The Eternal Chamber

by Tom Hunter

  “Phew!” Basile whistled. “I get it now. I guess it’s not so bad after all having the Director in the lead to guide us past the traps.”

  “I’m not so sure that our Director friend is the type of guide we want,” murmured Samuel out of the corner of his mouth so he wouldn’t be overheard this time. “If he wasn’t my superior, I’d tell him to get lost.”

  “I get that,” nodded Basile. “Director Haisam is nothing like any other Ministry official I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Quiet back there!” Gord hissed. “Or do you want us to miss another trap?”

  “Last I checked, this was an archaeological expedition that I’m still in charge of,” Samuel retorted. “If I want to talk, I’ll talk.”

  Gord strode angrily towards the archaeologist, but the Director put out an arm to stop him.

  “Enough, all of you. Need I remind you that we’re still in hostile territory? Save the petty arguments for when we’re out of here.”

  Gord glared at Samuel before spitting on the ground in front of him, barely missing Samuel’s feet. He then turned and marched off.

  “Tête de bite,” Basile swore. “What an a-hole.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Samuel advised. “Every group of soldiers has that one guy with a big chip on his shoulder. He’s just trying to assert what little authority he has to try and make himself feel like the big man. He probably resents being in an inferior position to an archaeologist.”

  “You should be honored that the gorilla views you as a rival,” Basile joked.

  “Yeah, lucky me.” Samuel beat his chest Tarzan style before slowly carrying on down the passage, still fascinated by the Roman décor covering the walls.

  “Keep up, McCarthy,” barked the Director. “We still have a long way to go. There’ll be plenty of time for you to come back and look at these walls in greater depth later.”

  “If you don’t destroy them with bullets,” Samuel muttered, picking up the pace until they reached a fork in the corridor. To the left, they could see a flickering light in the distance illuminating the fact that the passageway suddenly turned sharply left. To the right, an ominous dark tunnel opened up before them. It seemed to swallow every scrap of light.

  “Stay here,” Director Haisam ordered. “Gord, go check out the tunnels and report back.”

  For once, Samuel was happy to do as he was told, as the large soldier strode forward to investigate their options. After walking down both corridors a few paces and thoroughly banging on the walls and examining the floor, he returned.

  “They went that way.” He pointed down the darkened tunnel in the direction their attackers had fled.

  “Then we go the other way,” Samuel decided. “It’s madness to follow people in the dark when they know the territory and we don’t. Even with all our flashlights, we’re still going in blind. They’ll just pick us off one by one.”

  “You’re correct,” the Director agreed. “This is why you and Basile will go down the tunnel first to see if perhaps the enemy are trying to trick us into going the wrong way.”

  “Me and Basile?” Samuel laughed. “I don’t think so. You’re the one with the trained soldiers. Send one of them to check it out.”

  “I’m afraid I must insist.” The Director pointed a silver handgun at them, clicking the safety off.

  “Are you crazy?” gasped Basile. “What are you doing?”

  “I think it is time I introduced myself properly.” Director Haisam reached up to his lapel and pressed a tiny button. In an instant, his disguise melted away, revealing his true identity. “My name is Pin Nam-Gi and you will go down that corridor before us.”

  Thirty-Seven

  “Now, get yourselves down that corridor,” Pin ordered, gesturing at Samuel and Basile. “We need to wipe out the remaining archers so that we can explore the rest of this network without looking over our shoulders every step of the way. If that’s the way they’ve gone, that’s the way you’re going. You’re expendable, so if anyone’s going to get hit by an arrow, it needs to be one of you two. Unless you’d prefer a bullet?”

  “No, no, you’ve made your point.” Samuel put up his hands in surrender and turned to go down the tunnel, Basile by his side. “But tell me, Haisam–sorry, Pin–who are you really working for? The Ministry only believes in death by paperwork. Ministry employees might wither away waiting for a permit to come through, but last I checked, they didn’t use violence to get people to do what they wanted them to do.”

