The Scepter

by Tom Hunter

  He picked a tunnel at random, heading right to go deeper underground, the others following close behind.

  Twenty-Nine

  The tunnels continued to take the group down, down, deeper into the bowels of the earth. The further they walked, the more detailed the murals became, all depicting scenes that allied with St. Augustine’s values. In one, he was distributing food to the poor. In another, he was teaching a group of disciples who appeared to be wearing an early version of the Knights’ robes.

  “Whoever the artist was, they were incredibly talented,” remarked Shafira, leaning up close to take in the intricate detail on one design.

  “More than one craftsman would have worked on each piece,” Samuel told her. “You would maybe have had the chief artist put together the basic design, but then his apprentices would help in executing it, filling in the details. They would do all the hard work while he took all the glory. Even so, even with help, any one of these images would have taken months to complete. This is all a real labor of love.”

  “Oh great,” groaned Waleed, as he rounded a corner. “Yet another dead end. How much further are we expected to walk? I’ve got blisters on my blisters! Are we sure that we’re going to find our way back at the end of all of this?”

  “Don’t worry,” Akhenaton reassured him. “I’ve been making a mental note of the murals we’ve walked past. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but interspersed with the more random images are pictures that I believe show the history of my Order. Every time there has been a picture related to my Order we’ve turned left and right alternately. It feels like we’ve making random turns, but actually, if you think about it, we’ve been heading in what’s been roughly a straight line.”

  “I think you could be right.” Samuel nodded slowly as he considered what Akhenaton had just said. “We did a left back at that stunning piece that showed Bedouins watching Meroe from afar. Then there was an image of robed men infiltrating work groups constructing pyramids and other structures. We did a right after that.”

  “But what I don’t understand is why there are pictures showing the Knights on expeditions with modern-looking men,” said Josh. “I mean, look at this mural here.” He shone his torch up on the wall that showed a group of four men walking down a corridor very similar to the one they were currently in. “This man’s wearing a wristwatch, while that one is carrying something that looks suspiciously like a cell phone. How can that work?”

  “When we were exploring the cave you rescued us from, we found something similar,” Basile reminded him. “It seemed to be a consequence of the power of St. Augustine’s secret. Perhaps the scepter reveals the future as well.”

  “No, that can’t be right.” Samuel shook his head. “The scepter has different powers to the hat. There must be another explanation. I wonder…”

  He took his portable analyzer out of his pocket and went to the nearest mural. He scraped off a few flakes of paint from an inconspicuous corner and waited for the device to work its magic.

  “Interesting…” He narrowed his eyes when he saw the computations.

  “What is it?” asked Shafira.

  “Wait a moment.” Samuel took a sample from the bare brick at the bottom of the wall.

  “Absolutely fascinating,” he remarked when the final results were in. “According to my analysis, while the wall is ancient, the mural is only a few decades old. While that still doesn’t fully account for the imagery we’re seeing, it would suggest that the warrior members of this cell of Knights painted these pictures themselves. Perhaps they wanted to keep a record of what they’d personally witnessed. Maybe there are secret messages hidden within the paintings, clues to the right way through the catacombs. Whatever the reason, it would certainly suggest that this cell didn’t rely as heavily on oral history as Abdul believed.”

  “So you think the current leadership has lost its way?” asked Akhenaton.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Samuel nodded. “After the way Abdul’s been behaving, he doesn’t seem entirely stable.”

  “Then we’d better hurry before he changes his mind about guarding us,” advised Basile. “I don’t like the idea of a lunatic having our backs. The sooner we’re out of here, the safer I’ll feel.”

  The team picked up the pace as they continued on their journey. Samuel led the way, continuing to follow the general rule of turning left, then right, every time they came across a mural at a junction that showed some of the Order’s history.

  Suddenly, he stepped on a stone, which gave way underneath his feet. Waleed and Akhenaton barely had enough time to grab him and pull him to safety before an entire section of corridor disappeared into the ground, revealing a seemingly bottomless pit.

