by Chris Turner
Each shrugged off his vagrant hopes; they gathered themselves up to leave. Merging into the silver-stained boulders like ghosts, they switch-backed along the broken hillside, crossing moonlit crags, descending into the adjoining valley to retrieve their camels concealed amongst the rocks below, each hoping that a new dawn would carry better fortunes.
It did not.
II : Sands from the Sky
The next morning, Senestes Kharfum, chief priest—elder of Koruka’s funerary expedition—unwrapped the heavy blanket from round his shoulders. He rose to stretch his limbs and walk the desert valley. A man of profundity, his hooded eyebrows and grey hair showed his surprisingly low social standing. He found it difficult to remain sitting idle while a new day was in progress. The queen’s heraldic procession was fresh in his mind and he left the others of the camp sleeping behind him.
He and his priests had followed a trail west up the valley through boulders and drifted sand. An unwieldy shape had grown in the near distance—the great six-sided monument, Egypt’s first step pyramid consecrated to the Pharaoh Koruka. It was a shape that Senestes could not help but admire as he witnessed the first peach-coloured rays of dawn catch its shiny face. Sumptuously it loomed, on a flat raised mound at the western end of the valley. All the while its brooding poise kept watch over the desert. Why Koruka had selected this god-forsaken place was beyond his reason, he who was only a mere priest. But he knew that there was always a significance to her actions, however eccentric they may have been.
Senestes gained the sandy ledge and stopped dead in his tracks. A look of horror stole across his face. The sacred wheel was rolled back. The tomb’s hidden entrance was revealed in plain sight.
The queen’s mummy had been hardly interred a day. Surely this was impossible? How careful they had been!
A fateful acceptance washed over Senestes’s mind. Egypt, land of thieves and plunderers—were two sides of the same coin. Looters must have followed the caravan, perhaps all the way from Armant, and despoiled the crypt.
He mused long, tugging at his scraggly beard. He ruminated upon the scope of Koruka’s displeasure had she been alive to see her holy tomb desecrated.
Senestes looked past the pyramid to the forlorn hills on the hither side of the valley. His keen eyes could detect no movement there. If robbers had escaped her traps, doubtless they had all fled without reward. He slapped his thighs, gave the villains up for gone.
The priest produced a lamp from his leathern pouch. Past the great circular wedge he crawled with lit lamp, pausing only momentarily to scan the darkened orifice and fend off a prickling doubt. Then, he descended into the mortuary tomb of Koruka’s forbidden antechamber. His angry fists clenched at the impudent sacrilege. A choked gurgle burst from his mouth at the fools who had attempted this atrocity. They would pay in buckets of their own blood! He recalled how in the early years before Koruka’s reign, she had been introduced to the mysteries below the sacred temples of Gebelein and Armant. Secluded in the incense-fumed alcoves, stern priests had tutored her in the supernatural arts under the glare of magical lamps—arts that had turned to sepulchral transgressions. Her keen ability to perceive the mysteries prompted the priests to wonder if she were not an incarnation of Esiscles herself, the prestidigitator. The last words of the dying queen boomed in his mind: “Fear not, faithful brother. You shall not rue the day when you know that my temple has been despoiled.”
* * *
The lamps Senestes had lit along the way the previous evening had all expired. Now as he descended lower and lower, he felt an ill-omened tension hanging in the air—of danger, anger, venom, malice—a feeling so abruptly sinister that it caused him to blanch.
He entered the first great hall, passed the dozen pillars and veered under the great doorway, trembling with anxiety. Once, very long ago, he had witnessed the original crafting of these halls from a series of natural caverns. Many skilled masons had widened these walls and chiselled them to perfection while clever artisans had set to work inscribing and painting the corridors. Now he faltered within the underground tomb; his sadness only growing as he perceived the degree of anger etched in the blotted gloom.
Approaching Koruka’s statue, he genuflected and resisted the urge to skirt by quickly, for she was no easy figure to be near. He looked deeply into that skullish visage and trembled. Hastening to the chamber’s far end, he was fearful of what he might see; his small light grossly exaggerated the shadows dancing off the richly-decorated walls.
He spied the jarred block marking the hidden crawlspace. Ha! His worst fears came true.
Desecration! Violation!
There was no poet in the land who could have captured Senestes’s sorrow at that moment. He found the floor littered with a cone of sand. It had poured from the small crawlspace. Sometime last night, a villain or perhaps more had sprung the snare. There were other deadlier and feyer traps lying in wait in those depths along the way to Koruka’s mausoleum, so he did not fear that the pharaoh’s treasures would ever be plundered. His grim recollection of the nature of her final wish had him fearing worse things…
Senestes stumbled back with a shudder. Judging from the amount of golden-red sand that spilled from the passageway, he guessed the culprits had not escaped with their lives. That Koruka’s sepulchral realm had been desecrated so vilely after her death was a worrisome omen, and he began to wince at the thought of her displeasure and a large number of possibilities.
The queen would have her revenge. Had they all failed in their duty to protect their deity at this early time? He would rather die than bear the shame of this sacrilege for the rest of his days!
