by S. A. Sidor
I was closer to the truth than I might have guessed.
Money paves roads where none before existed. I learned this fact firsthand. The Waterston dollar bought our expedition a path near the Deir el-Bahri cliffs, location of the First Royal Cache, and the gorgeously linen-wrapped Amenhotep I. I could hardly believe I was within walking distance of that famous tomb shaft, let alone leading my own dig. These days the Egyptians paid a lot more attention to who was exhuming what from their land. I did not blame them. Europeans had been looting treasures as fast as the desert could reshape itself, which is to say, constantly.
Mummies became exotic party favors rich people unraveled for their own titillation and gruesome delights, only then to be discarded like so much used gift ribbon and leftover bones. Disgraceful and unscientific plundering was commonplace. The locals rightly took offense at the treatment of their ancestors and cultural history. Now permits were required and inspectors visited sites, overseeing every stage of excavation.
Most importantly, no mummies left Egypt without written permission. Inviolate tombs were owned by the government. That was a problem in Mr Waterston’s view. He was paying for this exploration, by God, and he demanded possession of whatever our labors and the timeless, shifting sands turned up.
In plain English, he wanted his mummy.
His requests were so calculated he almost seemed to have the retrieval of a specific mummy in mind. That was absurd, I thought. When I jokingly prodded him about the subject, he apologized, saying he had for so long daydreamed of unearthing a mummy, he must have created a romantic ideal.
He is like an old friend I long to see again, Waterston wrote. Thoughts of the mummy are my only escape from the bodily insults I must suffer daily.
I felt pity that his infirmities kept him a prisoner.
Though I suspected there was more than romance to his obsession.
The first digging season I failed to find anything more noteworthy than the carcass of an ass that had stumbled into a rubble-filled pit, and which proved by its smell to be of recent, rather than antique, vintage. I scoured my maps. The deepest appeal of the nearby Valley was how very promising it all seemed to the beholding eye. One could imagine plunging one’s hand anywhere into the hot crumbling grains and yanking up untold riches. And that too was its curse.
Each crest, every dip in the landscape screamed out, “Dig here! Dig here!”
I took the early missteps hard. Waterston took them harder. His health had worsened. I could see the evidence in his penmanship. Smooth elegant letters degraded into a cramped, blotchy, almost unreadable, scrawl. His patience eroded in equal measure. He wrote several letters stating his funds were not unlimited. He threatened cuts if I did not show results. He told me outright that if he died, the expedition would come to an immediate halt. I would pack and head home – empty-handed.
Halfway during my second fruitless digging season, the handwriting and tone of the communications changed dramatically again. In the leading paragraph, Waterston informed me he was too ill to write and would henceforth be dictating his letters. The transcriber was his young daughter, Evangeline.
A bold, yet graceful, voluptuous calligraphy painted the pages. My initial impression was that if she were a third as beautiful as the ink she spilled, Evangeline Waterston would justify the proudest father. I would later see how far she transcended expectations when encountered in the flesh.
At the time, I appreciated reading without using my magnifying lens.
It was in Evangeline’s fine, clear prose that I first read about the horrible dream. Calling it a dream fails to do it justice. Dark vision would be more suitable.
In the days prior to the beginning of our second digging season (a mere forty-eight hours before the letter I was holding in my hands had been dictated), Monty Waterston suffered a sudden high fever. He lay confined to his bed, delirious. His heartbeat galloped. Doctors could find no source of infection. Nor could they bring down his temperature a single degree. They had all but admitted defeat. In a final attempt to prevent his brain from cooking inside the pot of his skull, and in keeping with the Waterston tradition of actions writ large, senior mansion staff ordered a wagon to be filled at the nearest icehouse and emptied into the indoor swimming pool. Servants plunged their naked febrile master under frigid waters while a bevy of medical experts – with stern warnings the shock might trigger immediate death – skeptically looked on.
Waterston’s screams echoed throughout the estate.
Slowly, his fever diminished.
When he was able to speak again, Waterston told Evangeline of his fever dream. Though cautioned about his weakened condition, he insisted on recounting every detail before it slipped from his memory. His nightmarish chronicle is too lengthy and disjointed to pass along in full. The transcription ran some thirty pages and made my head pound with confusion. But the last revelation surpassed confusion with sheer terror.
A phantasm visited Hugo Waterston.
It spirited him to Egypt – to my very tent.
And together they observed my sleeping body. Waterston attempted to shake me by the shoulder, but his corporeal structure had no substance. His hand passed through me and appeared again on the other side. He said I shivered and tossed yet did not wake. The phantasm laughed at both of us. Then it directed Waterston to my collection of maps. With a swing of its smoky arm, the shadow creature flung my scrolls and binders to the floor. It was true. How else could Waterston know? Pure coincidence would not suffice. Because I had indeed awakened one morning to find my maps thrown about the tent and until this moment could not explain it. Waterston said he paid close attention to every move the phantasm made because it never spoke. Gestures were the only clues. What Waterston deduced was that my charts, and the expedition, were doomed to failure.
“Can you draw us a map?” he asked the visitant.
It could and it did.
