Sphinx (59 page)

‘Following this map,’ Amelia continued, ‘Nectanebo’s mummy lies somewhere in the oasis of Siwah near the Libyan border. The inscribed instructions aren’t only to show the route that the Pharaoh’s mummified corpse travelled; they are also our guide through the twelve stages of the journey to the Afterworld.’

I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Faakhir. Reading my expression, he stubbed out his cigarette and said, ‘My friend, Egypt is riddled with mysteries. Here the divide between the inanimate and the animate is not the same as in the West. Our land has its own spirits. This is not a new story.’

‘If I agree to go, will you be coming with me?’ I asked.

Faakhir looked at Amelia, who spoke for him.

‘Faakhir has been called away to another mission, equally important.
I
will be your guide and protector.’

Faakhir put his hand on my arm to reassure me. ‘She knows the area better than anyone, and she is more of a soldier than I am, believe it or not.’

I must have looked apprehensive but Amelia ignored me. Carefully, she slid the base of the mechanism back into position.

‘It’s important that you understand the symbolism of the journey before we leave,’ she told me.

‘Isn’t it the soul of the deceased overcoming moral trials and tribulations as he attempts to pass into the Afterworld? A little like a day of reckoning?’

‘In the first hour, Ra, the sun god, enters Akhet, the eastern horizon, a place that lies between day and night. The spirit of the deceased accompanies him. In the second and third hours, Ra and the spirit travel through the Waters of Osiris, a realm also known as Wernes. Hours four and five are passed in the world of the desert, Sokar. In the fifth hour, the spirit finds the tomb of Osiris, recognisable by the pyramid mound built over it, a hidden lake of fire beneath the interior enclosure.’

‘And will we really be travelling through a desert?’

‘Both physically and psychologically. The New Testament also contains a version of this—’

‘The temptation of Christ?’

‘For an atheist you certainly know your Bible.’

‘I blame my mother. What happens next?’

‘The sixth hour of the journey is the most crucial. This is when the Ba of the sun god has to unite with his body. If this does not happen, the sun will not rise the next day and such an event symbolises the end of the world. On a smaller scale, the spirit accompanying the god will not pass into the afterlife. There is no worse destiny, according to the Ancient Egyptians. The unification of Ba and form traditionally happens within a celestial circle made by the mehen serpent - the snake biting its own tail - which is a symbol of infinity in many cultures. Hour seven leads us into an even more difficult transition. The nemesis of Ra and of renewal - the huge serpent god Apophis - will be waiting to attack and destroy Ra and his spirit companion. Isis is called upon to protect and defend both Ra and the deceased. You will be most vulnerable in this hour. But there is no one who knows Isis’s spells from the
Book of the Dead
as well as I do - except Hermes Hemiedes, which now, of course, is irrelevant.’

‘And how does this metaphysical journey conclude?’

‘At the eighth hour, the tomb gates open to allow the spirit to depart from Sokar. The ninth hour is spent returning back over the waters. Hour ten sees the regeneration of the spirit through immersion in the waters.’

‘How dangerous is this going to be?’

Amelia and Faakhir glanced at each other. Amelia answered.

‘It’s your last hope. Mosry is out there and Hugh Wollington as well - both of them want this more than anything. I suspect that Hugh will have worked out where we’re going, although they may not know we’ve teamed up yet
.
But I will endeavour to protect you to the best of my abilities.’

‘And if I stay in Alexandria?’

‘Mosry will kill you,’ Faakhir answered bluntly.

I turned to Amelia. She shrugged, then began packing away the astrarium.

‘According to the map, by the eleventh hour you will be on an island in Lake Arachie and the god’s eyes - and those of the accompanying spirit - are fully restored. In the twelfth and final hour, Ra enters the eastern horizon as the dawning of a new day, while the deceased’s soul ascends to become a star in the sky.’

‘Meaning that I emerge having reunited the astrarium with Nectanebo and my death date has slipped somewhere to the distant future?’ I said. ‘I wasn’t planning on becoming a star in the sky.’

‘If the gods will it, Oliver,’ Amelia said seriously. ‘I am of the view that there are many life paths, all running in parallel. Free will lies in the choices we make, which paths we step onto at any given moment - but those life paths are already written. Isabella knew there was a chance she would die that day in the water. She also knew that you would inherit her task. The question is: do you have the strength of character to complete it?’

Again, I found myself thinking about my marriage. The idea that Isabella had married me because of some prophecy had been haunting me. Had she really been that obsessed?

I looked at the astrarium, an ancient mesh of cogs and divination, and remembered how frustrated I’d been with Isabella’s focus on finding it; how absent she had been when she’d been working, as if incapable of registering anything outside that circle of intent. I’d begun to view that absence as a rival. Perhaps my instinct had been right.

And what about my father and Gareth - would I ever see them again? I glanced at the clock. I’d already been here for an hour - one precious hour of the few I supposedly had left.

‘What have I got to lose if I don’t go?’ I asked.

‘Only your life, if you believe the prediction - or if you believe in Mosry!’

Faakhir indicated the television. It now showed Sadat’s convoy crossing the Syrian border before it wound its way across the desert; the same convoy that Rachel was in. ‘There’s something else you should know,’ Faakhir went on. ‘We believe that Mosry has details of the secret meeting between Sadat and Begin, right down to the hour. Prince Majeed wants the astrarium now, Oliver. He wants to destroy any possibility of an accord.’

Amelia put her hand over mine. ‘We leave in an hour.’

