The Hidden Oasis

by Paul Sussman

  ‘The Mouth of Osiris,’ Flin murmured, his face strangely blank and expressionless, as if he was so staggered by what he was seeing that he had momentarily lost the ability to work his features. ‘A lifetime of Egyptology and I’ve never … I can’t believe it. It’s just … just …’

  His voice fell away into silence. For a while they just stood there staring down in mute amazement, the sun’s heat pressing against their backs, a lone buzzard wheeling high above them, wings silhouetted against the pale morning sky. Then, gathering himself and telling Freya to wait, Flin jogged back to the microlight, returning with the Maglite torch and the black briefcase he had taken from Alex’s house. He dropped to one knee, balanced the case on the other and clicked open the lid. Inside was what looked like an orange thermos flask with an antenna protruding from the top of it.

  ‘Locating beacon,’ he explained, pulling the object from the protective foam cushioning that surrounded it. ‘It’ll beam a signal direct to Molly’s people in the US and they’ll alert their team on the ground here in Egypt. We’ll have back-up within three hours.’

  He flicked a switch on the side of the beacon, screwed it into the ground and stood.

  ‘Are we going down?’ asked Freya.

  ‘No, I thought we’d stay up here and build sandcastles.’

  The sarcasm was gentle, and Freya smiled, knowing her question had been a foolish one, that there was no way Flin would just sit up here twiddling his thumbs.

  ‘You think it’s safe?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Probably on a par with Manshiet Nasser and Abydos.’

  ‘Well I guess we got out of those OK.’

  It was his turn to smile.

  ‘God, you’re like your sister.’

  She didn’t respond to that, just undid the bun on top of her head, shook out her hair and extended an arm towards the opening below.

  ‘Egyptologists first.’

  His smile broadened and he started to make his way down towards the doorway, taking the slope sideways on to keep his balance, feet sinking into the sand almost to the level of his thighs. Freya followed. He was about halfway when he stopped and looked up at her. His smile had faded, his expression now serious. Businesslike.

  ‘You’ll probably think this sounds silly, but there are things about this place, elements we don’t …’

  He broke off, struggling for the right words.

  ‘Just be careful,’ he said. ‘When we get inside. Try not to disturb anything. OK?’

  He held her gaze to make sure his words had hit home, then, with a nod, continued downwards.

  The helicopters flew in formation over the desert, six of them powering above the dune tops: five sand-coloured Chinooks and, lagging slightly behind, a black Augusta. They flew fast, towards the south-west, the rising sun behind them, their line of flight taking them slightly to the north of a lone, rearing crag of rock, which meant they missed the white Land Cruiser lurking in the shade beneath an overhang at the bottom of the crag. Only when they were well past, the insidious whining thud of their rotors fading into the distance, did the vehicle nose its way out into the sunlight. It paused a moment as if sniffing the air, then roared forward across the sands, heading in the same direction as the dwindling choppers, its wheels slewing and skidding as if it was anxious not to be left behind.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Flin.

  They had reached the doorway. Standing one to either side of it, they peered through into a dim, steeply sloping shaft beyond. Below them the sand chute descended for another ten metres or so before gradually petering out, revealing a succession of rock-cut steps that disappeared into the murk as though into a pool of deep black water.

  He switched on the Maglite and flashed it around, examining the neatly cut walls and ceiling, the stone still bearing the tell-tale ripples of ancient chisel marks. Failing to find where the shaft ended he dropped onto his backside and slid downwards, reaching the steps and coming upright.

  ‘See anything?’ asked Freya, shuffling down behind him.

  ‘Just steps,’ he replied, aiming the torch beam into the blackness below. ‘An awful lot of steps. It must go right down under the Gilf. Although exactly where it’s going …’

  He shifted, allowing Freya to come alongside him, the shaft just wide enough to accommodate the two of them. There was something oppressive about the space, forbidding – the darkness, the silence, the way the rock pressed in on them from all directions – and for a while they just stood there, even Flin apparently reluctant to go any further.

