The Eternal Chamber

by Tom Hunter

  Josh shook his head. “It won’t be powerful enough. Besides, we haven’t got much fuel to spare. You really thought kerosene can get through fifty yards of rock? I thought you had the skills of a special ops agent!”

  “Well…” Waleed mumbled, embarrassed.

  The three of them thought for a moment, at a loss for what to do.

  “Hang on.” Josh snapped his fingers. “You mentioned an explosion.”

  “That’s right,” Shafira nodded.

  “Which means that whoever trapped Samuel must have used explosives. Maybe they’ve left some behind and we can use them to free McCarthy. It’s got to be worth a try, right?”

  Forty-Seven

  Samuel stood in the position he’d been directed to by the angel ritual, terrified to move an inch in case he lost his signal again, yet unable to wipe the grin off his face.

  “The cavalry are coming?” asked Basile.

  “Looks that way,” Samuel confirmed. “Though an estimated fifty yards of rock isn’t an insignificant barrier.”

  “So we just twiddle our thumbs while we wait and hope there’s enough air in this cavern to keep us alive?” Basile sighed. “I think next time you have a top secret mission, I’ll pass.”

  “According to my order, a man should always follow his duty, even if it leads him into danger,” Akhenaton informed him.

  “Your order seems to have a lot to say for itself,” Basile observed. “Yet I’ve never heard about it. I would have thought I would at least have heard rumors of something so wise and powerful. Are you sure you’re not just making up stories?”

  “Oh, my order is very real,” Akhenaton assured him. “As are our legends.”

  “How can you be so sure? Why don’t you tell us more about it so we can all judge for ourselves?” Basile prompted.

  “I don’t think so,” Akhenaton refused. “I told you. I am only allowed to reveal the existence of my order to immediate family. You are certainly not that. I have told you everything you need to know. I cannot, will not tell you anymore.”

  “Come on, Akhenaton,” Basile protested. “We’ve bled together, for Christ’s sake. That should mean something.”

  “I’m sure it meant a lot when you hit me over the head with a scepter,” sneered Akhenaton. “Is that really the action of a friend?”

  “What was I supposed to do?” asked Basile. “You were about to-”

  “Cut it out, you two,” barked Samuel. “Shafira’s trying to tell me something.”

  “Samuel? Are you there?” Her voice crackled over the comms.

  “Still here, Shafira. We’re not going anywhere without you.”

  “We’ve found some explosives near the cave entrance,” she told him. “But, there’s not very much. We’re going to need the support of an expert to make sure we don’t waste it. This is a one shot deal. Is there an engineer in the house?”

  “Basile, this is your department,” announced Samuel, as he explained what Shafira had told him.

  “All right, Shafira,” said Basile, taking over. “Do you have any means of drilling a hole in the rock face? Anything that will let you create a space for the explosives?”

  “No,” she replied. “Not that I noticed, anyway. We went through all the crates the soldiers left behind and I didn’t see any drills or dremels. Do you want me to check again?”

  “We may not have the time.” Basile sucked air through his teeth as he considered their options. “Okay… Is there any kind of crevice you can see that’s on top of our location, any natural fissure you could pack explosives into?”

  “Wait a minute.”

  The three trapped men held their breath as they waited for Shafira to get back to them.

  “Found one!” came the triumphant cry. “If I dig it out, I can create a hole right next to where your radio signal is coming from. I should be able to make it big enough to hold all the explosives. What’s the next step?”

  “Pack the explosives into the hole,” Basile instructed.

  “How much should I use?”

  “What kind of explosives do you have?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Shafira confessed.

  Samuel and Basile exchanged a glance. “Dammit,” Basile said. “In that case, I can’t really advise. If you use too much, you could kill us. If you don’t use enough, you may just bury us. Without being able to carry out a site assessment, it’s impossible for me to say.”

  “Uhh…” Shafira dithered.

  “What does the material look like?” asked Basile, impatiently.

  “It’s in sticks, which say ‘C4’ on them.”