  “Dammit!” cursed Samuel. “Just when I thought the rumors of traps were exaggerated. Thanks, guys. If it wasn’t for your quick reactions, I’d be a goner for sure.”

  “How are we going to continue down this passage, though?” asked Shafira. “Can we jump across the chasm?”

  “Are you kidding?” laughed Waleed. “Have you seen how big the hole is?”

  He shone his flashlight and their hearts sank when they saw how large the rock fall had been. The pit was a few meters wide. There was absolutely no way they would be able to leap across it.

  “Is there any other way forward?” asked Josh. “Basile–could you fashion some kind of pulley system with the ropes or something?”

  “Non.” Basile shook his head sadly. “The rope they used to lower down the flashlight isn’t strong enough to bear our weight. I could do something with it if it were longer, but there isn’t enough length to reinforce it. Abdul didn’t give us anything that would help us cross a pit.”

  “Then maybe we weren’t meant to come this way,” suggested Akhenaton. “I know that he said that he didn’t know anything about the traps down here, but I don’t believe that the leader of an entire cell could be completely ignorant about what’s in these tunnels.”

  “Alright. So we go back and take the other tunnel,” Samuel decided. “Who knows? Maybe this means that we’re close to our destination.”

  The group turned and trekked back to the last fork in the tunnel, taking the only other possible path. It led even deeper underground, sloping so steeply that it was hard for the adventurers to stay upright as they descended.

  “Is it just me, or are the walls closing in on us?” asked Josh, as he leaned forward to avoid bumping his head on the ceiling.

  “These tunnels do seem to have been designed with shorter people in mind,” agreed Samuel, crouching slightly to make his way through.

  “Are we sure we’re not going to get stuck down here?” put in Waleed. “Who’s going to come and rescue us? Did you agree with Abdul that he should come after you if you took too long coming back?”

  “No.” Samuel shook his head. “I think from his perspective, it’ll be a minor miracle if we survive all the traps, so he wasn’t going to risk his men’s lives trying to rescue us if we can’t make it through. And let’s be honest, I don’t think he really cares if we survive. We’re not part of his cell, so he doesn’t owe us any loyalty. For all his talk about respecting Fatima’s wishes, I think he’d be more than happy to leave us down here forever.”

  “Great,” muttered Waleed. “So nobody’s going to come after us if we need help. Remind me again why I came down here?”

  “I hate enclosed spaces,” Shafira told him. “If I can cope with it, so can you. Samuel wouldn’t make us do anything deliberately foolish. We just have to keep moving forward. I’m sure this tunnel will open out soon enough.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Samuel said grimly. “Look.”

  He shone his torch ahead to reveal that the corridor became so small, they would have to go on their bellies to wriggle through the tiny gap left.

  “No way.” Waleed shook his head vigorously. “No how. Nu-uh. You are not getting me to go down there. This is clearly a dead end. We’ve been going the wrong way
all this time. We need to go back to the T-junction before this one, and try the other tunnel. We might get lost, but at least we’ll still be alive.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Josh knelt down to examine the hole more closely, shining his flashlight through. “I think there’s a large room on the other side of the gap. I don’t think it would take much to get through to it.”

  “You can try it, then,” sniffed Waleed. “There’s no way I’m going to risk my neck. If you get stuck, you’re on your own.”

  “What do you think?” Josh ignored Waleed, turning to Samuel. “Do you want me to go and see what’s on the other side?”

  “It makes sense to find out what’s there before retracing our steps,” Samuel replied. “We’ve already lost a lot of time when we had to turn back after the cave-in. I’d rather know that this is a definite dead end before giving up.”

  “All right. Look after my jacket.” Josh took it off to make himself as small as possible, handing it to Samuel before going to his hands and knees. He took a deep breath, letting it out as he geared himself up before squeezing through the tight space. “Here goes nothing!”

  First his head, then his shoulders disappeared into the gap at the end of the corridor. Wriggling and worming along, his progress was slow but steady.

  Suddenly, he stopped moving.

