by Anna Butler
As ever, Hugh was the epitome of practicality. “Well then, we’d better find a way down.”
Yes. We’d better.
Hugh and I spent the following hour examining the walls of the Place of Verification and sounding what felt like several acres of smooth stone blocks to test for secret doors. To no avail, I might add. If Thoth had other ways of getting into and out of this chamber, he’d hidden them very well indeed. In between forays along the walls, I made certain I was beside the Antikythera machine for each move it made. Familiarity bred endurance, if not quite contempt.
I’d been right. Something in the pit stirred each time the machine moved. I’d watch it, then go back to finding a way down.
Theo and Nell disappeared towards teatime, then returned with a flask of sweetened tea to share and some sandwiches. Ned ate some, but still with an absent air, suggesting he wouldn’t be able to answer if you asked whether he’d had tea or the best Krug.
“Not as salubrious as Shepheard’s teas,” I said to Nell, thinking of where we’d found her only three days earlier. It felt like a lifetime.
“It’s thrilling, though.” She rose on her toes to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Thank you for letting me come with you.”
I couldn’t recall being given a choice, or she would still be sulking in Hermopolis. We were technically under siege, and when I looked around the chamber at the people I loved—Nell, Hugh, Ned. Always Ned—my fear almost smothered me.
I choked down the tea and went back to work. When it came to the hand we must play, the pyramid was our ace. Our lives could depend upon how well we used it. Old Francis Bacon was right: knowledge is power.
Or, in this case, survival.
In the end, we gave up on the chance of finding a way down into the pyramid from the Place of Verification. Great Pharaoh’s bandaged ghost, but it was frustrating!
Hugh cast a glance at the entrance vestibule to the Place of Verification. “Well, we need to try elsewhere, I suppose, sir. You told me whoever built this place—Thoth, if you will—was obsessed with lining things up with the northwest, looking back to Aegypt. What about the Star Map room you came in by?”
Bless him, but Hugh was a genius. We exchanged grins and turned, as one, to walk to the vestibule. As we passed one of the photon globe lampstands, I snaffled the lotus-shaped aether container from the hook it swung from. It took a mere moment to see how I could free it without blowing us all to kingdom come. A thin flexible pipe ran to through the stand to feed the lamp with aether. The lamp came free with a twist and a slight krik as it disconnected, the valve between lotus globe and pipe closing automatically. Miniature lightning sizzled and cracked against the spot where my hand touched the glass; enough aether to last for hours.
Dismantling Thoth’s living space attracted Günter’s attention. “Where are you two off to?”
Avoiding a direct answer, I gestured to the vestibule with the lamp, the mini lightning inside creating a futile little storm against my fingertips where they touched the glass. “Sam has people out on the shelf. And I want to take another look around.”
Günter got halfway to his feet, but fell back again. “Gott, I wish I were ten men and could see everything at once! This is overwhelming.” He sounded reverent. “There is a lifetime’s work here. Several lifetimes.”
Ned just smiled. “Have fun, Rafe.”
Tatlock scowled and took a step towards me, hesitating and looking between me, Ned and Nell.
“Stay here,” I told him. “Hugh and I won’t be far.”
The scowl deepened, but he nodded and allowed me to go without him. Twice in one day. Almost worth an entry in my diary.
Hugh and I did indeed make our way out onto the ledge before doing more exploring on our own. It was close on six, and the sun had dipped behind the western mountains, rimming their dark edges in red and gold. The winter day, always cool, was growing positively chilly, and spicules of frost glinted in the pitted surface of the rough stone blocks. The guards Sam had posted up here wouldn’t be able to see anything now, and the first one we ran into, the one on the northern side, was preparing to return inside the pyramid. We waited with him in the Star Map Chamber until the others worked their way around to the door. They had seen neither hide nor hair of Altenfeld.
It meant nothing. If Altenfeld had crossed the river, he’d have the sense to sit tight below the plateau edge, hiding his men among the trees until full dark. It’s what I would do.