I turned the last page of the letter to find a sketch of the map and a crude illustration of what could only be described as a highly unusual and morbidly eroded rock. Unnerved by the drawing, and intrigued by the map, in a dry-mouthed whisper, I read aloud Waterston’s note (scribbled in his own hand) at the bottom of the page.
“Cease your explorations at once! I am certain we have found the KEY! Dig at this exact location. When you uncover the tomb, bribe the inspectors and bring me the contents, and by that I mean the MUMMIES. Whatever your interpretation of my dream may be, I remind you that I am the employer and you are my employee. I command you to follow these instructions TO THE LETTER!”
Command me?
I bristled at his choice of words. When did I enlist in the army? I could not recall doing so. What twisted logic commanded me to follow a dream – a byproduct of an overheated brain rather than scholarly reason? Wasn’t I the expert here?
Yet, this point I had to surrender: I had retrieved nothing of value from the baked Egyptian soil. Principle rather than evidence supported me. I allowed my anger to cool. Afterward, I found myself lured to the map, lingering over it, and, yes, tempted to try my luck with it. The truth was, like many a man, I virtually had signed on as a soldier in a rich man’s private army. I did not wear a uniform per se, yet Waterston’s power over me was absolute. If I confronted him, I would soon be returned to the dimly lit stacks of a lonesome library where I might read about another Egyptologist glorying over the latest additions to the Waterston Institute. I could not stomach such lost opportunity.
No, I would do my job – as specified.
I folded the map and put it in my shirt.
Later I took it out again and studied the coordinates for our relocation.
My heart raced, though I knew not why. We would go north, back toward Cairo, in the direction of Dahshur and Saqqara, locations of the most ancient necropolises, the first known pyramids, and the even older, pre-dynastic, mastaba tombs. After an arduous journey on camelback, we would – according to the prophetic diagram of the ghostly creature – spy a hills
ide with an outcrop shaped like an emerging, bulbous, and generously horned skull. A Cyclopean cave gaped at the base – there, we would dig.
Waterston had conveniently marked our target with a five-pointed black star.
I immediately summoned my foreman, the honorable Hakim. He moved nimbly in his robes and never seemed to break a sweat. A true marvel he was. He greeted me this evening with his usual smile.
“You have news?” he asked, eagerly.
I told him of our change in strategy. We would travel light. Take a minimum of men. If the map proved worthy, we would shift operations to the virgin site. I was suffering from doubts again. A compulsion to look at the map grew in me, each subsequent glance fed my confidence, like sips from strong and foreign liquors, but liking the peculiar taste, my thirst doubled, and I soon required more to sate me.
I shared the Waterston plans with Hakim.
His tanned face turned the color of a Nile perch’s belly.
“That is forbidden,” he said, pulling back from the paper, examining his fingers as if he feared the ink had stained them permanently.
I nodded, thinking I understood. “We will file for the permits afterward. The area is remote from other active digs. No one will even know we are there. Have confidence, man.”
Hakim stared hard at the map but refused to touch it.
“Where did you get this?”
“You would not believe me if I told you. Never ignore a lucky break. Now, be quick. Assemble the men and supplies. I want to begin digging the day after tomorrow.”
“I do not know if I can find volunteers.”
“Tell them I am doubling wages. They will come.”
“But, sir…”
“Pay triples if we leave tonight. What do you say to that, my friend?”
I thought this last news would bring a smile to his face. He only bowed his head and backed out of my tent, never taking his eyes off the pages in my hand. Egyptians are a superstitious lot. Hakim needed time to adjust to our surprising new mission.
I told myself that as I packed my bag.
We left at nightfall. I did not recognize the men Hakim had mustered. Perhaps he was correct in assuming volunteers would be difficult to find. These diggers seemed to be a cut below our regulars, not in their size and skills, but their character. They looked more like the graverobbers Hakim had pointed out to me in the days when we were first hiring. Nonetheless, they were game. I could feel a palpable energy in the group. And a giddiness that bordered on hysteria. As we rode, they barked out harsh words, unintelligible to my ears, and swiped at each other like a pack of jackals.
Hakim and I led the way across the moonlit landscape.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said.
“I am listening.”
“When we find the tomb…”
Hakim raised his eyebrows.
I stopped to correct my bold presumption.
“If we find the tomb… Mr Waterston wants me to bring the mummies back to America. I have enough resources to bribe the inspectors. We can make it appear the tomb has already been raided. Your reputation will remain unblemished. Our interest is in the mummies only. Montague Waterston will take the greatest care preserving and studying these antiquities. Other artifacts discovered in the tomb can be cataloged and turned over to the inspectors… or you may sell them on the black market and keep the profits. I will not raise any objections.”
Hakim was silent.
“I mean no insult,” I added. “These are extraordinary duties we are asking you to perform. You should know we are willing to compensate you for doing them.”
“I fear the price we all might pay for this excursion.”
“If there were no price, anyone might do it. And the world wouldn’t care a whit.” I reached out and seized Hakim’s arm. “My friend, we can all be winners here. You will get rich, Waterston shall have his mummy, and I will be famous. Imagine how life might change.”