  “Josh? Are you all right?” called Shafira anxiously.

  “Yeah.” His voice was muffled, as he started inching along again, completely disappearing into the hole. “You guys need to get your butts in here. This place is incredible!”

  Akhenaton and Samuel exchanged glances. “Do you want to go first or shall I?” offered Akhenaton.

  “Be my guest.” Samuel gestured towards the hole and Akhenaton crawled through, closely followed by Basile.

  “I can’t do this.” Shafira’s face was pale as she looked at Samuel.

  “I thought you said you could cope?” sneered Waleed. “Not so smug now, are you?”

  “I’m serious, Samuel,” Shafira whispered. “I can’t cope with enclosed spaces, ever since the time my brother locked me in a chest when we were playing hide and seek. I was stuck there for hours, while Yusuf forgot about me. It was only when mom called us for dinner that he remembered what happened. Ever since then, I’ve struggled to be anywhere I can’t easily get out of again.”

  “We can’t leave you here,” protested Samuel. “Even with a flashlight, you can’t stay in the darkness by yourself. And we can’t afford to leave someone to keep you company–we have no idea what awaits us. We all have useful skills. Who knows which one of us will hold the key to finding the scepter?”

  “I, too, have my own reasons for not liking enclosed spaces.” Waleed’s tone softened as he came to put an arm around Shafira’s shoulder. Feeling her trembling, he gave her a little squeeze of reassurance. “As a wise woman once said to me, if I can cope with it, so can you. If I go first, will you follow?”

  Shafira closed her eyes, sniffing heavily. “Alright,” she finally whispered.

  “Then I will do this. For you.” Waleed nodded and turned, pushing himself through the tunnel, as slippery as an eel. He went through faster than anyone so far. Whether that was due to skill or simply out of a fear of getting stuck was impossible to say.

  “Okay, Shafira. Your turn now,” Samuel said gently. “Remember, I’m going to be right behind you. You’re the smallest of us all. If nobody else got stuck, you’ll be fine. Just relax and keep going until you get through to the other side.”

  He lightly brushed the back of his hand down her cheek. “Go. Go now before you lose your nerve.”

  Shafira clenched her fists, slowly turning to face the hole all the others had gone through.

  “I can do this. I can do this.” She chanted to herself, over and over, as she went down on her hands and knees to crawl into the tunnel.

  “Go on, Shafira,” urged Samuel.

  “Go on, Shafira,” called the men from the other side of the tunnel, everyone willing her on. Although her progress was slow, it was steady, and, at last, all that was left was for Samuel to bring up the rear.

  “Do you want to move out of the way?” he asked, as he squeezed out of the gap to be faced with a lot of ankles, the rest of the team standing around in wonder as they examined the chamber they were now standing in.

  When Samuel finally stood up, he was stunned when he saw what was facing them. They were in a grand hall with a ceiling so high that it could barely be seen, even with the flashlights. Lining the walls were countless sarcophagi of varying designs.

  “Are you kidding me?” breathed Samuel. “This is incredible! Look at that sarcophagus–it’s clearly from the early 4th century. While that one over there is of a later style, probably 10th century. I wonder whether the Knights had been interring their warriors here in the early days of the cell. But why would they have stopped?”

  “That’s not the only mystery.” Josh pointed at the wall behind them. Samuel turned to see another elaborate mural. This one featured a phrase written in Arabic, geometric patterns decorating the space around it. “Anyone fancy translating for us?”

  “That’s odd.” Shafira frowned. “It’s in modern Arabic. From the ages of the sarcophagi, I would have expected it to be a more ancient script.”

  “I guess that makes our job a little easier then,” shrugged Josh. “Fancy telling the rest of us what it says?”

  “Sure, although it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense,” Shafira replied. “It reads two sky, one sand, three sword, two shield. Amen to cross.”

  “What could that mean?” asked Basile.

  “Why can’t these knights ever be straightforward in anything?” sighed Waleed. “Maybe we’re meant to find a mural with two skies with a battle taking place in a desert.”

