by Anna Butler
Altenfeld had survived along with at least some of his men, and they were on the move.
Heading our way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When I returned after playing peekaboo with the pyramid’s electrical lightning ray, it was just on ten. In civilised places, I’d be sauntering into the breakfast room. At least I got a coffee pushed into my hand to compensate me for the lack of devilled eggs and fried kidney.
“I made it,” Hugh said. “Almost as good as your own.”
It was, too. Refreshing, after a man had been dashing back and forth for the last four hours.
Inside the pyramid, Ned and Günter were hunched over sheets of paper as they translated the odd hieroglyphs, and put them aside with reluctance when I chivvied them into the tent to join the rest of us to discuss my various experiments. Mindful of Günter’s presence, I gave a partial report of my discussion with the Gallowglass in that I didn’t mention the Gallowglass’s agreement to speak to the Huissher about a military intervention, only that he’d try to send reinforcements if we could close down the pyramid. Ned and Theo exchanged a glance, and those mirrored serious expressions relaxed to identical degrees. They’d got the message.
Günter’s mouth twisted, but he nodded. “Once inside, we will do our best to see how the machine works and how it might be controlled.”
“It fires up when it detects anything at a height of seventy-five feet and above,” I said. “There must be some sort of control factoring in the size of an intruder, otherwise it would singe the wings of every hawk and lammergeier in the Highlands, but as soon as the two-seater reached that altitude the machine switched on.”
Sam’s scowl was magnificent. “Can we get out at that height?”
“Not in the Brunel.” Hugh grimaced. “It’s not safe, not in turbulence.”
“Rafe can do it, I’m sure.” Nell’s partisanship was heartening, a touch undercut by her asking in the next breath, “What turbulence?”
“When you have air moving over a landscape like this, updraughts and downdraughts jostle each other. I’ll need more than a mere seventy feet under us to give me the chance to deal with it. Not to mention that the valleys and ravines cutting through the surrounding hills are too narrow for a safe low altitude flight.” I glanced around the ring of chagrined, disappointed faces. “Closing down the pyramid is our sole chance of flying out everyone together, even if we were prepared to abandon the pyramid.”
“Which I am not.” Ned nodded, looking grim again. “We know where we stand, then. Altenfeld?”
“Eight miles north of us. Working his way here with his people.”
Sam looked up so sharply it’s a wonder he didn’t snap his cervical vertebrae. “George!”
“Already on it, boss. Banger Bill took a couple of men to the northern edge of the plateau. He’s set up watching stations.”
As we all knew, but George refrained from saying, it was a bloody big plateau. We needed a small army to guard it. Watching stations were better than nothing, but not much.
“Should we wait or go out and meet them?” Theo asked.
“We’re in a position of strength, and we know they’re coming.” Sam looked at me. “How many?”
“The Pasha’s information suggests they number about a dozen all told. Let’s make the assumption all of them survived their crash landing. There are—” I did a fast count in my head. “—seventeen of us, not counting Nell. Even with you and Hugh hors de combat, we have the edge in pure numbers. But Ned, Theo, and Günter are also non-combatants—”
“Both Theo and I are trained with pistols and harquebuses, and practise regularly,” Ned cut in, with a mulishness that had Sam scowling.
“I am not helpless.” Günter sounded sulky. “I can use a harquebus. Although I am not a soldier, I hunt deer and other game.”
Tatlock’s grin was cold as a death’s-head. “I’ve got my double-barrelled pistol with me. That’ll separate the men from the boys.”
Oh, yes. The pistol Tatlock had used in our Abydos adventure. Barrels as wide as the mouths of hell, it would make mincemeat of any fool standing on the wrong side of it when it went off. “Unmans me, I can tell you,” I murmured to Ned, who managed a slight, choked-out laugh.
“We’re in a good situation. Every man has a harquebus and pistol, and we have half a dozen wide-bore muskets, not to mention enough ordnance to take on the entire Prussian Army.” George nodded at Tatlock. “Thanks to Bert, who stocked up in Aswan.”
Tatlock’s grin became matey and smug. Perhaps he was warming to George.
I considered pitying George, but thought better of it. I liked him a hell of a sight better than Tatlock, but he was just as lethal. He could take care of himself.
