Seven Ancient Wonders (48 page)

Apartment buildings constructed by men 4,500 years after it had been built looked puny beside it. It stood at the point where the lush river valley of Cairo met the edge of the Western Desert, on a raised section of cliffs called the Giza Plateau.

Beside it stood the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure—also magnificent, but forever inferior—and before it, crouching, eternally at rest, lay the mysterious Sphinx.

It was almost midday and the Sun was rising to the high-point of its daily arc. It was hot—very, very hot—even for Cairo: 49 degrees Celsius and rising rapidly.

Reports from around the world had told of oppressively warm weather across the globe: China, India, even Russia—all had recorded unusually high temperatures on this day. Many reported instances of people collapsing in the streets.

Something was wrong.

Something to do with the Sun, the TV commentators said. A sunspot, the meteorologists said.

In the United States, all the morning news shows had made it
their story of the day and were looking to the White House, waiting for an address from the President.

But no such address came.

The White House remained mysteriously silent.

In Cairo, the Egyptian Government had been most accommodating to the American force.

The entire Giza Plateau had been closed to civilians and tourists for the day—all its entrances were now guarded by Egyptian troops—and an advance team sent by Judah overnight had been given free rein on the ancient site.

Indeed, while Judah had been at Luxor that morning, his advance team had been working diligently, preparing for his arrival. Their work: an enormous scaffold structure that now shrouded the summit of the Great Pyramid.

It was a huge flat-topped platform, made entirely of wood, three storeys high, and completely enveloping the peak of the pyramid. It looked like a big helicopter landing pad, square in shape, thirty metres long on each side, and its flat open-air roof lay level with the bare summit of the Pyramid. Indeed, the platform had a hole in its exact centre that allowed the peak of the Pyramid to protrude up through it . . . and thus allow Judah to perform his preferred Capstone ritual.

The platform’s vertical support struts rested upon the step-like sides of the Pyramid, as did two cranes that rose high into the sky above the platform. Inside the baskets of these cranes were CIEF troops armed with Stinger missiles and anti-aircraft guns.

No-one was going to interrupt this ceremony.

The Great Pyramid on the day of Tartarus

At 11:00 a.m. exactly, Marshall Judah arrived on a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, surrounded by twelve CIEF troops led by Cal Kallis, and carrying with him in the back of the chopper
all seven pieces
of the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid, ready to be restored to their rightful place.

The Super Stallion swung into a low hover above the platform and in the swirling hurricane of wind it created, the Pieces were unloaded on wheeled trolleys.

Flanked by the heavily armed CIEF commandos, Judah stepped out of the helicopter, leading the two children, Alexander and Lily.

Wizard and del Piero came after them, handcuffed and guarded—brought along by Judah for no other reason, it seemed, than to observe his triumph over them.

Zoe, Fuzzy and Stretch (who had also been reunited with the team when Judah had revealed Lily) were being held in a second helicopter travelling behind the Super Stallion—a Black Hawk—that landed at the base of the Great Pyramid. They were being held for another reason: to control Lily. Judah had told her that if she disobeyed him at any time, Zoe, Stretch and Fuzzy would be killed.

On the short helicopter flight from Cairo Airport to the pyramids, Lily had found herself seated beside Alexander. A brief conversation had ensued:

‘Hi, I’m Lily,’ she said.

Alexander gazed at her airily, as if he was deciding whether or not to bother replying. ‘Alexander is my name . . . my young sister.’

‘
Young?
Come off it. You’re only older than me by twenty minutes,’ Lily said, laughing.

‘Nevertheless, I am still the first-born,’ Alexander said. ‘To the first go certain privileges. Such as respect.’

‘I bet you probably get out of doing your chores sometimes, too,’ Lily said.

‘What are chores?’ the boy asked seriously.

‘Chores,’ Lily said in disbelief. ‘You know, things like cleaning out the horse-pooh in the barn. Washing up the dishes after dinner.’

‘I have never cleaned a
dish
in my life. Or a
barn
. Such activities are beneath my station.’

‘You’ve never done any chores!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘Man, you’re lucky! Wow, no chores. . . ’

The boy frowned, genuinely curious. ‘Why do you do such things? You are high-born. Why would you even
allow
yourself to be dragooned into performing such tasks?’

Lily shrugged. She’d never actually thought about that. ‘I guess . . . well . . . while I don’t really like doing them, I do my chores to contribute to my family. To be a part of the family. To help out.’

‘But you are
better
than they are. Why would you want to help such ordinary people?’

‘I like helping them. I . . . I love them.’

‘My sister, my sister. We were born to rule these people, not to help them. They are beneath you, they are your inferiors.’

‘They’re my family,’ Lily said firmly.

‘To rule is lonely,’ Alexander said, as if this was a phrase he had been told a lot and learned by rote. ‘I expected you to be stronger, sister.’

Lily said nothing after that, and minutes later, they arrived at the Great Pyramid.