  “Do you really not have any idea?” laughed Pin.

  “I have my suspicions,” Samuel admitted. “I can’t prove anything just yet though, so I’d rather keep my ideas to myself for now.”

  “Ah well. You’ll just have to keep guessing for the time being,” Pin shrugged. “However, I’ll make you a deal. If you survive long enough for us to get to the heart of the catacombs and we retrieve what’s waiting for us, I’ll tell you everything.”

  “It sounds like you already know what’s there,” Samuel observed. “Why do you need us then if you already have all the answers?”

  “Good question,” Pin chuckled. “But then I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Let’s just say that I was curious about the cloaking field, just like you. Regardless of who’s responsible for it, it’s clear that there’s something here that’s of inestimable value. Whether my masters use it or sell it for a fortune is meaningless to me. It’s my duty to retrieve it, so that’s what I’ll do.”

  “If it’s your duty, then surely it should be you going down the tunnel, not us?” Samuel pointed out.

  Pin laughed. “In this instance, I am willing to step aside and let you have that honor. Now we’ve delayed long enough. I am a man of my word. I must insist you go ahead,” he said gesturing with his gun barrel.

  Basile recognized the twitch in Samuel’s jaw. It meant Samuel was about to lose his temper. Basile grabbed hold of his friend’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the darkened corridor. “Let’s just do what he says,” he advised. “Nous pouvons trouver comment échapper à ce crétin une fois que nous sommes dans le tunnel. Ne risque pas ta vie en l'attaquant ici. Ça ne vaut pas le coup.”

  “English, please,” said Pin, as Samuel nodded slightly at Basile to show he understood. The Frenchman had a point. It would be easier to figure out a way to escape Pin and his men under cover of darkness in the tunnel than risk his life throwing a punch at the traitor now.

  “Do you both have working flashlights?” Pin asked the two men.

  Samuel and Basile switched on their lights and illuminated him with the beams.

  “Excellent. Good luck, the pair of you. I hope you survive this. I’ve enjoyed your company thus far. It would give me no pleasure to see anything bad happen to you.”

  Samuel rolled his eyes and he and Basile moved off into the darkness.

  Thirty-Eight

  Samuel snuck his hand into his pocket and tapped the button to switch on his Bluetooth V transmitter, hoping that its low-frequency radio waves would give it much greater range than older Bluetooth systems, and somehow get a signal to someone outside.

  Samuel and Basile hugged the wall as they edged their way down the tunnel, trying to present the smallest possible target to any archers that might be lurking in the darkness. Keeping their flashlights low, they did their best to avoid broadcasting their location to any guards who might be lying in wait. Samuel’s scalp prickled, his heart beating faster as he braced himself for the inevitable arrow to come out of nowhere. “Can you see anything, Basile?” he whispered.

  “Not a thing,” came the reply. “There could be an archer right in front of us and we wouldn’t know.”

  Basile risked flooding the distant darkness with his beam, unable to stand that thought any longer.

  “No one there,” he confirmed. “But this is madness, Samuel. What are we doing? Walk into armed men ahead of us or retreat back to armed men behind us. Pick your poison. Either way, we’re dead.”

&nb
sp; “Never give up hope,” Samuel advised. “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings and I don’t hear any music just yet.” He tapped at his earpiece, trying to get a signal. “Dammit,” he cursed. “I was hoping that I might be able to get out an SOS, but it looks like we’re too deep underground to be able to call for backup.”

  “Merde!” Basile swore. “Why didn’t you call anyone earlier?”

  “By the time it was obvious that something wasn’t right, Pin was watching me like a hawk,” Samuel replied. “Believe me, I wanted to, but I couldn’t risk him seeing what I was doing and killing us. Right now, I’m hoping that this tunnel will turn towards the surface so I can get a signal or even take us out of the caves completely.”

  “Quel bordel,” exclaimed Basile. “What a mess.”

  The two men continued walking, the lights denoting Pin and the soldiers’ location quickly fading to black.

