whoosh of air as a bullet flew past me, narrowly missing my left shoulder. I ducked, the crack of gunfire horribly real. We bolted to the far side of the cavern as Hugh Wollington, dressed in army fatigues, ran into the huge space, gun raised. Blood stained his left sleeve; Amelia’s shot on the hillside had only wounded him slightly.

Amelia had her pistol in her hand and squeezed off two quick shots, forcing Wollington to take cover.

‘Over there, Oliver - behind that stalactite lies the entrance to the final chamber of the tomb. The doors will open as you reach them.’

‘What about you?’

‘This is my fate. Who am I to question it?’ she answered, smiling.

Wollington fired again and the bullet caught her in the left shoulder, flinging her body back with the impact. She grunted, but turned back to me.

‘Go! Go now!’ she told me. ‘I’ll cover you!’

Blood was seeping through Amelia’s jacket. I reached out to help her, but she urged me on. Lying on her side, she kept firing as I darted from one rock to another. As I reached the low archway, barely visible in the shadows, I suddenly felt a searing pain. A bullet had hit me in the foot. Falling to the ground, I cried out in shock and pain.

I rolled over and looked behind me. Wollington was running towards me across the cavern as Amelia worked furiously to snap a new clip of ammunition into her pistol. I watched in horror as he stopped and raised his pistol directly at me, taking careful aim. His stare locked with mine - just a dozen paces and the gun barrel between us.

At the edge of my vision I saw Amelia pull back the slide of her pistol, heard the click of the breech.

A gunshot rang out. My heart jolted. I stared at Wollington, astonished that I was still seeing anything at all, and, as I watched, Amelia’s bullet took him squarely in the stomach. Her second hit his temple - spinning him around and dropping him to the floor in a spray of blood.

A scream welled up inside me but I felt and heard it as if I were outside myself. I gasped for breath, hyperventilating with shock, but as Amelia turned towards me, her eyes calm, her hands steady, I felt my own hysteria recede.

I raised my hand and called ‘I’m okay,’ though I could feel my boot filling with blood.

‘Can you move?’ she called back.

I levered myself up onto my good foot. Pain shot up my leg. Just then, another shot rang out, the sharp, loud crack of a pistol from the very back of the cavern. Amelia’s face, a smile opening across her features, suddenly froze. I expected her to turn and fire back, but instead she pitched backwards, her arms flung wide, her pistol clattering on the stone floor.

In the silence that followed I heard a pair of heavy boots running across the cavern towards me. I was horrified at the loss of Amelia and, for one crucial moment, I dithered. But there was no time to grieve. Dragging myself through the lichen-covered archway as quietly as I could, I prayed that my pursuer wouldn’t find the trail of blood I was leaving behind. I looked around for a ready weapon. Reaching for a heavy rock, I lifted it and waited, desperately trying to control my breathing. The footsteps seemed to be coming nearer, but before they reached me a space opened up in the cave wall behind me and I was pulled backwards into it.

An old man helped me to my feet and supported me as we made our way to a small rowing boat that appeared to be floating on an underground river. He lowered me into it and I collapsed onto the bottom. Murmuring in a dialect that I didn’t understand, he drew a rug over me. As he bent down I noticed that his eyes were white with cataracts.

He cast off and the boat, lit only by a single lantern, began its journey along the dark water, where to I didn’t know; the stalactites passing above us were dazzling as the crystals reflected back thousands of shards of light. I felt the blood draining away from my body.

 

A luminous orange shape pressed against the darker red of my eyelids as external sound and light sucked me back into consciousness. I heard the beat of dripping water, and smelled the acrid odour of manure, damp straw and the distinctive apple-scented tobacco of the hookah. I opened my eyes and realised I was grasping something in my hand. I looked down. I was holding a feather - a sparrowhawk’s brown feather.

I was on a low divan that was covered in goatskins. The old man was sitting beside me with a bowl of water on his lap, smiling, his toothless mouth sunk into his wrinkled face. Chanting what sounded like a prayer, he lifted a cup and poured the cold water over my head. Shocked, I spluttered and gasped.

My head ached, but I was aware that, despite a strange feeling of dislocation and a heightened sense of colour, I was now entirely lucid. ‘I don’t understand you,’ I said in Arabic.

‘That is because I was using an ancient language,’ he replied, also in Arabic. ‘Aramaic, the old tongue. Forgive me, the immersion had to be done. It is the tenth hour.’

I sank back against the cushions as he bent down to examine the wound to my foot, now covered with a brown-green poultice of moss. Shocked, I pulled my foot back. The poultice went flying. He scolded me and replaced the moss.

At that moment I remembered the astrarium. My hands flew up to my shoulders; my rucksack was gone. I looked around wildly. Reading my expression, the old man reached for a small woven basket at his feet and pulled out the astrarium, now wrapped in an oiled goatskin.

‘Fear not, my friend, the treasure is safe. This is the last hour of your journey and I have restored your health and your sight.’ He touched my eyelids in turn, his fingertips pungent with the musk of the poultice. ‘I am Yedaniah bar-Ishmael. For centuries members of my family have protected the secret tomb of Nectanebo II, since the time my ancestor was hired as a personal bodyguard by the Pharaoh at Elephantine, long before the living memory of this epoch.’

‘You are a Jew?’

‘My family chose not to leave with Moshe ben Amram ha-Levi across the divided sea; our hearts were wedded to this land. I was born here and I will die here.’ His fingers scraped at the earth floor of the cave, crumbling the soil. ‘I am sorry for the death of your companion. The Berbers will collect the shell of her body and they will bury her next to her husband. ’

The vision of Amelia’s crumpled form swept bleakly through me. Suddenly the death toll, the sacrifice that the astrarium demanded seemed too high. Despair gripped me. Battling rising panic, I tried to calculate how many minutes I had left of my own life - not many.

I looked around. The room appeared to open onto a courtyard, a mat of woven rushes covering the entrance. The bluish dawn light filtered through the gaps between the rushes and I could just make out a couple of goats tethered to a post outside and the outline of a metal water pump.

The cave itself had obviously once been a tomb: murals of the gods hunting and feasting covered the walls. There was a huge stone oven carved into the back of the cave, large enough for a man to crouch in; a blackened copper pot sat atop it. Against the wall was a set of shelves made of wood from a shipping carton - the stickers advertising Siwah Dates were still visible - filled with tinned food, condensed milk and one lonely jar of Nescafé instant coffee. I noticed a radio propped up against a low table that held a backgammon board, the pieces poised mid-game. The prosaic nature of the setting was reassuring and I felt myself becoming calmer.

I looked back at the old man. His skin hung in folds below his chin and his face was a map of moles and uneven pigment. Again, I saw the clouds of cataracts in his eyes. It was impossible to say how old he was - over ninety, I imagined.