  ‘Maybe you should wait up top,’ he said. ‘Let me check where it leads. That way if anything happens …’

  She shook her head and told him they either went together or not at all. He nodded – ‘Just like your sister’ – and, with a final sweep of the torch, started to descend, Freya at his side, the two of them stopping every few steps to re-examine the shaft, trying to make out where it was leading. The stairs just continued down, deeper and deeper into the rock, the air growing steadily cooler, the doorway behind them dwindling until it was no larger than a pinprick, a tiny rent in the enveloping blackness. They counted fifty steps, a hundred, two hundred, and Freya was starting to wonder if they would ever end or just descend ad infinitum into the bowels of the earth when, as they passed the three-hundredth stair, Flin’s torch beam hit flat rock below. Another fifteen metres and the shaft levelled out.

  There was another doorway at the bottom, flanked by the same carved figures as the entrance above. Passing through it, they found themselves in a long tunnel, its curved walls and arched ceiling giving the space a curiously rounded, tube-like feel, as though they were standing inside a gigantic intestine. Unlike the shaft they had just descended, whose walls and ceiling had been bare stone, here the rock had been plastered and whitewashed, painted with a strange looping design which after a moment Freya realized depicted the coils of a multitude of entwined snakes.

  ‘May evildoers be swallowed into the belly of the serpent Apep,’ murmured Flin, his torch picking out a head with jaws levered open, forked tongue flickering menacingly.

  ‘I’m not getting a good feeling about this,’ said Freya.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ he said. ‘Stay close. And try not to touch anything.’

  They started walking, their feet making a dry, slapping sound on the stone floor, the entwined serpents keeping pace with them, coiling across the walls and ceiling. The swaying of the Maglite beam had the unnerving effect of making the coils seem to roll and slither as though the snakes were moving. The darkness amplified the effect, as did the tunnel’s shape and somnolent, claustrophobic atmosphere, and more than once they jerked to a halt and wheeled, convinced the images were moving, gliding up behind them, jaws stretched. But they were just images, and once they had satisfied themselves it was all in their imagination, a sort of subterranean mirage, they turned and continued on their way. The tunnel ran flat for some five hundred metres, driving in an unswerving line through the bare rock before gradually it started to angle upward, gently at first but then more steeply, pushing towards the surface. They covered another few hundred metres – the tunnel and stairway combined having now taken them well over a kilometre into the underbelly of the Gilf – when Flin suddenly stopped. Clasping Freya’s arm, he switched off the torch.

  ‘Notice anything?’ His voice echoed along the tunnel.

  At first she didn’t, the blackness smothering her. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the void, she became aware that above and ahead was a pale thread of light, barely visible, no more than the tiniest vertical crack in the enveloping murk.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘A door?’

  ‘Well it’s either a bloody narrow one, or a hell of a long way away,’ he replied. ‘Come on.’

  He switched the torch back on and they resumed walking, faster now, both of them anxious to be free of the oppressive darkness. The corridor carried on upwards, the walls and ceiling imperceptibly widening and lifting so that whe
re initially they had only just been able to fit two abreast, they now found they could do so with room to spare. They broke into a stride and then a jog, hurrying forward, yearning for sunshine and clean air, no longer caring where the tunnel led them or what was at the end of it, just wanting to get out. Although the corridor continued to widen, and their pace to quicken, the thread of light seemed neither to strengthen nor to come any nearer. It just hovered on the edge of sight, a tenuous slash of grey that beckoned them while at the same time seeming to hold them at arm’s length.

  ‘What the hell …’ growled Flin, speeding up even more. He started to pull away from Freya, aiming the torch at the floor so as to spot any obstructions before they tripped him up. Still the light remained distant, tantalizing, taunting, and, frustrated, he broke into a sudden sprint, charging at the grey line as if he hoped to take it unawares, get to it before it could recede again. For a moment the tunnel reverberated to the slap of his feet, then there was a sudden jarring crash and a thud as of something soft falling onto something hard. The torch rolled away across the floor with a metallic tinkle, its beam throwing juddering blobs of light over the stone. Freya slowed, peering into the blackness.

