The Cult of Osiris nwaec-5

by Andy McDermott

  Nina had the same thought. ‘Either they reckoned the only people who would ever find it were supposed to be here . . . or that’s not the only obstacle.’

  ‘You’d better not be saying what I think you’re saying,’ Eddie growled.

  ‘Afraid I just might be, hon.’

  Macy was confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Nina said.

  They collected their equipment, then, exchanging wary looks, lowered themselves into the hole . . . to become the first people in over six thousand years to enter the Pyramid of Osiris.

  22

  The floor of the entrance chamber was about eight feet beneath the hole. Sand had seeped through directly below the opening, but beyond it everything was clean.

  Almost too clean. There was a stagnant feel to the air. Nothing had moved here since the tomb was sealed, time standing still - or pausing, poised, waiting for someone foolish enough to disturb the eternal silence.

  Macy shone a flashlight across the walls, revealing the chamber as somewhat larger than the structure above. ‘Hieroglyphics,’ she said, stepping closer. ‘Huh.’

  ‘What?’ Nina asked, joining her. ‘Can you read them?’

  ‘Just about, but they’re weird-looking. They must be really old.’

  ‘They’re beautiful, though.’ Nina slowly moved the beam of her own light along the white wall. The hieroglyphs were as clear and colourful as the day they had been painted, figures from Egyptian mythology standing amongst the text. She recognised some of them as gods: Ra, the sun-god, creator of all things; Nut, goddess of the sky, her naked body arched to form a vault over the entire earth.

  But there was one god missing. ‘No Osiris.’ The key figure of ancient Egyptian religion was conspicuous by his absence.

  ‘No Horus, either,’ Macy added. ‘Or Set, or Isis. Not even Anubis, and since he’s the god of tombs, you’d kind of expect him to be here.’

  ‘They were all contemporaries of Osiris, or his children,’ Nina reasoned. ‘They hadn’t been deified yet. Which means this place really does pre-date the Old Kingdom - Osiris and the others were already worshipped as gods by 3000 BC.’

  ‘I was right,’ said Macy. ‘Yay me!’

  Eddie explored another part of the chamber. ‘Got a doorway here.’ A pair of decorated pillars marked the exit. ‘There’re some stairs. Pretty steep.’

  ‘Let’s hold on - this room might tell us something useful.’

  Macy examined the texts. ‘Freaky,’ she said. ‘They’re lists of all the trials that newlydeads have to go through in the Underworld. Like the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts.’

  ‘They sound cheerful,’ Eddie commented.

  ‘Earlier versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead,’ Nina told him.

  ‘Oh, perfect bedtime reading. By Stephenkingmun, was it?’

  Macy giggled, then returned her attention to the walls. ‘What I don’t get is that in the other texts, all this stuff is basically prayers telling you how to get through each arit, each land, of the Underworld. Like instructions - if you haven’t sinned and you do what it says in the texts, you’ll get through all the trials to meet Osiris. This is written differently, though.’

  ‘How so?’ Nina asked.

  Macy pointed out one section. ‘This is talking about the first arit of the House of Osiris. When you go in, you have to face the Lady of Tremblings, one of the guardians of the Underworld. But it only really says that she’s bad news, “the Lady of Destruction”. In the Book of the Dead it also says that she’ll deliver the person going through the Underworld from destruction if they’re doing things right - I remember it, because I thought the idea of being the Lady of Destruction was neat. Kinda metal.’

  Eddie nudged Nina. ‘You know all about being the Lady of Destruction, don’t you?’

  She huffed. ‘Only accidentally. But the second part’s not in this text?’

  ‘Not that I can see,’ Macy said. ‘It’s more like a warning than a prayer. There’s nothing about how to actually get through the arit.’

  ‘Oh, man!’ Nina complained, looking at Eddie. ‘You know what that sounds like, don’t you?’

  ‘Booby traps,’ they said together.

  Nina put a hand to her face. ‘Just once, just goddamn once,’ she moaned, ‘I’d like to find an incredible archaeological site that’s not filled with Rube Goldberg death machines. Is that too much to ask? No collapsing ceilings, no crushing devices, no frickin’ cherubims waving swords at me!’

