The Scepter

by Tom Hunter

  “Good idea,” nodded Samuel, grabbing another pot. There was nothing to indicate what colors it contained, so when he smashed it, a cyan blue mingled with the red, the colors dancing and whirling around each other. A third pot added yellow to the mix.

  At last, the ditch was full, with plenty of pots still untouched. As paint filled the ditch completely, rising up to touch the base of the mount, there was a very audible click.

  “Did anyone else hear that?” asked Waleed. “Have we just opened the door?”

  Excitedly, Shafira raced over to the door and rattled the handle, but it still refused to budge. The others started feeling all the walls for any sign that there was a new opening, or something they’d missed. At last, they had to admit defeat.

  “At a guess, I’d say that click meant that we’ve completed the first step,” said Samuel. “But we haven’t solved the puzzle.”

  “So what can we do to get through to the next stage?” mused Basile.

  Shafira and Josh looked at each other, snapping their fingers as they both had a brainwave.

  “Look at the murals,” suggested Shafira. “See how they’re all incomplete?”

  “Perhaps we need to finish them.” Josh completed her thought. “That would be the most logical next step in the lock mechanism.”

  “I think you’re right,” Samuel agreed. “I mean, look at the door to the Egyptian tomb. I had to recite a prayer to open it. Sure, there was a mundane mechanism underneath it all, and I reckon with enough time, and modern explosives, we could have broken through it anyway, but isn’t it more fun doing it the way the ancients intended? We haven’t come across a single lock that required a normal key. Why would this be any different? From what I saw in my vision, and everything I’ve experienced on this quest, I believe that the original Knights were capable of creating locks of such complexity that the average tomb robber would never be able to crack them. To be honest, I’m surprised that we haven’t encountered the occasional skeleton down here–you’d be likely to die before you solved something like this.

  “It might be a long shot, but given that we’ve just been given brushes and paint, and we’re surrounded by an incomplete mural, when all’s said and done, it adds up.”

  “So let’s get painting, then!” smiled Shafira. “I’m happy to get involved. I’ve done a few amateur art classes, so I think I can mimic the style these murals are painted in. If you look, you can just about make out the outline of more images with tiny blobs of color. We may be facing nothing more than a large paint by numbers mural! Easy!”

  “Just be careful not to get any paint on your skin,” Samuel warned. “I have a feeling that it may have been mixed with human blood.”

  “Ew!” Waleed grimaced. “I’m not going anywhere near that. I’ll sit over here until you’re done, thank you very much.”

  “What do you say, Basile?” asked Samuel. “You and I are the most familiar with the restoration process. Do you fancy taking the lead with me on painting the murals?”

  “I’m not Van Gogh, but I’m happy to give it a try,” agreed Basile, as Shafira started handing out brushes.

  Thirty-Five

  Samuel ran the back of his arm across his forehead to wipe away the sweat, not wanting to get paint on his face.

  “How does it look?” he asked.

  The team all gathered in the middle of the room, gazing around each other at the completed mural. Although none of them would have described themselves as serious artists, Shafira had been correct when she said that there was already a lot of the work done for them, if they were careful to follow the guidelines. A light outline had been sketched onto the rock that would have faded completely had the room been lit better. Each different shape had a tiny dot of paint in it, sometimes almost too small to see, that gave a clue as to the required color.

  Samuel speculated that part of the warrior Knights’ duties had been to maintain the outline, renewing it so that it would always be visible for whoever might need to unlock the chamber. With the last warrior dead, it may have faded within a few more years, and the lock would remain sealed for ever.

  Doing their best to stay within the lines, they’d worked as if possessed to reveal the hidden image concealed on the walls. Now they could see that they’d created three separate images. The first was a group of six people painting a wall. Although the artist had made the figures indistinct, when Samuel squinted, he wondered if they were the six members of the team, and they were looking at themselves as seen from antiquity. Nothing surprises me any more about these Knights, he thought. When all this is over, regular archaeology is going to seem kinda dull.