Our considerations petered out soon after. Nothing much had really changed beyond more certainty over the status of Altenfeld and his men, and we had much to do in anticipation of their arrival. The guards focused on preparing for what they did best—that is, commit war and various other species of mayhem—and we were all dependant on Ned and Günter getting into the pyramid to close down its defences, a task to which they returned. Once I’d agreed to the various deployments and arrangements posed by Sam, George, and Tatlock, I left them to it and wandered back into the pyramid’s outer room to join Ned.
“Günni has most of one panel done,” Ned told me, by way of greeting.
“Good. The sooner we get inside, the better.”
Günter stood before the wall panel in question, his tall frame gargoyle-hunched as he huddled over his notebook, the low muttering of his deep voice rolling like the grumble of distant thunder. He jack-knifed upright. “Dummköpfe! We are idiots, Ned! Dunderheads!”
Ned shot me a faint grin and ran to join him.
“See here. This.” Günter jabbed a thumb at a line of hieroglyphs.
Ned’s lips moved as he translated. “Oh.”
“Ja. See?”
“I see it. Damn.” Ned turned to me. “This may well not be an entrance chamber, Rafe. It’s called the Place of Deliberation. Or Discussion, perhaps.”
“A meeting room?” I looked around. “Who was meeting here?”
Günter spread out his arms, hands palm up, and shrugged.
“Then we probably won’t get into the pyramid this way. The real entrance must be somewhere else.” Ned kicked at the floor. “Damn! I shouldn’t have assumed this one would follow the Early Dynasty pyramids, where all the entrances are on their north faces.” He glanced at me. “Aligned with the pole star, Rafe.”
“Not at ground level, though,” Günter pointed out.
“No, but this doesn’t appear to be a mortuary pyramid that would be sealed against thieves. I’d hope to find a way in that didn’t involve climbing.”
“I understand. It is a disappointment, natürlich. We should search above. As with the pyramids at Giza, the entrance must be high up on the side.”
Oh, wonderful. I’d been inside Cheops’ pyramid in Giza, the Great Pyramid, and had sharp memories of the dark opening in the massive blocks and the narrow tunnels behind. “How high?”
Ned pulled his notebook from his jacket pocket. “I did a quick survey the first week we were here. Look.” He beckoned us each to one side of him so we could all see his neatly drawn diagrams. “The pyramid is a miracle of precision with each side three-six-five royal cubits long—a little over six hundred feet, Rafe—and it’s three-six-five cubits tall. Compare that to the Great Pyramid, which is just under five hundred feet tall with each side shorter than here.” He waved a hand at the around us. “This is the biggest one ever found. Eight steps—nine, if you count what I think is the tip of the obelisk. That alone makes it unique since most step pyramids have five or six at most and are nowhere near as tall. Each step is ten cubits shorter than the one below it. Eighty cubits, seventy, sixty and so on.”
“Gott im Himmel. It is impossibly regular.” Günter reversed Ned’s move and pushed his notebook into his pocket, all the better to run bot
h hands through his hair and pull on it as if to tug all the confusion from his mind.
I did the calculation in my head. One hundred and thirty-four feet, at least, to reach the top of the first step alone.
Marvellous.
“Yesterday, when we arrived, I thought I had never seen anything built with such exactness.” Günter’s smile was a wry twist of his lips. “Our landing and everything else drove it from my mind. But what a find this is, Ned. What a find!”
“I spent a week surveying this pyramid to make these drawings and saw nothing else that looked like an entrance. Nothing. Mind you, I was at ground level.” Ned closed his notebook with a snap. “Look, shall we just assume Thoth built this pyramid?”
“Whoever Thoth was,” I said. “Or whatever.”
Ned gave me a grave nod. “Interesting, isn’t it? There’s a machine inside this place, something beyond our imagining. And it’s been here for over five thousand years. If Thoth built this place, and the machine… then, yes. It’s a very big question, who he was.”
Günter made his helpless hands-out gesture again. “They deified Imhotep after he built the first step pyramid. He was so extraordinary—engineer, magician, scribe, astronomer, physician—the ancients believed he could not possibly be an ordinary man. Thoth could have been another like him.”