  Macy was intrigued. ‘Cherubims? As in angels?’

  ‘Long story,’ said Eddie. ‘Okay, so we’ve got to get past the Lady of Tremblings. What else?’

  Macy spent several minutes searching through the hieroglyphics. ‘The Lake of Fire - or Devourer by Fire, it’s talking about the same thing,’ she reported. ‘The Lady of Rainstorms. The Lady of Might, who “tramples on those who should not be here”, sheesh. The Goddess of the Loud Voice—’

  ‘Nina, they wrote about you!’ Eddie put in.

  ‘Well, yeah, I am a goddess.’

  ‘I can just leave, if you like,’ Macy said peevishly, before turning back to the ancient text. ‘So we’ve got the Goddess of the Loud Voice, the Hewer-in-Pieces in Blood, and then the last thing before you reach Osiris is the Cutter-off of Heads. Real subtle. They’re all mentioned in the Book of the Dead, but these descriptions are a bit hinky.’

  ‘It’s the other way round,’ said Nina thoughtfully. ‘The prayers in the Book of the Dead came from these - this was the source. The booby traps built to protect Osiris’s tomb eventually became part of the religion.’

  ‘We might need more than prayers to get past something called the Hewer-in-fucking-Pieces,’ Eddie said, shining his light down the sloping passage. ‘There’s nothing helpful?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Macy replied. ‘The other text’s mostly “Osiris is awesome!” kinda stuff. Lots of curses, too. “Desecrate the tomb of Osiris and suffer a thousand agonising deaths”, yadda yadda.’

  ‘I don’t want to suffer one agonising death,’ said Nina, joining Eddie. The passage was also decorated, more Egyptian gods ominously watching anyone who dared traverse it. ‘Think we can make it through?’

  ‘Depends what state the traps are in,’ Eddie said. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here before us, so there’s no chance Indy or Lara’ll have set them off already - but after this long, they might not still be working.’

  ‘Right, like we’re ever that lucky.’ Nina looked back at Macy. ‘What do you think?’

  She seemed surprised to be asked. ‘Me? I dunno, it’s your decision.’

  ‘It’s your life,’ Nina countered.

  Macy considered it. ‘I came this far,’ she said. ‘And you’ve both kept me in one piece, so let’s do it!’ She was about to start down the steps when Eddie grabbed her.

  ‘Just one thing,’ he said, pulling her back. ‘Stay behind us, okay?’

  The passage descended into the inverted pyramid, making two ninety-degree turns before a pair of ornate pillars marked the entrance to another chamber. ‘It’s the first arit,’ said Macy, nervous.

  Eddie directed his torch beam into the darkness. ‘It’s big,’ he said. ‘Deep, too.’

  ‘A shaft?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Right on.’ He cautiously advanced on to a little ledge. The shaft’s ceiling was about thirty feet overhead, and below it dropped out of sight beyond the range of his light. Two large pipes made from hand-beaten sheets of oxidised copper ran down the height of the far wall, on which was painted a giant female figure, but he was more interested in another object - a long stone beam, extending across the shaft to another ledge on the far side.

  ‘That doesn’t look safe,’ said Nina. The beam was less than a foot wide, and precariously perched.

  Eddie moved to get a better look at the slab’s sides. ‘You’re not kidding. Look at them.’ He illuminated the far end, revealing thick carved protrusions and a
lso mechanisms built into the opposite ledge - two large stone cogwheels.

  Metal shone dully in Nina’s flashlight beam as she directed it above the cogs. ‘They’re connected to something up there.’ A large cylindrical piece of stone hung on a chain from a pulley.

  ‘Think we found our Lady of Tremblings,’ said Eddie. ‘The weight drops down on the chain and turns the cogs - and they bang against those lumps on the bridge and make it shake.’

  ‘So what sets it off?’ Macy asked.

  Nina smiled grimly. ‘We do. There must be a trigger on the bridge - too much weight, and there’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on.’

  ‘How do we get across, then?’

  ‘By holding on really tight,’ said Eddie, taking a rope from his pack. ‘There’s only so much chain, so once the weight gets to the end, it’ll stop. If I tie myself to the bridge, I should be okay.’

  Nina wasn’t so sure. ‘And what if the entire bridge falls and takes you with it?’