Up until last night, not a sacred feather or holy ornament had been out of place—now this…He cursed. How things had gone so wrong! Senestes of all people knew the mistakes that meant death. An elaborate ceremony spoiled meant jeopardy for the queen’s success in the afterlife, saying nothing of the well being of Egypt!
Words, songs or slogans would not assuage the blunder, or repair the harm incurred.
The queen’s catastrophic words tolled in his brain. He practically fled from that hall on trembling limbs, clambering up the steep passageway, afraid to look at that beastly representation of Koruka and prey to many gods depicted on the walls.
He focused his attention on re-sealing the tomb. Descending into the valley, he called workers to engage and plug the passageway once and for all. The sun loomed on the horizon, a blazing beacon of fire that made his head ache with sweat.
He ordered the men to first remove the stone wheel. Down the hill they rolled it and it was destroyed. Eight men crept into the tomb, and they cleaned the sand near the trap and re-grouted the block. Rocks were plunged thirty feet down into the entrance. More rocks were hewn from the hillside and the cracks were filled with smaller stones.
* * *
A fortnight later, the work was finished. Early in the baking morning, the priests let all but six of the workers drink from the sacred phial containing the potent elixir that would stupefy them. The priests who were entrusted to Koruka’s final task could never allow the others to know where her tomb lay hidden. So great was their love for Koruka, that they drank the concoction without complaint. They all fell into an instant’s swoon and were strapped to camels by the five remaining workers. As before, the women were placed in litters atop the camels and the last five drank the potion. The four priests remaining strapped them to the camels’ backs and departed.
The caravan turned eastward to embark upon the long trek to Hierakonopolis.
* * *
The second day was not old when strange yellow clouds drifted across the sky. The desert turned strangely amber, as if infused with a silent, ugly menace. All was still, like the eye of the maelstrom before the storm. Where normally cloudless heavens should arch, the sky had turned a shadowy colour, and to the west, black clouds began to brew and billow like flags of death-galleys. Ill-spawned shapes scurried eastward like harried jackals. On their feet rode t
he first shrieking whines of the storm, like a sorcerer’s wail, erupting from the bowels of the earth in the silent fastnesses of old stone.
Senestes halted the caravan.
The teamsters gazed with apprehension skyward. The approaching low-scudding clouds were menacing, more now of the shape of great balloons, rising and falling in waves of sand billows. The camels stirred, snorting at the ground in panicked wonder.
A tremor shivered the ground. The teamsters exchanged horrified glances. Their hearts bubbled with premonition. The desert coursed alive with forces ungraspable.
Senestes knew doom was on its way. He sank to his knees, blubbering prayers. With dismal resignation, he steeled himself to the inevitable. His fellow followers stared back at him with unanimous horror.
The shrieking winds raged. The mountain mushroom clouds sprayed billowing sand. One minute the priests were at his side struggling against an abhorrent gale, the next, they were engulfed in a gnashing, grey-brown tornado.
The camels fled in terror, dumping their loads. Men and women wandered in the raging desert until they dropped, lost, fighting a hopeless battle against a foe that stung the skin like a thousand bees. Four miles distant, Qapseth’s four deserting comrades, fell afoul of the same terrible sandstorm. They had picked a foolish, inopportune time to try another expedition into Koruka’s tomb with idiotic hopes.
Distant Abydos and Dendera were dusted with four inches of sand. For whole days, no one would come out of their mud brick and tile-stone houses.
Senestes collapsed to the ground, covering his scorched eyes. He fought back the stinging tears that would not fall. He knew that he had been right: Koruka was most definitely a sorceress…a demoness, and a pharaoh who held wrath that was not to be trifled with.
Chapter 1
After the official discovery of the ruins of Denibus Ar some 35 km northwest from the Valley of the Kings, the archaeological world was pitched into frenzy. Heated debates continued to boil amongst high-ranking archaeologists and historians about one of the most remarkable finds ever. Certainly it predated the Old Kingdom ruins of the Sphinx and the great pyramid of Cheops. A most controversial implication hit the headlines: a long forgotten step pyramid with its ancient temple grounds riddled with more-recent tombs and peristyles. How was it possible? The obelisks and priceless antiquities threatened to upset the whole schematic of Egyptian history. Never before had researchers thought such a well-preserved ruin could exist far across the many parched valleys, or wadis in that vast ancient land whose capital was ancient Thebes.
In the magical moments of sunrise, a blood-red sun struggled to lift its head over the timeless wastelands. Lost dunes tumbled across the white sea known as the Sahara. Domed hills flanked the site, peering upon the exposed and now naked step pyramid. ‘Hexsase’ it was called and it was eerie. Six-sided? Professor Chesla of London University now squinted out over the site. Her eyes were tired, red-rimmed holes to nowhere. She searched for an answer to the enigma.
The current camp of seven archaeologists and sixteen labourers was busy and alert. In the predawn chill, the best time of day was now to work on the site. Once 11AM came around, the temperatures would reach an unbearable 35-40 degrees centigrade in these days of May.