  “So, it is a plastic explosive. How many sticks are there?”

  “Just a minute… twelve.”

  “And the depth of the crevice?”

  “Um… maybe six feet.”

  Basile sighed. “Even a dozen sticks of C4 isn’t going to do it. Are you sure there’s no more?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Okay. You’ll just have to use it all, and we’ll hope for a miracle.”

  “Will do.”

  There was radio silence as Shafira, Josh and Waleed packed explosives into the crevice she’d found.

  “Are you sure that telling them to use all of it is the right thing to do?” Samuel asked anxiously. “What if the explosion destroys this cave and everything in it? Who knows what ancient wisdom will be lost?”

  Basile shook his head. “A dozen sticks sounds like a lot, until you think about the amount of rock that has to be blasted. And given that they can’t drill a twenty-foot bore hole to place them… The only hope is that there’s a hidden vertical fissure that will blow apart with a little help.”

  “It’s better to be a living poor man than a dead rich man,” intoned Akhenaton.

  “Is that one of your order’s aphorisms?” asked Basile.

  “No, just common sense,” Akhenaton replied.

  “You’re prejudiced,” Samuel accused. “You’ve already tried to destroy the headdress. I’m sure you’d be very happy if this cave system was buried forever.”

  “I would not lose sleep over it,” Akhenaton admitted. “But then, my order understands the importance of the mind. You were born with everything you need. All of this-” He gestured to the treasures all around them. “It is just a prop, a tool that may make life easier, but it is far from essential. What matters is that we escape with our lives. Anything else is a bonus.”

  “Okay, that’s done,” Shafira’s voice came over the radio, interrupting the argument. “What do we do now?”

  “You need to set the detonator. If you’ve found fuse wire, thread that into the hole, but make sure you use enough to give yourself time to take cover.”

  “I found what looks like a time delay detonator,” Shafira confirmed.

  “Excellent. Set it for, say, ten minutes, and then get yourselves and your helicopter out of there.”

  “Is there anything else we need to do before we start the timer?”

  “Ah, yes, there is. Backfill the hole to secure the explosives. You need as much weight on there as you can possibly get, to direct the blast downward, else it won’t do a thing.”

  “All right. I think I saw some sandbags in one of the desert striders. I’ll see what we can do. Meanwhile, I suggest you find somewhere safe to take cover. We’ll have you out of there soon… hopefully.” I’m not a rock blasting or search and rescue expert, so the chances are damn near zero, Shafira thought.

  “Thanks, Shafira,” said Samuel, taking over the comms device again. “We’ll probably lose the signal once I move from this spot, so I’ll sign off for now. I owe you dinner for this, though. Think about your favorite restaurant, and we’ll go there once we’re back in Cairo.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” Shafira replied. She signed off, as the three trapped men looked at each other with renewed hope.

  “This is it, guys,” said Samuel. “With any luck, we’ll be free in a few minutes. If not… it’s been a
pleasure working with you both.”

  “And you, mon ami,” replied Basile, shaking his friend’s hand.

  “We can take shelter behind the statue of Seshat,” suggested Akhenaton. “It seems strangely appropriate somehow, seeking protection from the goddess who guarded knowledge and wisdom. May the goddess watch over us. Our lives are in Her hands.”

  The three men crouched down next to the statue, the hand of the goddess raised over their heads as if in blessing. They waited anxiously, in the brace position as though riding a doomed airplane.

  “Are you sure you told her-” began Akhenaton, but hell’s thunder stole the words from his mouth. The three men shrunk even tighter, as rubble rained down on them. Sam could only think of the priceless antiquities being buried, as he began to choke on dust. He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket, and put it over his nose and mouth as a filter. The others, wide-eyed with fear, scrambled desperately to find items they could use for the same purpose. Basile frantically unlaced his right boot and yanked his sock off, hurriedly stretching the gray material over his mouth. Akhenaton pulled his arm from the sleeve of his robe, and wrapped the loose fabric around his face.