Sam would be ready for him. He wouldn’t be fooled.
We walked back with the guards as far as the vestibule to the Verification Chamber, and waved them off down the staircase to where Sam awaited their report. As soon as their boots clattered out of hearing range, we got to work.
The photon globe lamp was a far more powerful and consistent light than the brimstones we’d used earlier, pervasive and steady. It illuminated the Star Map Chamber, chasing away the thick shadows. The walls were made of much smaller stone blocks than the pyramid’s main structure, close-fitted, with paper-thin gaps between them, then thickly covered with incised carvings and paint. Our investigation consisted of examining the wall a block at a time, pressing against the corners and edges of each one in the hope a hidden door would be revealed. And it involved a lot of under-the-breath cursing.
It seemed I had a distressing lack of faith, no matter what the religion. Wrong-headed, in this case, because of course Thoth had a door hidden away. Hugh found it.
On the west wall, Thoth stood with a halo of stars around his head, his hand outstretched to cradle a constellation which took in at least a part of modern-day Orion. When Hugh pressed against the carved Dog Star, something in the wall clicked and a thick stone door swung away from him, opening onto darkness.
Grinning, he turned to me and bowed, waving a hand towards the entrance. “All yours, sir.”
I stood on the threshold and lifted the lamp above my head. A short landing, and beyond that, a wide stone staircase wound its confined way in a spiral, disappearing into a cold funereal shade any Cimmerian would envy. The very stones of the walls were chilled.
Well, now. Just what I expected.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I won’t go down.” Hugh sounded regretful. “Coming back would be a problem. I can’t run up and down stairs. I don’t think you should go alone, though. God knows what you’d find.”
I didn’t disagree.
Still, we did a little basic exploring. We tested the door, to be sure I could close it behind me but still open it from the inside when I needed to. It proved remarkably easy. The inside of the door was fitted with a lifting latch and handle, and pressing the carved and painted representation of Sirius on the wall of the Star Map Chamber operated a mechanism that lifted the latch from the outside. Simple, but effective.
That persuaded Hugh to descend a few flights of stairs with me—the door closed behind us, because I did not want to share this with anyone yet and Hugh was willing to indulge my caution—where he waited while I went far enough to confirm the stairs continued below ground level. I didn’t go farther. This was a treat, of sorts, to share with Ned.
We returned to the Star Map Chamber and closed the door. The pyramid had grown cooler now the sun had set. Whatever system drew in fresh air, brought the evening chill with it. The prospect of a warming, spicy meal was enticing. When Hugh and I returned to the main laboratory chamber, everyone was preparing to return downstairs for the night, eager for supper. Pity I wouldn’t be able to join them yet.
“More than one Aegyptologist lives entirely on canned beans,” Günter was telling Nell when we came in. They winced at each other in exaggerated fashion. “But I make a first-rate stew, Fräulein.”
“Excellent. I can make the tea, at least. That’s a nice ladylike occupation.”
Günter gave Theo a wicked sidelong glance, keeping his attractive, crooked smile for Nell. “Then we will be a culinary partnership. Come! Let us go down.”
She threaded her arm th
rough his, and they were off, Theo trailing along after them. To be fair, Theo didn’t appear worried, and before she reached the door, Nell peeped over her shoulder at him and smiled. Theo almost glowed in response. Whatever Günter’s game was, it seemed doomed to failure.
Ned was reluctant to abandon the chamber. He dillied and dallied and dawdled. Which suited me.
“I have something to show you, Ned. Stay up here for a while?”
“Ned?” Günter paused in the vestibule doorway.
Ned smiled. Bless the man, but he agreed without a smidgen of hesitation. He trusted me, which was nice. “Rafe has something he wants to show me, Günni. We’ll be down shortly. Probably by the time your stew is ready. You aren’t the fastest cook I know.”
Günter laughed and, with good old Hugh doing his best impersonation of sheepdog herding, they all left us.
Almost all.