Professor Delos Bucillo, a short, spectacled, senior historical researcher from Milano University, tried to catch Chesla on her way to the ruins, his folder clutched tightly in hand, huffing and perspiring. But he was unsuccessful. She marched hurriedly on past to attend work in the pit.
Yisella Hillen the computer expert, was already up and about, busily tapping away on her laptop entering coordinates. An attractive young woman, she scanned the new areas of the site for anomalies. Matt Groedig was her technical associate and knelt at her side, armed with cables and many mutters under his breath. Loitering at his heels was the sleepy-eyed Carl Langley, wearing a dog-eared grin and a Crocodile Dundee hat. Shovel and pickaxe were ready in his hand. He was a recent graduate from Melbourne University who had been on the site for less than a month now and had acquired the post of ‘surveyor’, earning the terms ‘good-natured’, ‘easy-going’ for various reasons, none of which were too complex. A thin, saffron-gold feline of Siamese origin rubbed up against his leg, purring.
The stray suddenly shot out from under Groedig’s feet without warning and dropped down a newly dug hole.
Groedig jerked himself around, almost upsetting the delicate equipment on the table. “What—? Get rid of your stray, Langley, or I’m personally going to take it to the pound.”
The Aussie flashed Groedig a limp grin. “Aren’t you witty? I do believe Goldie was on this site before you—so better go squawk somewhere else.”
Groedig pinched his lips into a scowl. The cat poised behind a massive overturned limestone block less than a stone’s throw away. Some of the animal’s fine, downy fur was ruffled along the back of its neck, perhaps from scraping or squeezing through compact places too often. The feline began making a concerted effort, if not a leisurely one, to lick its coat clean.
Langley studied his cat. Somewhere Goldie had the haunting similarity to a human; a learned, regal one, and of a time more ancient. The thought in itself was ridiculous, of course, and Langley had to chuckle to himself.
Groedig’s expression began to sour as he saw the adoration Langley had for the stray. “The animal’s jinxed—can’t you see? Scared the hell out of me the other night while clawing its way up the wall to get out of the storage shed. It practically chewed its way through the clapboard trying to get out of a hole that was barely open enough for a rat to slide through.”
Langley grunted.
“I tell you the thing’s spooked. There’s already enough weird things going on in this camp without the likes of your pet haunting the place.”
Langley gave a sarcastic snort. “Then we’re not talking about the same mysterious, disappearing maps and the faltering lights, or the so-called ‘shadows in the dark’ that run round the ruins? I don’t know, Mathew boy, you’d better lock your door. Even you could be the next victim of the fatuous mummy come out from the grave to eat you alive.”
Growling at the sarcasm, Groedig looked away. “You know what I’m talking about, Langley, so don’t be such a wise ass. You’ve seen the stuff moved around in the storage sheds, despite them being locked.”
“Somebody’s up to a prank.”
“Sure, even when Hizellio stayed up all night as lookout? If you even had half an ounce of seriousness in that slack brain of yours, you’d—”
“Have you guys had enough?” cried Hillen. “Chesla wants this area mapped by 09:00, or you know what’s going to go down. No reminders needed of how bitchy she gets when things don’t get done—or when deadlines aren’t met.”
“Yeah, yeah,” scoffed Langley. “We know all too well. We all keep up the good work and everything will be hunky dory with perfume and roses.”
From out of the predawn shadows came a short, stocky female in her early 50’s—a tough, stern-eyed woman whose salt and pepper hair was trimmed short and hugged her head as if she had been wearing a football helmet all night. It could be none other than Chesla, the site director. A frustrated Bucillo, all arms and legs, tagged at her heels.
“Yisella!” she grumbled.
“Here!”
The professor cast Langley a disapproving glance. He looked away with innocent appraisal, apparently inactive. “We’ve only got a certain window of opportunity here, people—the Egyptian ‘archaeological elite’ is going to be reviewing this site over the next few days, and the progress reports I sent them last week are due for an update. That’s a hint,” she muttered with another suggestive glance toward Langley who was at present trying to look busy. “They may even send out another representative to check up on us.”
“Another frigging goon?” groaned Groedig. “Aw, get out of here.”
“None of that, Mr. Groedig,” Chesla admonished. “As you well know, we’ve been here for eight bloody months now. Our
results have been substandard, less than how shall I say, spectacular. At this time more than ever, we can’t afford to lose any more PR points on this. They’re going to kick us off the site if we don’t show results, if we don’t come up with some answers to these pervasive mysteries. Yisella, we’re counting on you to get that mapping profile set up, so this machine can do its work.”
“I’m on it, ma’am, but you know how the setup is—intricate. The depth to which we probe and the frequency of the probes depends on what material we’re dealing with and it’s a sensitive function of—”
“Yeah, I’ve heard it before.”
“But the densities—”
“What about the densities?” interrupted Chesla.
“I believe for the most part it’s porous rock at a depth of up to three metres underneath a thin layer of light desert sand—with an 80% chance of limestone in between.”
Chesla’s eyes dimmed. “Can we be sure of that?”
“Not really.” Hillen chewed her lip. “But I have a sneaking hunch that there may be more catacombs underneath, just as we found some in the northeast corner of the pit ten days ago. If this is true—”