  The dust cloud suddenly lit up with a blinding glare, as light from the noonday sun pierced the roof of the cavern.

  “How are we meant to get up there?” wailed Basile, his eyes watering from the dust, as he craned his neck around the status to survey their vertical escape route. “They might as well have saved the explosives and tried to blast their way through the tunnels.”

  “Jesus, Basile, look on the bright side: they actually blasted a shaft through without killing us!” Samuel spat, his words muffled. “Frenchmen!”

  Basile muttered something under his breath. Freedom was close enough to taste, yet so far away.

  “Look around,” Samuel ordered, as they got up, and began to climb precariously up the scree that filled the now unrecognizable chamber. “Maybe we can pile up some of the larger artifacts—there are some higher ones that aren’t buried—and build a way up to the opening. Basile, can you see anything we might be able to use? If there was ever a time to be creative with your engineering skills, this is it.”

  There was a rumbling sound, and a large boulder fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Akhenaton as he jumped out of the way. “Whatever your solution, you better come up with it fast,” he warned. “It looks like this whole place is going to collapse on top of us.”

  Glancing about, Basile went over to the delicately-carved plinth that the headdress had been resting on. Grabbing the plinth with both hands, he strained at it, trying to drag it towards the middle of the room. “Help me,” he grunted. “If we can get this closer to the hole, we can use it as the base for a makeshift ladder. It seems sturdy enough to act as the support.”

  Samuel made to rush to his side, but a shower of debris rained down, cutting him off as he was about to go up the steps.

  “I don’t think we have time to build anything,” cried Akhenaton. “If we’re going to escape this place, we need to do it now.”

  “Much as it goes against everything I believe in to treat relics so badly, we’re going to have to climb the statue of Moneta,” Samuel decided. “It’s close enough to the hole that I might be able to reach it if I jump. If I can wedge myself in there, I have some rope in my utility belt. I can pull you up.”

  “And if you miss?” asked Basile. “It’s a long way to fall. If you break a bone, it’s going to be almost impossible for us to get you out of here–if the fall doesn’t kill you.”

  As if to emphasize his point, another rock fell from the ceiling, as an ominous cracking sound split the air.

  “Debate’s over,” Samuel barked. “Basile, Akhenaton. MOVE!”

  The two men needed no further urging, as they scrambled over to the statue of Moneta, rubble now crashing down at an alarming rate.

  “Give me a boost,” ordered Samuel. Basile didn’t argue, kneeling down and clasping his hands together to give Samuel a foothold.

  “One… two… three!”

  Basile lifted Samuel up as he reached out for the statue’s right hand. Grabbing it around the elbow, he swung his legs up, deftly scrambling round so that he was sitting on her arm, before calling down to the other two.

  “I’m going to climb higher,” he told them. “Help each other up while I see if I can reach the escape hole from her other arm. Not waiting to see if they followed his instructions, Samuel reached out, using the folds in the robe over the goddess’ breast to support him as he scrambled high.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the status, as he edged around her face to her other shoulder so that he could shimmy up the arm that was extended towards the ceiling. Despite not believing in the ancient gods, there was something sacrilegious about using Moneta’s image as a climbing frame.

  Reaching her hand, his progress was halted by the torch she was holding. For a moment he debated with himself as to whether he should try to balance on it.

  “Don’t even think about it,” warned Basile, as he followed his friend up the statue. “I can see from here that it won’t support your weight. If you’re going to reach the shaft you’re going to have to go from there.”

  Samuel used the torch for support as he pulled himself up to standing. Just as he was about to reach out for the hole, the ground shook beneath them. Samuel fell back. Clenching his thighs together, he managed to stop himself falling, ending up dangling upside down.

  “Stay there,” called Basile. “I’m coming for you.”

  But it was Akhenaton who deftly climbed round to the side of the statue where Samuel was, using the creases in the statue’s robe to support him as he wedged himself into position and reached up to Samuel. He stood on one foot and pushed up against his lower back, giving the archaeologist had enough momentum to pull himself back up onto the statue’s arm.