I copied his gesture, but not in mockery. “Or something else entirely.”
“A god?” Ned quirked an eyebrow in my direction. “I didn’t think you’d believe in them.”
“I don’t. But I’m finding it harder to believe Thoth… Let’s just call whoever built this place that, shall we?” At their nods, I went on. “All right. Thoth built a pyramid unlike anything either of you have ever come across. Why? What’s it for? Why does it need an obelisk that pops out of the top and brings down aeroships? You’re the experts, not me, but I didn’t think there were a lot of them around in ancient Aegypt.”
“Of course not.” Günter didn’t quite roll his eyes, but I suspected he was tempted.
“I see Rafe’s point,” Ned said in a thoughtful tone. “What else could he have been defending against? And while we think about it, how could he have built this place? Or shaped and levelled the plateau? What a conundrum!”
I could only nod. A riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a puzzle… I doubted we’d solve it easily. “We’d struggle to build a weapon like that, and we’re five thousand years on from him. Damn it, we didn’t even have steam engines until Tom Savary needed to pump floodwater out of his coalmines, and that was just two hundred years ago. Whatever Thoth was, a mere man doesn’t seem to be it.”
“What are you suggesting?” Günter’s jaw had sagged as I spoke, and he looked wild about the eyes. “A god? A man? A…” He let that trail off. “Ach, nein. Impossible!”
We all stared at one another, the very picture of consternation.
Günter might be right. It was impossible. But I don’t mind admitting that several icy fingers appeared to be playing arpeggios on my spine. “I don’t know, Günter. I’m merely thinking aloud. Either Thoth was a god, which I’d rather not believe, thank you. Or a man, a genius five thousand years ahead of his time, which I find rather hard to believe. Or maybe that chap Wells got it right about races on other worlds visiting here. Which I really, really don’t want to believe.”
Günter threw up his arms and stamped away to stare at the panel of hieroglyphs. Perhaps they comforted him with their familiarity.
“You didn’t say anything out there,” Ned said, and before I could reply, added, “And I quite see why. They have enough to worry about with Altenfeld and his men.”
“Besides, it’s not really the issue, is it? We’ll probably never have an answer.”
“We shall just have to wonder.” Günter turned back to face us. “And we must get inside, Ned. We must.”
“Yes.” Ned scowled over Günter’s head at the hieroglyphs. They obviously offered no comfort to him. “The Place of Seeing, you said, Günni. Right?”
“Ja.”
“That suggests it’s very high up. In the mythology, the god Thoth measured the heavens. He counted the seasons and the number of days in a year—” Ned stopped dead. “Good Lord, we really are dunderheads. He counted the number of days! This pyramid measures three hundred and sixty-five cubits across and the same in height. That’s no accident. I would bet the Imperium’s treasure chest he built this place for his experiments, and had an observation platform on the roof for taking his measurements. There must be some way of getting out onto it.”
Oh, jubilate.
“And an aperture to allow the obelisk to move up and down, too,” I said, even as I castigated myself for being a fool for encouraging Ned’s idiocy. “That’s another possible way in.”
“Gott im Himmel. Over six hundred feet!”
“Perhaps there were stairs up the pyramid side, once,” I said. “Or Thoth flew. He was an ibis sometimes, after all.”
Or had his own damn aeroship.
“Or a baboon, scampering up the blocks.” Ned’s tense expression softened. “Well, we can’t fly, so climbing it is.”
Climbing I could cope with, but I drew the line at scampering. Far too undignified.
Ned led the way, everyone in the tent staring as we filed through. Sam didn’t look too pleased when we explained, and Hugh was regretful but waved me out with a “Take care, sir.” Sam said more, but I covered Nell’s ears and hurried her outside. If I’d been wearing pearls, I’d have been clutching them.
Out on the plateau, my neck ached from the angle at which I had to tilt my head back, and even then I couldn’t see the upper steps, much less the roof six hundred feet above. The walls, made from large blocks similar to those of the Great Pyramid, had small crannies between each layer giving us good hand- and footholds. While not as easy as Cheops’ pyramid at Giza, perhaps, the ascent shouldn’t be too difficult.