  “So what do you make of Pin?” Basile asked. “Do you think he’s with the Bruard?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Samuel told him. “However, I’m more inclined to believe this is a solo operation. I think Pin’s acting out of self-interest.”

  “How so?”

  “We’ve all heard the stories about the Bruard,” Samuel explained. “They’re brutal and thuggish, just like Pin and his men were when they shot up the entrance chamber. However, they don’t leave anything to chance. The team he brought with him isn’t big enough to be certain that they could wipe out anyone we find here, given that nobody knew who or what was in here. Put it this way, he wouldn’t have sent an archaeologist and an engineer down this tunnel if he had armed men to spare. Why risk us escaping into the catacombs?”

  “Hmm. I wonder whether our Mr. Nam-Gi is in trouble himself? If he is associated with the Bruard, they aren’t known for their mercy or willingness to spend money unless they have to. Do you think that Pin is under pressure to make this trip worthwhile?”

  “I’m sure he is. His superiors wouldn’t do well with failure. Which, now I think about it, may be something we can use against him… if we survive long enough.”

  Basile stumbled yet again, banging his knee painfully against a rock. “Gah!” he grunted through gritted teeth. He took a moment to rub his leg. “Honestly, Samuel, we should have just refused to come down this tunnel. At least they’d have given us a quick death instead of the torment of not knowing when we’re going to get hit by an arrow. Let’s face it, we’re going to get shot sooner or later, regardless of whether we find whatever it is Pin’s looking for.”

  “I hear you.” Samuel nodded, even though Basile couldn’t see him. “But we’re here now, so we might as well make the best of it. Who knows? Pin may live to regret sending us to investigate. We might find something we can use as leverage against him.”

  “But that’s what I don’t understand,” Basile went on. “So far, all we’ve seen are statues, friezes, pots, sarcophagi… All very interesting stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing that would justify all this violence. Why would anyone care about this place?”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” replied Samuel grimly. “If we get to whatever it is we’re looking for first, I’m going to do my best to escape with it and get help. There’s no way I intend to hand over anything to Pin if I can help it.”

  “What happens if-”

  Basile screamed as the ground opened up beneath him. He collapsed on his back, with the wind knocked out of him, as dirt poured into him. It covered his face. Blind panic took over, and he pushed himself up to a kneeling position. The soil was still up to his waist.

  “Samuel! Help me!” he spluttered.

  With a sweep of his flashlight beam, Samuel saw that Basile was in a pit roughly six feet deep and eight feet across. Basile scrabbled at the dirt as Samuel reached out for him, lying on the ground with his arm dangling into the pit. As Samuel grabbed the engineer by the wrist, his flashlight rolled into the hole and went out. Samuel scrabbled about with his free hand to try and find something to brace himself with as he pulled Basile out, but there was nothing. In desperation, he reached out to hold onto Basile with both hands, trying to pull him back onto firm land, but the engineer was too heavy for him to move.

  “Basile, try to climb up me,” Samuel urged, feeling the sand beneath him began to slip away into the abyss.

  “I’m… trying…” grunted Basile, his legs flailing as he tried in vain to get enough hold against the near-vertical sides to push himself up.

  As the two men struggled to reach solid ground, neither of them noticed the man wearing a Dervish pump approaching. Light from Basile’s headlight glinted from the curve of a razor sharp scimitar, which he was already raising above Samuel.

  Thirty-Nine

  “Samuel!” Basile shouted. “There’s someone behind you. Let me go and defend yourself!”

  Samuel craned his head round and saw the hooded man. Adrenaline rushed through his body and he fought harder to pull Basile to safety.

  “Don’t worry about him, worry about yourself,” Samuel ordered, as his foot finally found a small crevice he could use for support. Wedging his foot into it, he tried to pull Basile up, but the sudden movement caused more sand to slip into the pit.

  “Either kill me or help out,” Samuel barked at the approaching man. “We can always duke it out when we’re all on solid ground again.”