  The second featured an enormous monster, fangs dripping with blood, claws extended as he reached out with one hand to the warrior standing in front of him. In its other, he carried a woman. She seemed to be unconscious, if not already dead, with no visible wounds to explain why she was in that state.

  The final image was that of a strange, shadowy figure standing over a sarcophagus. There was something about the subject that was deeply disturbing. Its proportions were slightly off-kilter. Beyond that, Samuel couldn’t put his finger on why that picture made him shudder.

  “It looks fine to me,” Shafira said, gazing around at the mural in satisfaction. “I just pray that it’s what the original Knights were hoping for.”

  “Er… guys.” Josh pointed to the ditch in the middle of the room. “Did any of you use the last of the paint that was in the ditch?”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Not me.”

  “Then how come it’s all gone?” Josh asked.

  “That’s just weird,” remarked Waleed, as Shafira crossed over to test the door. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she grabbed the handle, turned it, and the door swung open.

  The men crowded around her as they gazed upon a treasure room very similar in style to the one Samuel and Basile had uncovered in Egypt. However, although the décor might be very similar, the content was markedly different. There were no scrolls, but there were countless coins stacked up all around the room.

  Samuel reached out to pick one up. “This is incredible,” he commented, awed by the inscriptions on the metal. “These date back to Ancient Kushite times. This haul could be the find of the century.”

  “You said that about the Egyptian cave,” Basile reminded him.

  “Yes, but there are so many more artifacts here, so much that would interest the average historian outside of any allegedly mystical relics,” Samuel replied, darting forward to run his hands through the coins. He picked one at random, examining the front and back. “Look at the detail on these! They’re in amazing condition. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coin so well preserved. And look at these.” He moved to where there was a pile of clothing neatly folded. “If I’m not mistaken, these are original robes dating back to when the Order of the Knights of the Spring Dream was first established. This is going to tell us so much about textile making techniques, what kind of materials were used to create the fabrics…”

  Samuel was like a kid in a candy store as he bounced from one item to another, gasping in delight as he discovered yet another piece that revealed a little bit more about the ancient past.

  “Samuel!” Akhenaton called to the archaeologist, dragging his attention away from the text he was examining. “Focus! I think this might be what we’re looking for.”

  Samuel crossed to stand next to Akhenaton who indicated a small, central pillar towards the back of the room. Displayed on top of the pillar was a gold scepter, supported so that it was almost upright. Several tiny gemstones decorated the thick haft, forming a cross.

  Samuel and Akhenaton exchanged a look.

  “That looks like the scepter, all right,” nodded Samuel. “What do you think? Should we destroy it?”

  Akhenaton nodded slowly. “Much as it might have potential for good, the High Marshals have always taught us to follow a slash-and-burn policy. The Bruard are too close for c
omfort. We’ve all felt the influence of the scepter on our way to this room. We need to destroy it.”

  “Good luck with that,” muttered Basile.

  “What do you mean?” Samuel asked.

  “Look at it,” Basile advised. “You don’t have to be an engineer to see that that thing’s solid metal. Destroying it would involving melting it down and I don’t know about you, but I don’t carry the equipment with me to generate fires hot enough to do that.”

  “He’s right,” Waleed agreed. “We can’t destroy it. Besides, it would be criminal to damage such a thing of beauty.”

  “You’re only saying that because you’re thinking about selling it,” remarked Josh cynically.

  “Still, Basile’s right,” Samuel confirmed. “It’s going to be hard for us to completely destroy the scepter and we don’t know what effect damaging it might have. For all we know, it might unleash its powers and amplify its abilities without any control. No, the best thing to do is to take it from here to a place of safety.” He reverently reaching out to pluck the scepter from its stand.

  He cradled it in his arms, marveling at the skill of the craftsmen who’d created it. He noticed that the scepter was actually fashioned out of two pieces that screwed together. He unscrewed the pieces, to separate them. Each piece was only one-and-a-half feet long, making it much easier to manage than its combined length of three feet. Samuel was now able to hide it in his backpack, wrapped in his jacket.