  ‘Then I’ll die like Captain Kirk!’ Seeing that she was still unhappy, he went on, ‘It’s either that or stand here wishing we’d brought a twenty-foot plank.’

  ‘You’d better hold on really, really tight, okay?’

  Eddie looped the rope’s end round the bridge, then tied it to his body. ‘Okay, here we go,’ he muttered, putting a wary foot on the slab.

  Nothing happened. It seemed secure and solid. Kneeling, he pushed the rope a couple of feet across the span before crawling to catch up, then repeating the process. Nina watched nervously.

  Halfway across, three-quarters . . .

  The slab shifted.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he gasped, clinging tightly to the stone as the chain rattled—

  And stopped, the links chinking before falling silent.

  ‘What happened?’ an anxious Nina called.

  He raised his head. ‘Dunno, but I’m happy about it!’ He quickly crossed the last few feet, then untied himself and looked round. A large crack ran up one wall. Several chunks of stone had broken loose, and one had come to rest wedged beneath a cogwheel’s tooth, preventing it from turning. He tested the stone to see if it was secure. It moved slightly, but the weight bearing down on it held it in place.

  ‘Crawl across one at a time,’ he said. ‘And slowly.’

  Nina crossed first, followed by Macy. ‘Earthquake damage?’ Nina mused, examining the crack. ‘Or maybe it’s just structural stress.’

  ‘Egyptian builders,’ Eddie joked, helping Macy up.

  ‘As opposed to British builders?’ she said indignantly. ‘What have you got that’s stood up for thousands of years?’

  ‘Stonehenge?’

  She pouted. ‘Okay, I’ll give you that. But it’s still not as cool as the pyramids!’

  Nina saw another descending passage beyond the exit, this one with a sloping floor rather than steps. ‘What was in the next arit?’

  ‘The Lake of Fire,’ Macy remembered. ‘Or the Devourer by Fire.’

  ‘Either way, fire,’ said Eddie. ‘Great. Just what we want in a confined space.’

  ‘The last trap was broken,’ Nina said, indicating the rock jamming the mechanism. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky again.’

  He groaned as he started down the slope. ‘Why’d you have to say that? You’ve just jinxed it!’

  The incline was steep enough to be awkward, slowing their progress. The passage made more ninety-degree turns; Nina realised their descent followed a roughly spiral path, making her wonder if the copper pipes in the shaft were connected to another chamber below. Eventually, more ornate pillars marked another room.

  Eddie sniffed the air. ‘Funny smell. Not sure what, but I don’t like it.’

  He illuminated the chamber. It was large and rectangular with another exit at the far end, the walls sloping inwards to the roof about fifteen feet above. There were several holes in the ceiling. One of them was large and chimney-like, but it was the smaller ones that immediately made him suspicious: something was clearly supposed to drop out of them.

  Except for a relief of a greyhound-faced god watching from one wall, the only objects in the room were several large globe-shaped copper bowls near the entrance. Directly ahead was a square hole in the dusty floor, about three feet across, which turned out to be a pool of some liquid; there was a matching pool by the far doorway. The rest of the floor between the two pools was fractionally lower than the section where they were standing, the perfectly flat expanse stretching the entire width of the chamber.

  ‘Oh, something is so wrong with this picture,’ Nina said. It was obviously another booby trap, but she couldn’t see the danger. ‘Where’s the fire?’

  ‘Maybe it went out,’ Macy offered hopefully, advancing for a better look at the snarling god.

  ‘Stay still,’ Eddie warned as he crouched by the pool and hesitantly dipped a finger in the liquid. ‘Just water.’ He shone his torch into it, noticing that the pool was only walled on three sides.

  ‘Four feet deep, maybe. Looks like it connects to the hole at the other end.’

  ‘A tunnel?’ said Nina. ‘Weird. Why not just walk across?’

  ‘You really think it’s going to be that easy?’

  ‘Not even for a second. What’s that?’ She turned her flashlight to something between the hole and the lowered area, a bow-taut length of fine black twine running from floor to ceiling.

  ‘Something I’m not planning on touching,’ said Eddie. He directed his light into the tunnel. ‘It’s threaded across it. You want to go through, you’ve got to break it.’