Günter blew out a breath as loud as a fledgling gale. “It will be quite a climb.”
I glanced at his leg. “Can you manage it?”
He grimaced, but nodded. “My knee is good enough, I am sure. I will not be left behind, even if I must be hauled up.”
Ned took pity on us, I think. “We’ll check out the first shelf, the ‘roof’ of the bottom step, before we go any higher.”
Ridiculous how relief and hope lightens the heart. That sounded almost reasonable, considering we’d still be clambering up over one hundred and thirty feet.
Tatlock appeared at my shoulder, handing me a personal Marconi. “Hawkins insists we take these. George has sent a man for ropes from the Brunel’s hold.”
“We’ll need them.” I fitted the tiny earpiece into my left ear. “Has anyone any climbing experience?”
“Theo and Whelan have mountaineered in the Alps. George Todd went with them last time, too.” Ned turned to Theo, who joined us just then. “Ah. Did you get that, Theo?”
“Good fun, eh! Can’t wait.”
Theo weathered our hard stares. The gaiety and innocence of youth was all very well, but that sort of enthusiasm ought to be curbed. Theo and Whelan walked along the pyramid’s side, scrutinizing the blocks of basalt and conferring with each other.
Theo returned with a confidence I wished I shared. “I don’t think it will be too difficult. Nothing is sheer rock, and those blocks give lots of holds without too much of a stretch between them. Isaac and I can set ropes as we go.” His swift sideways glance at Günter betrayed his concern, but to be honest, I’d probably need the ropes myself.
“That will make things easier.” Günter was curt, but he returned his gaze to the pyramid face before him, and his expression soured into a pained acceptance. He nodded at Theo. “Danke.”
Theo had an infuriatingly wide smile. “Like shinning up a rope ladder.”
A six hundred feet high rope ladder. A mere bagatelle.
A tug on my sleeve had me turning away from where Theo and Whelan were wrapping ropes around themselves in a professi
onal sort of way and discussing their route.
“I’m going up, too.” Neither Nell’s tone nor expression held any element of appeal or tentative inquiry. She was making a statement of intent. And as I opened my mouth to say Oh hell, no!, she ploughed her furrow straight on, having learned at her mother’s knee when it came to employing a Medusa-like glare. “You know how much this means to me, Rafe. I won’t be left behind! Besides, women climb the Great Pyramid every day. Mama and I did ourselves when we arrived in Cairo. It was perfectly respectable.”
“This is steeper and a great deal higher—”
Nell turned the hard-eyed Gorgon-gaze onto the pyramid face. “There are ledges between the layers of blocks. I’m sure I’ll manage with the help of the ropes.”
Theo interrupted then with a most unhelpful comment. “I’m sure you will, too.” He added, in an admonitory aside to me, “You know Ne— Miss Lancaster, I mean, has a great interest in archaeology. Of course she must be in on our discoveries!”
Quite a change of tune since he’d agonised over potential dangers back in Aswan. I gave him a quelling glance and favoured Nell with a sceptical raised eyebrow. “In skirts?”
Good Lord, she had perfected that smug look. She raised her skirt high enough to show off the wide trousers hiding the shape of her legs, broad cuffs at the hems fastened tight around the tops of her boots. Harem trousers of some sort. “Mama and I bought them from Cairo’s premier modiste before we visited Giza. They’re all the crack for ladies in Aegypt. They’re light, but preserve my modesty.”
My snort should have rattled the obelisk down from the pyramid’s top. “What ruddy modesty?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Beyond taking the time to stuff a couple of satchels with flatbread and cold meat from supper and adding a bottle or two of water, we didn’t delay in starting off, eager to get inside the pyramid. Our respective nursemaids—Tatlock, in my case, and George acting in loco parentis on Sam’s behalf—were less enthusiastic, though resigned to their fate. Ned and Günter had their usual prospecting gear of hammer and chisels attached to their belts, and we all carried brimstone torches and pistols. Even Nell had tucked an improbably small pistol into her skirt pocket, taken from Tatlock’s stash. His explanation for carrying such a ladylike weapon about with him was a simple, “It’s Miss Eleanor, isn’t it?”