  Josh looked at Waleed, who was holding himself back as the others were exploring the newly revealed treasure chamber. “Come on in,” he beckoned. “You might as well go ahead and load up your pockets. If you don’t, I will. We’ve sacrificed enough. We all deserve a little recompense for what we’ve been through to save the world.”

  “Seriously?” Waleed didn’t need to be asked twice. He darted forward and started cramming gold coins into his pockets. When they were full, he stuffed treasure into his underwear, his boots, anywhere he could squeeze something of value into.

  “All right, everyone,” announced Samuel. “Hurry up and take what you want. We need to get out of here before our luck turns sour. The door that takes us out of here has opened up again, but I have no idea if it’s going to stay that way. We need to get out of here before we’re trapped forever.”

  Waleed grabbed another couple of handfuls of gems, holding them in his hands as the six adventurers prepared to make their way back to the surface. The thief couldn’t contain his glee, as he mentally calculated how many thousands of dollars he’d get for them. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  Thirty-Six

  “Couldn’t we have at least had a nap back in the treasure room?” complained Waleed as they made their way through the winding tunnels back towards the entrance to the catacombs. “I feel like I haven’t slept in forever!”

  “Sleep when you’re dead,” snapped Josh.

  “We’re all exhausted,” Samuel told him. “But the sooner we get back up to the surface, the safer we’ll all feel. We can go to a hotel once we’ve reconnected with Abdul. Promise.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” muttered Waleed, trudging after the others as they entered the room with the tile traps.

  “Now what?” sighed Basile, as they lined up in front of the tiles. None of them wanted to risk walking out onto them. “I forgot about this. How are we going to get back?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t work from this direction?” suggested Shafira.

  Samuel picked up a rock to see. Tossing it a couple of rows in, he was rewarded with a jet of flames.

  “No such luck,” he sighed.

  “That’s given me an idea.” Akhenaton gathered together a few rocks. “It’s not a huge leap of logic to assume that we can follow the same pattern we did going across, but the pictures on the tiles are faded over here and I can’t remember where we finished. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to risk starting out on the wrong time and getting burned. We can throw some rocks on the first few tiles until we get into the rhythm of the pattern. I can leave the rocks there, it’ll be a guide to everyone and then the last person out can pick them up again.”

  “Why?” asked Waleed. “We’ve got the scepter. What’s the point in protecting the catacombs now we’re taking it out?”

  “We don’t know what else might be in the treasure chamber,” Akhenaton pointed out. “Out of respect to my Order, if nothing else, we need to leave the traps as intact as possible. Now the instructions say two sky, one sand, three sword, two shield. That means we go two forward, one back; three right, two left.”

  “Would we have to reverse it?” asked Shafira. “So go two left, then three right, one back, two forward?”

  “Why can’t we just simplify it?” suggested Waleed. “It’s basically one to the right then one forward. Can’t we do that? It would be so much faster.”

  “We can certainly try,” said Samuel. He threw a rock on a few tiles until he found the right one to start from. He then tried putting a rock on the tile next to it. Whoosh! Flames shot up, putting paid to any idea that they could cut corners.

  “I guess we have to follow the pattern,” shrugged Samuel, setting out to cross the tiles.

  Half an hour and a few burnt rocks later, the six of them were safely over the tiles.

  “Race you to the top,” grinned Josh, racing ahead now that the biggest trap had been passed. His enthusiasm was infectious, and the others followed after him, making their way through the network of tunnels until they were finally standing at the base of the ladder.

  “Ladies first.” Samuel stepped aside to let Shafira climb out of the catacombs. One by one, they followed after her, emerging from the maze to find Abdul still waiting for them. The skies were starting to brighten, as the sun emerged in the east, marking the dawn of a new day.

