The Amun Chamber

by Daniel Leston

  * * *

  For Elizabeth, the nightmare continued unabated.

  Too late, she realized the lumbering giant had purposely maneuvered her into the narrowest confines of the small, natural amphitheater. Even half dead, the man was diabolically clever, his intention now obvious. Like herding an animal to slaughter!

  She knew the fault was entirely hers. Being much faster, she could’ve easily outdistanced her badly wounded pursuer in any other chosen direction were she thinking more clearly. Now this advantage was lost! His clever stratagem had worked. Not only was she boxed in, but damn if the cunning bastard hadn’t steered her towards the very steepest section of the shale-strewn slope!

  How could I have been so stupid?

  Left with no other option, she spun and began scrambling upward. The incline was daunting, she saw, but not unmakeable. Behind her, she heard the man rushing in with renewed energy, doubtless believing it was all but over.

  The hell it was!

  High overhead was the darkening silhouette of the parked jeep, and she silently prayed the keys were still inside. The probability of this was slim. Unless she won this race, it was all meaningless—and by the rasping sound of the man’s labored breathing, he was closer now than at any time before.

  A quick look back, however, gave her reason for hope. Unless her eyes deceived, she was actually holding her own. For all his superior strength, he was really no better at this than she! So maybe this isn’t such a trap after all! If she could just beat him to the top—even if only by seconds—then keys, or no keys, it would again be her legs against his on level ground.

  Despite her aching hands and arms, this heady prospect of salvation spurred her to ascend even faster. Clawing, straining, she pulled herself up and around the many jagged stones. She must make it! Nothing mattered but attaining the upper plateau!

  But desperation made her less cautious.

  With her goal less than half a body length away, she made the mistake of trying to stand too soon, and the unstable conglomerate of sand, gravel, and broken shale gave way beneath her. Unable to halt what gravity began, she suddenly found herself caught in a downward slide.

  No! she thought in panic. This can’t be happening!

  She came to an abrupt stop, her knee slamming hard against a flat slab of stone. Only a few inches more, she realized, and she would’ve been within range of the man’s clutches. Nevertheless, the grim giant saw an opportunity. Extending his arm, he made a stabbing attempt to impale her foot. She instinctively jerked away from the descending knife, but not sufficiently fast enough to prevent the blade from partially embedding the sole of her boot. By thrashing her leg, she somehow managed to free it, then kicked down on the stone as hard as she could. An excruciating pain immediately radiated up from her ankle—yet the damage wasn’t for naught. Jarred off its underpinnings, the slab tilted back onto the unprepared man, shoving him down into a long slide of his own.

  How far down, she didn’t wait to see.

  She began climbing again, now blinking back tears of frustration. Escape seemed determined to elude her, for she heard the bastard continue his relentless pursuit. The throbbing ache inside her boot worsened. Even if no bones were broken, her ankle was at the very least severely sprained. Outrunning this maniac was no longer an option! The jeep was now her only hope.

  Please, please, God—let the keys be there!

  Elizabeth regained the top, careful not to repeat the same mistake as she elbowed her way onto the crumbly lip. The vehicle was parked parallel to the basin’s edge, no more than three feet in front of her. Crawling to it on hands and knees, she reached up and opened the driver’s door—then felt her heart sink in despair. There was nothing in the ignition!

  I’m going to die!

  This realization registered on her brain like a jolt of electricity. The man was frighteningly near, the gurgling sound of his breathing that of a crazed animal choking on its own blood. How can he even be alive? Unless she did something this very instant, it was all over for her!

  But what?

  The icy fingers of panic tightened, but she refused to succumb. No! I won’t be taken this easily! Now it was more rage than fear that coursed through her veins. This bastard must be stopped! Somehow—someway—she must deny him his—

  Then she saw it. The means was right in front of her.

  Pulling the flare gun out from under the seat, she fumbled briefly with the side release mechanism until the stubby barrel broke; then loaded one of the four cylindrical casings lying loose on the floor. So badly did her hands shake that it took both thumbs to draw back the metal hammer. Now armed with the closest thing approaching a real weapon available to her, she turned and sat with her back braced against the jeep’s frame, holding the gun between her spread knees.

  The waiting was almost unendurable. Every fiber of her body screamed for her to flee. Only seconds more and he’d be on her. She would only have one chance at this! Everything depended on her ability to aim and fire this point-blank into his face.

  Can I do it? The expectation of looking once again into those demented eyes made her hands tremble all the more. But there was no other way! This isn’t a man, she kept telling herself. It’s an insane, mindless beast—one already more dead than alive!

  And this was nearer the truth than she knew.

  Below Elizabeth’s line of vision, Heikal crawled inexorably upward, his limbs functioning with a mechanical efficiency outside all reason. Mortally wounded, he was no longer capable of rational thought, for that governing part of his brain had now shut down. What remained was little more than a primitive core of sick fantasy. It was this alone driving him. He no longer felt pain; only a growing rapture. In his delirium he was transported back in time, granted a last chance to destroy his long-tormenting devil. He saw it all so clearly. The blood on his hands belonged to the young foreigner lying dead in the dark alley below. Now he must use his knife one more time if his honor was to be finally cleansed! And the vivid illusion only grew as he approached the top. This was no rocky slope, but instead the never forgotten flight of stairs from his distant youth. Above were the small rooms shared with his sister, the deceitful Nayra—and there he would find the great whore, reclining with her fair thighs open, shamelessly waiting to embrace her foreign dog of a lover.