  Basile closed his eyes, not wanting to see the killing blow as the man lifted his sword…

  …and sheathed it, reaching down to take hold of Basile’s right hand. Samuel still had his left. Working together, the two men quickly hauled the Frenchman out onto solid ground. He coughed and spluttered, trying to rub the dirt from his eyes so he could make out the mysterious stranger more easily.

  Samuel picked up Basile’s Maglite, pointing it in the direction of their savior, but taking care not to shine it in his eyes. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “If you’ll just give me a moment to get my breath back, we can have that fight if you want. Although I think it only right to warn you that I used to fence in college. I won the state championship, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to fight you when I have an advantage. Why don’t we forget about it altogether and call it a draw so we can go our separate ways?”

  The swordsman lowered his mask, revealing a youthful Egyptian complexion, topped with a wave of thick, black hair. “I appreciate that some people use humor as a way of dealing with difficult situations, but given your predicament, I think it would make more sense if we cut the snark and got straight to business, don’t you?”

  Samuel nodded. “All right. My name’s Samuel McCarthy and my colleague here is Basile Rossignol. I’m an archaeologist and he’s an engineer specializing in ancient construction and excavation. And you are?”

  “My name is Akhenaton,” came the reply.

  “Akhenaton?” Samuel thought for a moment. “That’s ancient Egyptian, isn’t it? I can’t recall the meaning, although I know it was considered a powerful name.”

  “It is,” confirmed Akhenaton. “However, its significance is something I share only with family and friends. Whilst it is blindingly obvious that you are not Bruard, you are neither family nor friend.” He stood up, reaching out to help Samuel and Basile to their feet. “Are you aware of the terrors you are about to unleash upon the world if the Bruard gets their dirty hands on what is contained within these chambers?”

  Samuel shook his head, brushing away the sand clinging to his clothes. “I still haven’t figured out what exactly is this place. All I’ve had to go on is an ancient map and a few cryptic scrolls. They gave enough hints that I knew that there was something here worth investigating, but I thought we were going to uncover some funerary texts, or maybe more evidence about ancient Egyptian religious practices, but nothing that would be worth all this violence. Much as I like to kid myself that archaeology is the most important scientific discipline, I’m under no illusion that any of that would really change the world.”

/>   “Don’t tell me,” joked Basile. “We’ve stumbled into the set of some horror movie and there’s a hideous demon or terrible monster trapped in this catacomb waiting for us to free it.”

  He laughed, but Akhenaton remained stone-faced.

  “This tomb does indeed contain a monster of sorts, although it is not perhaps so obvious at first glance.”

  Basile’s laugh faded away, as Samuel glanced anxiously down the corridor as if expecting claws to swipe at him.

  “What do you mean?” Samuel asked. “Either it’s a monster or it’s not. I’m getting really sick of all the mysterious hints and secrets. Just tell us what’s here already.”

  “I can’t.” Akhenaton shook his head. “The nature of the beast is closely guarded for the protection of all. My order simply teaches that this site has to be protected at all costs, so when we received signal that the cloaking field had been breached, we came to investigate. However, it would appear that we share a common enemy, so perhaps we can work together to unravel the enigma.”

  “Anything’s better than dangling over a death pit,” Basile told him. “I’m in. What do you say, Samuel?”

  “That works for me,” he agreed. “However, much as I hate to break up the party, Pin is still out there waiting for us to report back. Akhenaton, is there another way out of this place? If we can get to the surface, we can call for help from the Ministry, get reinforcements to overpower Pin and his men. No offense, but swords and arrows aren’t going to cut it against Pin’s guns.”

  “I don’t know,” came the frustrated reply. “Nobody has been to this cave in centuries and the maps we had of the interior layout have long since been lost. At this stage, you know as much as we do about the best direction to go.”

  “All right,” sighed Samuel. “It looks like we really are in this together. Let’s get going. At the very least, I want to put some distance between us and Pin.”

  “At least we don’t have to worry about arrows anymore,” Basile pointed out as they set off. “Only death pits and blade traps.”