  “You survived!” he greeted. “You have no idea how happy I am that you made it out again. We weren’t going to be able to wait around much longer for you–the tourists are going to be out and about in a couple of hours, so we’d have had to close up the stele to hide the entrance from prying eyes.”

  “Then I’m especially grateful to find you here,” remarked Samuel. “I’ve got something that you might like to see.”

  He took the scepter out of his backpack, unwrapping it from his jacket.

  “Oh my.” Tears ran down Abdul’s cheeks unchecked as he saw St. Augustine’s relic. “I never thought this moment would come in my lifetime. You have no idea how much this means to me. May I?”

  He held out his hands for the scepter.

  “Of course.” Samuel passed it to him, the older man gazing in wonder at the ancient artifact.

  Abdul closed his eyes, a shudder running through him as the scepter made contact with his skin. It was impossible to tell exactly what was going on, but it looked as though he was reacting similarly to the adventurers when they’d first encountered it.

  “Here.” Abdul finally opened his eyes and passed the scepter back to Samuel. “This belongs with you. The fact that you were able to retrieve it proves that you are worthy of wielding the scepter.”

  Samuel tucked it back into his backpack, keeping it safe until they could transport it away.

  “Thank you for all your help, Abdul,” he said. “We couldn’t have done this without you. We’re going to head back to our vehicle and plan the next phase of our journey. We’re only halfway through our quest and that’s got to take priority over everything else.”

  “I understand,” Abdul nodded. “However, before you leave, would you care to dine with the Order one last time? I know that the Knights will want to hear about everything that’s happened, and I’m sure you could all do with a decent meal inside you. When was the last time you ate properly?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s certainly been a while.” Samuel bit his lip in indecision. “We really ought to hit the road, though. We have no idea what the Bruard are up to. It’s safest if we keep moving.”

  “You c
an’t be serious!” protested Josh. “Samuel, we’ve been up all night and I can’t remember when I last had some food.” As if to prove his point, his stomach let out an embarrassing rumbling. “If you don’t want me to drive the car off the road, you need to put some fuel in my tank. Haven’t we at least earned breakfast?”

  “He’s right,” Basile agreed. “We’ll all perform better once we’ve had a bit of sustenance. Haven’t you heard about slowing down to go faster?”

  “I’m really not comfortable with any more delays…” Samuel shook his head, but Shafira gazed at him, her eyes pleading.

  “Please?”

  “All right,” sighed Samuel. Food would go a long way to keeping morale high after the victory of recovering the scepter. “Abdul, do you have any crates or safes we can borrow to keep our findings safe when we leave after breakfast? I don’t really want to leave the scepter lying around in a bag.”

  “Of course,” beamed Abdul, happy to hear that they would be having guests. “I’ll be more than happy to lend you anything you need. Come back to the cultural center. You’ll find everything you want back there.”

  He turned and headed off towards the Order’s headquarters, Samuel and his friends following close behind, as the first curious tourist emerged to explore the ruins.

  Thirty-Seven

  “You’re eating ful medames, Sudanese fava beans,” announced Abdul, as waiters brought plates round to the adventurers. They were seated around a large, round table in a private dining hall reserved for the Knights at the top of the cultural center. Pictures of St. Augustine and his good works lined the walls, along with other photos of Knights from years gone by. A plain white tablecloth covered the table, with simple silverware. Looking at it, Samuel had a feeling that they were using antique cutlery.

  “This is a favorite breakfast dish in Sudan, Egypt and many Mediterranean countries,” Abdul continued. “The Sudanese sometimes call it ‘sahan ful’, which means a plate of beans, or ‘ful masri,’ which is Egyptian beans. It is vegetarian, rich in protein, the fava beans garnished with onion, tomato, rocket, feta and boiled eggs, drizzled with sesame oil.” He brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them to emphasize how delicious it was. “With a little bit of bread on the side, it provides plenty of nourishment for the day ahead. Please. Eat, eat! Eat until your bellies are full.”