  This time she wouldn’t escape his blade!

  His fantasy held as he heaved himself up and over. In his mad exultation, the terrified girl before him was indeed Nayra, appearing exactly as he remembered. Beyond this, he saw nothing; not the slim arms extended towards him—and definitely not the wide barrel pointed straight into his face.

  Wrists locked, Elizabeth squeezed the trigger.

  For Heikal, the final release of torment came in a brilliant flash of white, one that exploded him backwards into what seemed an all-encompassing void. The searing pain of it was ephemeral, as briefly felt and forgotten as his last memory of existence itself.

  * * *

  Barely conscious, David heard the echoing report as he fought to regain his faculties at the pool’s edge. The palpable urgency of it brought his senses back into focus—and he now realized he’d been lying for some time with only his arms and chest atop the surrounding shelf. Just how long, he couldn’t judge.

  He shook his head as he crawled from the water, trying to clear the cobwebs. He distinctly remembered screaming for Elizabeth to run. If the man caught her— He couldn’t bring himself to think it. With effort, he got to his feet and staggered back out into the basin.

  Thankfully, he found his fears were unfounded.

  To his immense relief, he saw her sitting alongside the parked jeep on the upper rim. Near as he could tell in the last light of sunset, she was sobbing, but definitely alive and safe. On the basin floor beneath her was Oristano’s henchman, sprawled motionless on the rocks, clearly no longer a threat to her or anyone.

  Rashidi was also alive, only now beginning to awake. Groaning in pain, he still lay on the sand, attem
pting without success to roll onto his back. Like Elizabeth, he required immediate attention. This left only poor—

  Wait a second!

  David stopped and spun around, staring back at the alcove. In his frantic concern for Elizabeth, he’d somehow failed to notice a huge discrepancy. Lewis was nowhere in sight. At some point during all of this mayhem, the old man had flat out disappeared! It made no sense. Where could he have—?

  Suddenly, it all clicked.

  “Of course,” he whispered aloud. The perfect logic of it all fairly took his breath away. There was only one place Lewis could’ve possibly gone—and damn if wasn’t right there all the time!

  * * *

  “So what’s it to be, Ahmed? Are you going to tell her, or do you want me to do it?” While waiting for an answer, David fit Rashidi’s crippled arm back into the makeshift sling. The younger man grimaced in pain as he sat against the base of the bluff, but appeared far more human now that Elizabeth had washed the dried blood off his face, treating the deep cuts with antiseptic. Almost a half hour had elapsed, and now David felt it was time to bring the final secret out into the open.

  “It’s the pool, isn’t it?” he pressed. “Lewis crawled over to it right after you dropped on the big man. I was so busy wrestling Oristano for the gun that I missed it completely. That’s the tomb’s entrance.”

  Listening to this, Elizabeth remained silent.

  “That’s correct, Professor,” said Rashidi. “I’m sure even if Dr. Gobeir hadn’t shown you the way, it was only inevitable you would’ve figured it out—not unlike Lionel did when he came here all those many years ago. To his credit, however, he put it all together entirely on his own. How he managed to do so remains a mystery. I guess we’ll never know. Simple luck, do you think?”

  David saw it different. In his opinion, mere chance was far too pat an answer to account for that remarkable achievement.

  “I can’t agree with this,” he said. “Remember, Lionel had several years to pick Cameron’s brain regarding all the various traditions surrounding the worship of Amun. If he was convinced they were responsible, then the special religious significance put on ritual immersion in water wouldn’t have escaped his attention. He surely knew, for example, that in the Oracle’s temple at Siwah anyone who wished to enter the god’s holy sanctuary must first be purified in the Fountain of the Sun.”

  “From this alone he figured it out?”

  “Not by itself, no. I think that’s where his deductive genius came into play. If he factored in other pieces of historical information, then it wasn’t a big leap to conclude Alexander’s mortal remains were never meant to be sealed away and forgotten. For close to four centuries the Soma was a place of worship, the sarcophagus there for all to see and revere. So why would this change? I think Lionel surmised that Alexander’s present tomb, by design, would likewise be accessible to a select group. And if true, what more appropriate entrance could there be but another pool? Not only does it effectively mask the tomb’s presence, but the rituals of purification would automatically be observed by anyone entering to pay homage. His only mistake—and a fatal one—was his theory never allowed for the possibility that a last remnant of your priesthood still existed.”

  Rashidi was visibly impressed.

  “I can’t argue with the logic,” he said. “In truth, it explains the quickness with which he located the tomb and then departed this valley.” He paused, his eyes shifting to Elizabeth, then back to David. “And speaking of departures, Professor, there’s something I must tell you. The longer you remain here, the more possible danger for the both of you. So much time has passed, I’m afraid it may already be too late to—”

  “If you’re referring to Wassef’s imminent arrival, I already know. I fully expect him to show up any time now.”