  “How did you do that?” marveled Basile as Samuel stood up on the statue’s arm again, trying to reach the bottom of the shaft.

  “My order trains us in more than myth and legend,” Akhenaton told him.

  “Maybe one day you’ll consider me friend enough to teach me that trick,” Basile replied, as Samuel reached out to the hole.

  “It’s no good,” he called back. “I’m going to have to stand on the torch and jump.”

  “You can’t!” warned Basile. “It’ll break and you’ll fall.”

  “I’ll just have to time it right.” Samuel looked down and gave Basile a smile in farewell before launching himself up onto the torch.

  Just as Basile had predicted, it crumbled, crashing to the ground to shatter into a thousand pieces…

  …as Samuel leapt, and caught hold of a jagged rock protruding from the side of the vertical shaft.

  Bracing himself against the edge of the hole, Samuel kicked up, catching another rock further up, until he’d managed to wedge himself into the opening. He rested for a minute, his chest heaving as he gulped down air. Samuel coughed, as he swallowed more of the thick dust that still hung in the air. “It’s a tight fit,” he called down, “and it’s getting tighter by the second. The wall of the shaft’s moving. If we don’t get out of here now, we’ll all be buried alive.”

  He fumbled with his utility belt, trying to find the thick cord that was tightly coiled within one of the pouches. Pulling it out as quickly as he could, he dropped the rope and started to swing it, hoping it would gain enough momentum to get within reach of his friends.

  “Catch hold of this,” he called out. “I’ve managed to brace myself inside the shaft using my legs, so I should be able to take your weight, but I don’t know how long I’m going to stay here. There’s a lot of falling debris, so the rocks I’m using to stay in place might not be secure for long.”

  “I can’t catch the rope,” Basile yelled. “You need to get it closer to me.”

  Samuel shifted his hand further down the rope, teetering dangerously close to falling, as he strained to make the arch of the rope’s
momentum wider and wider.

  “I got it!” crowed Basile. “Can you pull both me and Akhenaton up?”

  “I’m not Superman,” Samuel yelled back down. “I can barely hold on as it is. Get up here and hurry. I don’t plan on leaving either of you behind.”

  He pushed his feet out against the tunnel wall and gripped at jagged rocks on either side. He grimaced, and blood started dripping from his fingers, as Basile jumped away from the statue and started to pull himself up the rope.

  “Merci beaucoup,” the Frenchman said, as he clambered over Samuel, and wedged himself in the shaft. He quickly untied the rope from around his waist and threw it back down for Akhenaton to use.

  Once again, Samuel began to swing the rope so that Akhenaton could reach it.

  “Hurry, Samuel!” Akhenaton urged. “The statue is starting to crumble! It was never meant to be climbed.”

  “Ugghh!” Samuel grunted, sweating with strain and pain as the other man leaped out and grabbed the rope. There was a loud crash as the statue of Moneta started to collapse. Samuel’s arms and legs shook, as Akhenaton climbed up the rope, as agile as a monkey.

  At last, Akhenaton was in the shaft. He squeezed past Samuel, bracing himself against the narrow opening as he followed Basile up towards the light.

  “Come on, Samuel,” he called over his shoulder. “We haven’t got much time. The entire cave system is collapsing.”

  “I’m trying,” Samuel protested, as he urged his aching limbs to do his bidding. However, the effort of taking the weight of the others had taken its toll and he was running out of energy. Despite his best efforts, he could feel himself losing his grip, his hands starting to slip as the rocks began to cut into his palms.

  Forty-Eight

  “Go on without me,” Samuel urged through gritted teeth, seeing Akhenaton stop to wait for him. “Save yourselves! Somebody needs to get out of this place alive so you can warn the rest of the world of the Bruard’s plan.”

  Akhenaton shook his head. “There’s no way I’m leaving you behind,” he said. “Give me your hand. Let me carry you, as you carried me.”