  ‘Which I think would be an extraordinarily bad idea, don’t you?’ Her attention switched to the expanse at the room’s centre, where she noticed more threads reaching up to the ceiling - and an absence of something. ‘You see what’s missing?’

  ‘What?’ Macy asked, moving to the edge of the small step.

  ‘Gaps. There aren’t any lines marking the edges of different slabs. It’s like one giant block of stone.’

  Eddie examined the walls. ‘Biggest blocks here look about six feet by ten. But that floor’s easily thirty feet long. It can’t be all one slab, can it?’

  ‘I don’t see how.’ Nina looked round - to see Macy about to take an experimental step. ‘No, wait—’

  Macy put her foot down on the floor - and it went through it.

  She yelped, almost pitching forward before Nina grabbed her. ‘What the hell?’ Macy gasped as she hopped back, glutinous strands stretching from her boot’s sole to the sluggishly rippling ‘hole’ in what a moment ago had looked like solid stone. She tried to scrape the substance off. ‘Gross! What is this?’

  ‘Oil,’ said Eddie, coming over. He dipped his hand into what was now revealed as a large pool, disguised beneath a layer of sand. The same thick goo dripped slowly off his fingers when he lifted them out. ‘This crap’s floating on top of the water, and then they sprinkled all this sand over it to make it look like part of the floor.’

  Nina looked up at the holes in the ceiling. ‘And I bet if you break those threads, something up there catches light and drops into the oil. Whoomph! Roasted robbers.’

  Macy rubbed her sole across the floor, disgusted. ‘So how do you get across without setting off the trap?’

  ‘Swim under it,’ said Eddie, pointing at the water pool, which was clear of the oil. ‘The fire’ll only be on the surface.’

  ‘It can’t be that easy,’ Nina said, regarding the faux floor with suspicion. She looked round at the odd copper bowls, and shone her light into one. ‘Aha.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Macy.

  ‘There’s something inside.’ Nina reached into the globe and gripped a handle fixed to its bottom - or, she realised as she lifted it up, its top. ‘Know what I think this is?’ She lowered it over her head until it touched her shoulders. ‘It’s a diving helmet!’ she announced, voice echoing.

  Eddie knocked on it, drawing a yip of complaint. ‘You won’t get much air in there.’

  She lifted i
t again. ‘You don’t need to. Just enough to get across.’ She gestured at the pool. ‘I don’t think the holes are connected by a tunnel - they’re just ways to get in and out of the pool without touching the oil. Once the rim of this thing is under the surface there’ll be air trapped inside it so you can breathe, and then as long as you don’t raise it high enough to let in any oil you won’t get burned. Then you go through the tunnel into the water hole at the other end, climb out, and hey! You’re across.’

  Eddie sceptically examined another globe. ‘It’s too thin to keep the heat out for long.’

  ‘It’s the only way to get across without being fried. I’m pretty sure there’ll be something to stop people just swimming straight there under the oil.’ She held up the primitive helmet. ‘I don’t think we have a choice.’

  Eddie made an aggrieved noise as he shook his head, but acquiesced. ‘Okay. But I’ll go first.’

  ‘No, I will,’ Nina insisted. ‘If there are any obstacles under there and I bang into them, I’ll need you to tell me which way to go.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted, going to the water pool. She hesitantly dipped a foot under the surface, then steeled herself and slipped all the way in. ‘Oh, ew. I just realised this water’s been sitting here for thousands of years.’

  ‘Just don’t drink it,’ said Eddie. ‘Although you could say that about any water in Egypt!’

  Nina carefully crouched until her head was just above the surface, then reached up to take the helmet from Eddie, gripping the internal handle firmly.

  ‘Last chance to let me go instead,’ Eddie said.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she replied as he gave her the globe. ‘Hopefully.’ Bringing it down to rest on her shoulders, she submerged.

  The helmet took a surprising amount of effort to hold down, wanting to float. The water level rose alarmingly as the air inside was compressed, but stopped just short of her nostrils. Acutely aware of her limited oxygen supply, she dropped as low as she could and shuffled into the tunnel. The helmet scraped against its ceiling.

  Something tugged across her chest, a momentary resistance . . . then it was gone.