  ‘Flin?’

  A groan.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Another groan, then, woozily, ‘Bollocks.’

  Freya reached the Maglite, picked it up and shone it forward. Flin was lying on his back gazing up at the ceiling, blinking groggily, a bemused look on his face, like a boxer who has been flattened by a vicious right hook. Just beyond him, the reason his sprint had come to such an abrupt halt, the tunnel was blocked by a pair of very solid-looking wooden doors. Between them was a hair-thin seam of daylight, the source of the ghostly crack they had seen from back along the tunnel.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, hurrying over and helping him to his feet.

  ‘Not entirely,’ he mumbled, clasping her shoulder for support, swaying against her. ‘Ran straight into the bloody thing. Christ, it feels like I’ve been hit with a fucking …’

  He couldn’t think what it felt like he’d been hit with. Instead he just stood there, touching a hand gingerly to his forehead and trying to gather his scrambled senses. He remained like that for several moments, then – still looking distinctly befuddled – he took the torch from her and played it back and forth over the doors.

  Hung on bronze hinges driven into the tunnel walls, they were twice as tall as he was and so perfectly carved and fitted – their tops arched to match the curve of the tunnel’s ceiling – that aside from the minute streak of grey sandwiched between them, nothing whatsoever was visible of what lay beyond.

  ‘Hear that?’ he asked.

  She did indeed: a faint twitter of birds and, even fainter, the soft plash of running water. Flin pressed his face to the gap, trying to see through, but it was much too narrow. He backed off and aimed the torch at the bolt that ran across the centre of the doors, holding them closed. A length of coarse, thin rope had been wound around the device and secured with a clay seal impressed with an image that three days ago Freya would not have recognized, but which was now only too familiar. The outline of an obelisk, with inside it the looping sedjet sign.

  ‘Still intact,’ said Flin, tapping the seal. ‘Whatever’s beyond here, no one’s got to it this way for four thousand years.’

  ‘You think it’s the oasis?’

  ‘I don’t see how it possibly can be, given that I flew over this precise area an hour ago and there was bugger all here. Then again if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about the wehat seshtat it’s that nothing is ever quite as it seems. I guess there’s only one way to find out.’

  He reached into his back pocket, produced a small penknife and pressed its blade against the rope. For a moment he hesitated, seeming reluctant to damage the ancient bindings, then started to cut, slicing through the rope and pulling it away.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, easing back the bolt and laying a hand against the right-hand door.

  ‘As I’ll ever be,’ she said, putting her weight against the left-hand one.

  ‘In that case … open sesame!’

  They pushed. The doors swung outwards with a soft whispering sound and brilliant daylight rushed forward to greet them. The sounds of birdsong and running water suddenly grew much louder.

  The moment the helicopters landed their doors slid open and disgorged figures in full-body radiation suits. Making their way ponderously down to the doorway in the rock, they probed at it with an array of electronic gadgetry, continuing for several minutes before radioing an all-clear up to those still waiting in the Chinooks. Others spewed out onto the desert. Some – heavily armed men in sunglasses and flak jackets – established a security cordon around the mouth of the sand crater. Others began unloading the aluminium equipment cases, carrying them down through the opening and into the shaft beyond. Only when the last of the crates had disappeared did Girgis and his colleagues make their own way down to the door. They paused beside it, Girgis turning and staring up at the figure silhouetted on the crater lip above. Then, with a nod and wave, he turned and the group began their descent into the blackness beneath, the twins bringing up the rear. Hands stuffed into their pockets, they looked supremely uninterested in the whole affair.

  When they were children Freya and her sister had imagined that behind the moon there existed a secret world: a pristine, magical place full of flowers and waterfalls and the music of birdsong. Alex had alluded to it in her final letter to Freya, albeit in a different context, and it was the thing that immediately sprang to mind now as she stood gazing at what she could only describe as the paradise in front of her.