  “So we have to go back through the tunnel?” exclaimed Basile. “It was a tight enough fit for this belly first time around. I think I might throw up if I have to go through it again so soon.”

  “Maybe not.” As the others were discussing, Samuel squatted and gazed across the floor. He noticed it was covered in wide tiles, which spanned all the room, disappearing off to the darkness of the other side. Although they were covered in dust, the markings faded, close examination revealed that there were various images on each of them–including swords and shields.

  “I think it might be the code that shows the safe way across the tiles,” Samuel told the others.

  “What do you mean, safe?” frowned Waleed.

  Samuel picked up a loose brick from the floor and casually tossed it across the room. As it landed on the floor a sudden burst of flame shot up from beneath the tile, jetting through a small hole in the center. Shafira shrieked.

  “Good God!” Samuel said.

  “Mon dieu,” Basile breathed.

  “Somebody else is going to have to go first,” Waleed said quickly, in case anyone was thinking about suggesting him. “I’ve already done more than my fair share of good deeds for the day. I don’t need to risk my life yet again.”

  “Of course you don’t,” sighed Josh. “What do you want to do, Samuel?”

  Before Samuel could reply, Akhenaton took matters into his own hands. He stepped on the tile nearest the door, which had an image of a cloud on it. The tile glowed, sinking a couple of centimeters into the ground. He skipped over the tile in front of him to go two tiles forward, the tile he left resetting to its former darkness. Then, he stepped back one tile. Next, he jumped three to the right, coming back two to the left before starting the pattern all over again from the next tile with a cloud.

  It seemed to take an eternity as Akhenaton concentrated ferociously on making sure he followed the pattern exactly, until he reached the other side. His path had been slow and deliberate, but he safely traversed the room without triggering any traps or bumping into any of the sarcophagi.

  “And that’s how you do it!” he yelled back. “Come on, slow coaches! Join me over here! The view’s incredible.”
>
  “Here goes nothing,” muttered Josh as he stepped on the first tile. “Two forward, one back. Three right, two left. Cloud. Two forward, one back. Three right, two left.”

  “Can you keep your voice down?” complained Waleed, following closely behind. “You’re making it hard for me to remember where I’m at in the pattern.”

  At last, all the group had made it safely across the tiles. They grinned at each other, buzzing with the feeling of achievement of surviving another trap.

  “It can’t be much further now,” beamed Basile. “Let’s get that scepter and get out of here.”

  Thirty

  “I know it’s usually Waleed’s job to complain, but are we nearly there yet?” moaned Josh. “How long have we been walking now? Six, seven, eight miles?”

  “It’s more like five,” Basile told him. “It just feels longer because we’re underground and there aren’t any landmarks to help keep track of distance. The only reason I can keep a sense of how far we’ve gone is because I’m used to gauging distance underground when we’re working on a dig. I must admit that I’m beginning to wonder myself whether we’re ever going to find the scepter. Maybe Abdul lied to us and he’s sent us on a fool’s errand to get us out of the way while he goes after the scepter himself.”

  “You don’t really think he’d do that, do you?” asked Akhenaton. “He is High Marshal. They are supposed to be above earthly deceptions and subterfuge.”

  “Oh, please,” scoffed Josh. “Your entire Order is based on subterfuge. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was upstairs right now, laughing at the thought that we’ll be stuck here while he skips off into the sunset with the scepter. You saw for yourself that he didn’t appear exactly stable.”

  “Maybe this will answer a few questions,” remarked Samuel as the corridor they’d been following opened out into a small chamber. Unlike other rooms they’d walked through, this one was relatively unadorned, the only decoration being a portrait of St. Augustine on one side of the room facing the symbol of the Knights on the opposing wall. Whoever had painted the flower inside a cloud clearly had an eye for detail. Whenever they’d seen the flower in the past, the symbol had always been simple and stylized. In contrast, this flower was painted as realistically as possible. The pale pink bloom looked so deep and lifelike, Samuel felt as though he could reach out and pluck it from the wall.