And so it was that at 11:30 a.m. on the Day of Tartarus, thirty minutes before the blazing sunspot rotated in direct alignment with the Pyramid, a ceremony began on the summit of the Great Pyramid at Giza, an ancient ceremony that had not been performed in over 4,500 years.

Standing on the platform, Judah clipped himself to a long safety rope, to take care of his fear of heights.

He gazed at the bare summit of the Great Pyramid, saw the ancient verse carved into it:

Cower in fear, cry in despair,
You wretched mortals
For that which giveth great power
Also takes it away.
For lest the Benben be placed at sacred site
On sacred ground, at sacred height,
Within seven sunsets of the arrival of Ra’s Prophet,
At the high-point of the seventh day,
The fires of Ra’s implacable Destroyer will devour us all.

Beside this carving, in the exact centre of the bare stone summit, there was a shallow indentation carved in the shape of a person. The ‘head’ of this person-sized indentation was weathered and worn, but it was clearly that of Anubis, the jackal-headed and much-feared god of the Underworld.

And in the heart of this Anubis indentation—in the
exact
centre of the summit and thus the centre of the entire pyramid—there was a small dish-shaped hole the size of a tennis ball. It looked like a stone crucible.

Judah knew the purpose of the crucible. The Nazi archaeologist, Hessler, had too:

THE RITUAL OF POWER

AT THE HIGH ALTAR OF RA,
UNDER THE HEART OF THE SACRIFICIAL ONE
WHO LIES IN THE ARMS OF VENGEFUL ANUBIS,
POUR INTO THE DEATH GOD’S HEART
ONE DEBEN OF YOUR HOMELAND
UTTER THOSE ANCIENT EVIL WORDS
AND ALL EARTHLY POWER SHALL BE YOURS
FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

Pour into the Death God’s heart

One deben of your homeland
. . .

A ‘deben’ was the ancient Egyptian measure of weight. It equalled 93 grams.

Judah pulled a glass vial from inside his jacket. In it was some amber-coloured soil, soil that had been taken from the Utah desert, deep inside the United States—soil that was unique to the United States of America.

Judah poured exactly 93 grams of the soil into the crucible. One deben.

Eyeing it proudly, he called to his men, ‘Gentlemen! Erect the Capstone!’

One Piece after the other, Judah’s people began erecting the Golden Capstone.

The largest Piece—the Pharos Piece—went on the bottom and the human-shaped indentation in its golden underside perfectly matched up with the Anubis indentation on the summit of the Pyramid.

The Pyramid’s summit was also fitted with a low channel cut into it from one side—since the Capstone lay flat on its peak, this channel provided a tight crawlway that would allow the ‘Sacrificial One’—one of the children—to crawl
into
the indentation when the time came.

As each new Piece was laid on it, the Capstone began to take shape.

It was truly magnificent—glittering and powerful—a golden crown to an already stupendous structure.

And of course, the line of crystals running down through the centre of the Capstone pointed directly at the heart of Anubis.

Judah co-ordinated the operation, his eyes wide with delight.

And then the final Piece, the pyramidal top Piece, the Piece he had obtained from Alexander’s tomb only that morning went on. . . 

. . . and the Capstone was complete for the first time in nearly five millennia.

The Great Pyramid at Giza stood whole once more, as it had originally appeared in 2,566 BC.

It was 11:50 a.m.

Ten minutes till the Tartarus Rotation occurred.

Judah turned to face the two children.

‘And so it falls to me to make a historic choice,’ he said. ‘Which child to sacrifice to the power of the Sun. . . ’

‘Sacrifice?’ Alexander said, frowning. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It is what you were born for, young man,’ Judah said. ‘It is what you were put on this Earth to do.’

‘I was put here to rule—’ Alexander threw a confused look at del Piero.

‘I fear you have been misinformed,’ Judah said. ‘You were put here to decode the Word of Thoth and then to die for the eternal benefit of Father del Piero and his friends. Although I’m sure they would have worshipped you fervently
after
your death, if that is any consolation. I’m assuming Father del Piero must have failed to mention this.’

Alexander’s eyes flashed to del Piero, blazing with fury.

Lily just remained silent, her head bowed.

‘So. Who to choose?’ Judah mused.

‘Her,’ Alexander said quickly. ‘She didn’t even know of her own importance. At least I did.’

Judah grinned at this. ‘Is that so?’ Then he said, ‘No, boy. I like her, because she’s quiet. You’re not. Which means you’re elected.’

And with that, Judah scooped up the boy and thrust him into the tight channel underneath the Capstone, forcing him at gunpoint to crawl through it and lie down inside the arms of Anubis, beneath the fully-built Capstone, his heart directly
underneath
the Capstone’s crystal array while also directly
above
the dish-shaped crucible containing the soil of America.

The boy sobbed all the way.

At 11:55, Judah stepped into position.

He held in his hands the ritual of power—which he had taken line-by-line from the surface of each of the Capstone’s seven Pieces.