The moonlight inserted shadows between us. I could not read his face.
“Our dreams wait for us underground,” he said. His voice was joyless.
“Soon we will unearth those dreams,” I said.
I did not let him see it, but Hakim had summarized my own rising dread. I had no name for the cause of my anxiety. It was indefinable. My physical body reacted rather than my reason. Dizziness, chest quakes, and a bath of cold sweats – I had attributed these symptoms to my lack of experience riding in the nocturnal desert. It was fear. But what did I fear? Failure?
No, my terror sprang from the premonition we would succeed.
4
The Tomb
We found it right where the phantasm had indicated.
The horned skull rock.
I used my telescope to make a quick survey. The surrounding desert supported no life. Not a bird, reptile, or the lowliest dung beetle left any visible mark on the landscape.
The exhausted camels grumbled and spit in our faces.
We encamped.
It was good to not be riding any more. My backside had grown calloused, but I had yet to acclimate to the seasick pitch and yaw of an ambling camel.
I rubbed the dirt between my fingers. It felt decidedly unclean. There was oiliness to it, as if it had absorbed a viscid liquid that would not drain off. The men were tired and no good for any work that day. Yet an unusual cheerfulness had arisen in them, almost mania. They poked at each other like boys, smirking, and a few began to dance, stomping their feet with spirited vitality. This buoyancy I attributed to our arrival.
We lit fires, ate our meager rations, and all quieted.
A moonless night – so impenetrable I could not discern the skull rock, though I knew it hunkered in the sands a few yards away from camp. Once inside the tent, my prone body fell quickly to sleep and – quite unusual for me – I did not dream.
On the morrow – after merely a day’s worth of digging – we uncovered a wide, partially collapsed ledge carved in the existing stone, followed by another, cleaner, unbroken step, going down.
The evening sky purpled. We lit our torches and continued to excavate.
Soon a stairway materialized.
I do not know who was more surprised – me, Hakim, or our crew. The diggers’ dirty snouts had grown foxier as they scraped and hauled baskets of sand away from the limestone treads buried in the mouth of that hideous cranial outcrop, descending, yard by yard, until at the bottom, their shovel blades struck the slabs of a subterranean doorway.
“Stop!” Hakim shouted.
He ordered the men up.
They were reluctant to climb out of the ground but, after some growling and whispers, they complied.
Scrabbling to the surface the way they did, on all fours, further attested to their beastly alterations. I sensed another shift in their mood too. Greedy, black-toothed, canine smiles were exchanged all around, and for the first time I feared the prospect of mutiny.
As a pack, they slunk away from the steps and fell to the sand, lying atop each other, panting, and following us with their torchlit, yellowy eyes.
I drew Hakim close.
“Who are these men?”
“Outcasts. Their father stole from the dead. His arm was chopped off. He became a magician and had many children, but no one knew his wives. Foul rumors spread they were not women. He used his spells to seduce stray animals. The family lived apart, on cursed land.”
Hakim pointed emphatically at the ground.
“Here?”
He nodded. “Other men will not dig in this place. But, see? They are not afraid. Come, let us inspect the seals.”
Which was worse, watching the men stare at us or leaving them unobserved?
I grabbed a torch and followed Hakim into the pit beneath the skull rock.
The seals were intact.
I broke them myself. They bore no names or hieroglyphs; neither did the slab blocking our entrance. With my pickaxe I cut a peephole in the door. I held a candle to the aperture. The
flame trembled under streams of ancient air. The exhalation brushed my cheeks. Its silky coolness shocked me, as if I had stuck my head into a wishing well.
Did I smell incense? Impossible, but… myrrh, cedar, dead flowers, honey, and wine – the symphony of perfume dissolved around me. I inhaled deeply, hoping to extend the sensual delights I had sampled, only to be choked by the musk of my fellow diggers, who, reinvigorated, crowded around me like children at the hole of a circus tent.
“Back away,” Hakim said. “I hear something.”
I heard it too. We all did. From inside the sepulcher echoed the clop of sliding rubble and a slow persistent hiss of falling sand.
Abruptly, as if they knew we were listening, the sounds ceased.
“Get your tools,” I told everyone. “Here lies our destiny.”
If I had stopped to think about what we were doing, I might have walked away. But something seized me, an absolute need to enter the crypt. It did not feel like my own desire but as if a greater force swept over, possessed, and utterly controlled me. I was an instrument: no different than the pickaxe in my hand. Whatever power gripped me I could not name. I did not resist, nor could I. My mind whirled as if intoxicated by a hypnotic drug. Time splintered.
Hakim and the brothers displayed heavy-lidded, glazed looks I would have sworn to be drunk with lust. Instinct warned me: Leave this evil place alone. Yet the hidden dominator bid me harshly, “Dig!” We were merciless in our frenzied attack upon the stone. Tearing and slashing at the blockage, ripping away chunks, and disgorging them up into the desert. We did not take care or employ caution.
It was most unscientific.
When we finished, my shredded palms bled. I wiped them on my legs. With the pain, my logic returned. I stared at the passage we had hacked into the chamber – a stone throat yawned, beckoning us to feed ourselves into the crypt.