“Damn,” Tatlock said. “And I’m hungry.”
“Go on down. Mr Winter and I will be an hour or so, I expect. There’s something quite important I want him to see.”
Tatlock gave me the Look I remembered from my nanny: the “You’d better think again about whatever mischief you’re planning, Master Rafe, if you know what’s good for you, and take that frog out of your pocket” cold stare. Tatlock replicated this so well, I suspected my old nanny was his mother. I also suspected my personal proclivities were not quite as private as a man might hope. Then he sighed and shook his head, as one faced with a folly calculated to drive him to despair. “I don’t suppose you can get into any trouble up here. One hour, and then I’ll come looking for you.”
And off he stumped, my personal guard dog and nanny.
Finally, we were alone. But not, damn it, for good reasons, the sort of good reasons that left me giddy with desire and lust. Not those sorts of reasons at all.
“What did you find? Or is this the best excuse you could come up with?” Ned’s face contorted as he tried to wriggle his eyebrows.
I snagged Ned’s hand with my free one. I still held the photon globe in the other. “Come on. We’ll get another one of these, and I’ll show you.”
“Oh,” he said.
I would have loved to laugh at his faintly disappointed air, but despite my gratification that he had hoped for a little dalliance to celebrate the day’s finds, the circumstances didn’t warrant so much as a wry smile, much less a hearty guffaw. We took another lamp from its stand, Ned hesitating as we turned away.
In the end he sighed and followed me. “I need to study these lights. Such a small thing, I suppose, compared to what else we’ve found today. Günni was right about the lifetime or two’s worth of work.”
“No time now, though.” I took him through the vestibule and corridor to the Star Map Chamber and went to open the hidden door. I drew a slack-jawed Ned through the narrow opening and closed the door behind us, raising my aether lamp above our heads to illuminate the spiral stairs.
Ned blew out one noisy breath. “Dear Lord.”
“I don’t know where it goes. At least, I’m not entirely sure. I have an idea it leads to the power source.”
His eyes were enormous, round as pennies. “What a place this is, Rafe!”
“I got to thinking, you see, about how we might shut off the pyramid’s defences and leave without the Brunel being blasted out of the sky. The second time the Antikythera machine back there did whatever it does to make that noise, I was quite close to the edge of the pit. I saw something down below. A long way down. Hugh and I went searching for it.”
He blew out another breath, but this was the kind to steady a man just before a great effort must be made. His gaze met mine. “This part of the adventure’s yours, then.”
“Ours. I waited for the chance so you and I could explore. Share the adventure.”
He took my outstretched hand. Paused. Turned to face me. The light of our lamps was clear and uncompromising, as unlike romantic candlelight as hell is to heaven, but still his gaze was softened and loving, his mouth turning up in the smile that was mine alone. He didn’t need to say the words. The kiss he brushed against my mouth was sweeter by far than the honeyed wine the pharaohs drank, and the touch of his lips on mine shouted his meaning louder than words ever could.
Ours. Share. Together.
Fine by me. I tightened my grip on his hand, and we started down the stairs.
After a hundred steps, Ned halted and put out a hand to stop me. He pulled his watch from its pocket, glanced at it, and then waved it at me. “I thought so. It’s due in a minute. If we can hear it here, with all the blocks between us and the Verification Chamber, then maybe you’re right about the power source being hidden below rather than in the chamber itself.”
Odd how we’d grown accustomed to this. It was a while since I’d mentally kept count of the minutes against the dread of the Antikythera machine’s noise. It had never stopped being uncomfortable, but it had stopped being frightening. We waited. Deep in the pyramid, in the Place of Verification, the worm wheel made its turn. In the chamber, the noise was horrible, but bearable.
Here, it was terrible.
Closer, to begin with, bellowing its way up the staircase from below to buffet us. Harsher and louder, to finish with.
When the echoes died, we stood close for a moment. Ned was warm and alive, and he was all that mattered to me. The rest? It was just noise, after all.