  “You knew about this?”

  “Only a reasonable assumption. Lewis ran too tight a ship for it to be otherwise. As good as those men at the valley’s entrance may have been, I’m sure he instructed Wassef to have a back-up contingency in place. Probably through radio check-in times and the like.”

  The younger man nodded appreciatively, watching as David picked up one of the Enfield revolvers. “You deduced this, yet didn’t say anything. Why?”

  “Because I wanted to hear it from you, Ahmed. Either you were going to warn us, or you weren’t. If Wassef and others come in shooting, I needed to know where you stand in all this.”

  “Your way of testing me?”

  “You could say that, yes.” He checked the guns cylinder for bullets; then took hold of Rashidi’s good arm, helping him stand. “There’s still a job left to do before they get here. We’re not the only ones running out of time. After the horror he’s been through, Lewis is probably half out of his mind by now. One way or another, we’ll have to bring him out—which means you’ve got to lead us inside.”

  * * *

  It took no great effort to traverse the underwater passage. The submerged opening lay less than five feet beneath the spring’s surface, an undercut ledge going straight back into the limestone escarpment.

  When the three surfaced, however, it was to a pocket of air so black and deathly silent that David was disorientated. “Elizabeth? Where are—”

  “I’m here.” She clutched at his arm as she treaded water beside him, breathing deep to refill her lungs. “I can’t see anything.”

  “It’s all right,” Rashidi assured them. He sounded close, but was invisible in the inky dark. “It’s a bit unnerving, I know, but give your eyes a minute to adjust. In the meantime, move towards my voice.”

  They did so.

  “Only a little further. Can you feel it underfoot yet?”

  David’s boots came down on something flat and solid. He drew Elizabeth to him, supporting her until she, too, got her footing. As they moved forward, he quickly got the idea of what was beneath them. “It feels like shallow steps.”

  “They were chiseled out almost two millennia ago as a prelude to cutting the connecting passageway into the spring. It was the latter, of course, which then flooded this chamber. The water in here is now the same level as the natural spring on the other side.”

  “Ingenious.”

  “And slippery, so be careful climbing out.”

  David’s sense of his surroundings had marginally improved. The single source of light was just the dull glow filtering up from the water, and this too weak to distinguish much of anything as he helped her up unto dry stone. Though her ankle was considerably stronger since he’d bound it with tape, she still walked with difficulty. He eased her into a sitting position, wondering why Rashidi had insisted no flashlight was necessary.

  As if answering this unspoken question, Rashidi said, “We’ll have more than enough light momentarily. We’re standing in a rather narrow area. Come towards me and put your hand up against the wall.”

  David did so. “Now what?”

  “About shoulder high is a recess cut back into the stone.”

  “Got it.”

  “Reach inside and you’ll find several kerosene lanterns. They lift from the top by wire handles. All are filled, so take out the first two you find and—” He coughed heavily, then cleared his throat. “Have—have you ever lit one of these before?”

  “Not since I was a kid. Are you all right?”

  “I’ll manage, Professor,” he replied, easing himself to his knees beside Elizabeth. By the effort it took, he was clearly in considerable pain. “Set them here in front of me.”

  “We’ll need matches.”

  “There’s a covered jar there, as well. Inside is the old-fashioned stick kind.”

  David retrieved several, then crouched and ignited one on dry stone. The lanterns were antiques, the centers accessible through thin glass panes. Getting both going, he trimmed back on the wicks, settling them down to a steady, hissing glow. He set one aside. He then looked closely at Rashidi, noting the weary strain on his tightly drawn face. Even allowing for the yellowish ti
nge of the lantern’s light, the younger man’s color looked terrible. Of even more concern, there were flecks of pinkish foam at the corners of his mouth.

  “You’re coughing up blood, Ahmed.”

  Rashidi wiped at his lips. “It’s my ribs. I fear a few may have been cracked or broken when the big man hit me.”

  “Why didn’t you say so outside? We could’ve done this different.”

  “Until now, I wasn’t sure, myself. This took more out of me than I anticipated.” He attempted a weak smile. “Besides, you needed me to show the way, did you not?”

  This left David only one practical course of action. Despite Rashidi’s fortitude, he couldn’t allow his serious condition to be further aggravated.

  “Elizabeth, you’re going to have stay here with him. This might change once I locate Lewis, but that will depend on his condition and how far he got.” He had another reason for wanting her to stay, but this he kept to himself; so far it was only a vague notion, an uneasy feeling not yet compelling enough to frighten her needlessly.

  She nodded her understanding.

  David raised his lantern, stepping over to a dark opening. Like the rest of this chamber, it was rough hewn out of solid stone. Except for going back into the water, there was no other way to go. “So what’s the layout back there, Ahmed? Any clever pitfalls or traps to watch out for?”

  Rashidi shook his head. “Nothing of the kind, Professor. This passage is the single way in to the main chamber. It circles around some at first; then eventually straightens out as you approach the tomb annex. It’s really not all that far.”

  David drew his revolver. “And what about firearms?” he asked. “Is there anything stored back in there for emergencies?”