  They were at one end of a long, deep gorge, hemmed in by towering cliffs down which slim water cascades streaked like dangling threads of silver. At this, its narrower end, the gorge was little more than twenty metres across. As it drove backwards into the Gilf, however – a gargantuan axe-cleft shearing through the bare rock – it rapidly started to broaden, its floor rising at a slight gradient, its sheer walls angling away from each other like a pair of opening scissors. At its far end, Freya guessed, the valley must have measured four or even five hundred metres from side to side, although it was hard to be sure as it was a long way away. Birds swooped and dived overhead; a babbling matrix of streams and water channels cut this way and that across the canyon floor, dampening the sand and giving rise to a rich profusion of plant life: trees and bushes and multi-coloured carpets of flowers. Even the cliffs had been colonized, heavy clumps of foliage sprouting along ledges and from cracks in the stone like explosions of green hair.

  ‘It’s not possible,’ murmured Flin, head shaking in wonder. ‘I flew over here and there was nothing. It was just rock and desert.’

  They stepped forward out of the doorway, hands instinctively reaching out and clasping as they peered into the mesh of leaves and branches ahead. It took a while for their eyes to adjust to the tangled interplay of light and shadow, then they started to notice shapes amid the vegetation – curves and angles of dressed stone, sections of wall, columns and sphinxes and giant figures with human bodies and the heads of animals. Here a pair of empty stone eyes glared at them from beneath a face-pack of moss, there a monumental clenched fist punched out from amid a grove of palm trees. To the left the remains of a paved street disappeared into the undergrowth, to the right a row of obelisks speared up through the leaf canopy like a line of javelin tips.

  ‘How could they have done all this?’ whispered Freya. ‘Out here in the middle of nowhere? It must have taken them centuries.’

  ‘And some,’ said Flin, moving further forward into the sandy clearing in front of the tunnel entrance. ‘It’s just beyond anything I could have … I mean I’ve read the texts, seen Schmidt’s photographs, but to actually …’

  He didn’t seem able to finish a sentence, his voice drifting off into dreamy, awestruck silence. Five minutes passed, the two of them just standing there staring, the sun now riding well up in the
sky, which was curious because according to Flin’s watch it was still only 8.09 a.m. He looked up, shielding his eyes and shaking his head as if to say ‘Nothing about this place surprises me.’ Another couple of minutes went by, then, releasing Freya’s hand, Flin lifted his arm.

  ‘That must be the temple,’ he said, pointing into the far distance, towards the very upper end of the valley where what looked like a vast natural rock platform thrust above the tree-tops. On it stood a dense honeycomb of stonework, including a structure that Freya thought could well be the gateway in Rudi Schmidt’s photograph.

  ‘Are we going up there?’ she asked.

  Although his expression suggested he would dearly have liked to, Flin shook his head.

  ‘We need to find the Antonov first, check what state it’s in. Then we can explore.’

  Freya looked across at him.

  ‘Shouldn’t we have, like, a Geiger counter or something?

  In case, you know, any of the uranium containers were damaged in the crash.’

  Flin smiled.

  ‘Whatever else we have to worry about, radiation poisoning isn’t on the list. Uranium-235’s no more toxic than a granite kitchen surface. I could take a bath in the stuff and it wouldn’t harm me. Although if you happen to know a Geiger counter store around here I’m happy to get one, just to put your mind at rest. Come on.’

  Giving her a playful wink, he led her across the clearing and into a deep glade of trees, acacia and tamarisk for the most part although there were also palms, figs, willows and a lone, towering sycamore. The air was warm but not uncomfortably so, heavy with the scent of thyme and jasmine, alive with birds and butterflies and the biggest, brightest dragonflies Freya had ever seen. Sunbeams poured down through the branches like sheets of gold cloth; glinting rivulets wound to and fro among the tree roots, in some places simply petering out, in others joining up to form pools of clear water fringed with banks of orange narcissi and dotted all over with the cupped pods of blue and white water-lilies.