“Well, that’s that. The racket is from down below, not up in the Verification Chamber.” Ned’s voice shook. “I suppose it comes up through the pit shaft.”
“Possibly.” Amazing how philosophical I could be when my heart rate returned to normal. “It’s said to be death to be in the bell chamber of St. Paul’s when the bells are ringing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think this will kill us. But it is bloody unpleasant.” Ned straightened up. “Do we go on?”
We looked at each other, and despite everything, Ned’s slow smile spread over his face.
Daft. Sometimes we men are plain daft. Of course we went on, moving as fast as we could without breaking our necks. Another hundred steps, and the stairs opened onto a broad landing.
I broke the silence that had reigned since the last movement of the Antikythera machine. “This is as far as I came, earlier. Ground level, do you think?”
“Yes. I think so.”
I played the light across the close-fitted, smooth blocks. At the far end of the landing, an opening on the left hand wall opened onto darkness. “Another side corridor.”
Ned nodded. “We’ll explore it later.”
The landing was several yards across. A second spiral staircase started not at its other end directly opposite to where the first staircase ended, but in a wide opening in the right hand wall.
I shifted the lamp to shine it down the second spiral, but the curve defeated me. “There’s no saying how high these stairs are.”
“We’ll go on.” He let go of my hand long enough to tease his watch from its pocket again. “We said we’d be about an hour, but it may be longer.”
“As long as it takes.”
We started on the second staircase. Down and down, at least another two hundred steps. And finally! The stairs made one more graceful curve and ended in a long, wide corridor carved out of the rock of the plateau, that, ten feet or so along, took a sharp right turn.
At the corner, Ned lifted his lamp to shine it along the corridor as far as he could. It ran straight and true before us. “I’m a bit turned around with all those curves, but I think this heads southeast towards the centre of the pyramid. Or, at least,” he corrected himself, “to a place somewhere below the centre.”
But of course. Where else?
We paced the corridor as we went. Never the most accurate measurement, of course, but close enough for our purposes. We came to it around three hundred feet later.
I don’t know if I can describe it.
The corridor opened into a room, a chamber smaller than the Place of Verification and
blacker than the Earl o’ Hell’s best waistcoat. The room wore a myriad widow’s weeds, weeping with shadows draping themselves over the chill air from a ceiling so distant I couldn’t make it out, or lurking in corners in the amorphous shapes retreating in front of us and our lamps only to slither away at each side of us, gathering behind to menace our backs.
The shadows I could cope with. What our lamps illuminated in the centre of the room was harder to fathom.
Ned’s free hand gripped mine. “I don’t think I can comprehend this.”
I tried to agree. I got as far as forcing my mouth open, but some odd, guttural noise came out. Despite everything, despite all I’d seen that day and all I’d learned, this froze me solid.
This pit room was almost empty. No groups of stools and lit lamps here, no table of Thoth’s automata and mechanical toys and artefacts. The only similarity with the room upstairs was another of the great throne-like chairs, this one set facing the centre of the room.
Before it, another great square pit in the floor, spanned by a single flat bridge. In the midst of the pit, a square stone column stretched up into the threat of shadows hiding the roof. Built around the column, enclosing it in shining brass wheels and cogs and gears and glowing blue spheres that revolved with the same deadly lethargy as the slow breath in a dying man’s chest, was another Antikythera machine. A greater one. A much greater one. Three or four times the size of the one in Thoth’s laboratory in the Verification Chamber above us, and with the same elegant, skeletal design; airy despite the immense cogs and wheels, the smallest of which was the size of a cartwheel.
Ned’s clutch on my hand tightened. “The machine above is standing on the same column.”
That made sense, in a twisted definition of the word.
“Then they’re connected,” I said. “Two machines. One up there, the bigger one down here. And then the column goes on through the pyramid, right to the obelisk at the top.”
“What do you think?” Ned raised the lamp to try and illuminate the chamber. Other than the throne, it was a place of emptiness and shadows.