The sheikh wore a traditional Berber striped jellaba and sat cross-legged on the rug on the floor of the mud-brick house. He looked about seventy, and had a large scar that ran in a zigzag across one cheek and over his nose. He paused mid-sentence to stare at me dismissively, then swung back to Amelia - with whom he’d been in deep conversation since we’d arrived in the ancient city of Siwah. Although most of their exchange was incomprehensible to me - they were speaking in a dialect I couldn’t follow - occasionally I recognised the word ‘sister’, which made me curious about the nature of their relationship.

I took a sip of the black tea I’d been offered, heavily flavoured with rose syrup, and waited for Amelia to tell me what was going on. Eventually she turned to me.

‘Sheikh Suleiman is an old friend and a Berber. This community dates back to 10,000 BC. They, and a few Bedouin traders, are the only people who really live in Siwah.’

The sheikh said something and they both laughed.

‘He tells me to warn you about walking amongst the date pickers,’ she said.

I was perplexed and it must have shown.

‘There is an ancient law here that the date pickers, who are male, must remain virgins until they are forty years old. He thinks your blue eyes might turn their heads.’

Slightly insulted, I glanced at the sheikh who smiled back sardonically.

‘Shouldn’t we be on our way by now?’ I asked Amelia, conscious of the astrarium lying heavily in my rucksack and the insidious hum of a large electric clock that sat, rather incongruously, next to an ornate hookah. I was running out of time. I felt my throat close up every time I looked at the two moving hands inching by.

Amelia put her hand on my knee. ‘Patience. The sheikh has a gift we should take with us.’

The sheikh nodded, then stood and left the room.

‘Why does he keep addressing you as sister?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘Because I
am
his sister.’ Amelia went over to a low chest that stood in an alcove. ‘This once belonged to my husband.’

She opened the chest and took out a photo to show me. Standing in front of a pool surrounded by palms was a young woman in army camouflage and beside her a young Berber holding a rifle. They were smiling at the camera and his arm was wrapped around her waist, but there was tension in their faces, as if this moment was a forced respite.

‘The man I loved is buried here,’ she went on. ‘He was a local sheikh. This was taken in 1943 - we’d been married for two weeks, fighting Rommel for ten. The German troops were notorious in Siwah for desecrating this pool, Cleopatra’s bath, by bathing naked in it. The people claimed this contributed to their defeat.’

Amelia touched the photograph, almost a caress. ‘He was the love of my life.’

I now realised why, when we’d walked through the streets of the ancient white-clay town with its huts made of palm fronds and its braying donkeys, many of the older tribesmen had greeted Amelia as if she were an honorary male. It was the legacy of her military service in the region during the Second World War.

‘He was killed only days after this was taken,’ she said, replacing the photograph in the chest.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Love while you can. Nothing is certain in life, only this - that nothing is certain in life. Old Arabic proverb.’

The sheikh returned, carrying a couple of objects wrapped in muslin. He sat on the rug and unwrapped them to reveal two handguns, which he pushed towards Amelia. She picked one up. I went for the other, but she stopped me.

‘You can’t be armed.’

‘But it could get dangerous, right?’ I insisted, my hand still on the gun.

‘For goodness’ sake, stop looking so worried. I’m a crack shot.’

Amelia handed the second gun back to the sheikh before tucking the other into her belt.

The sheikh chuckled and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Believe me, my friend, she is.’ They were the first English words he’d uttered since we’d arrived.

 

We stood at the base of the bleached ruins of the Temple of the Oracle, staring out over the valley of thick green date palms swaying like seaweed below us. Despite my anxiety, it was hard not to find the place beautiful. Siwah or Sekht-am, an oasis of mainly date palms and olives, looked as if it had remained unchanged since biblical times. I shivered and looked around, hoping that no one had followed us.

Now dressed in khaki trousers, shirt and a headscarf, Amelia brushed away the flies and gestured towards the waters of Birket Siwah. ‘Behold - the oasis as seen by the gods . . .’

The terrain had been spectacular as we’d flown west from Alexandria. The small plane, flying low, had turned inland, heading south-west across the Qattara Depression, then over the sudden emerald of the Qara Oasis before flying on to Siwah. Now the huge salt-water lake, Birket Siwah, shimmered in the sunlight, overshadowed only by the mountains that loomed up like breasts beyond which stretched the dramatic landscape of the Western Desert - the Great Sand Sea, a swathe of white cut only by zigzagging trails, or Masrabs, as they were known.

‘This is where our journey begins,’ Amelia said and gestured to the temple. Its plain exterior wall loomed above us, an occasional square window breaking the fortress-like façade. ‘In Alexander’s time, the oracle of Siwah was one of the six most famous oracles of the ancient world. This was the first place Alexander came after landing on Egyptian soil, to gain the blessing of the oracle both as Ammon’s son and the son of Nectanebo II - in other words, the son of God. It was a popular motif amongst ambitious men at that time. This temple is the first clue. According to the astrarium’s map, it’s where the Pharaoh’s journey into the Afterworld began.’

She pulled a sheet of paper from her shoulder bag and rolled it flat on a piece of fallen masonry. I recognised the map from the astrarium.

‘Here is the ancient town of Aghurmi, and there’s Lake Zeitan - a little differently shaped in antiquity. Here, on the opposite side, are the various mountains - Gebel al-Dakrur, Gebel al-Mawta and the twin mountains of Gebel Hamra and Gebel Baydai. But the one that concerns us is this one . . .’ Amelia pointed at the hieroglyph of Anubis, the jackal god and protector of the desert necropolis. ‘Gebel al-Mawta, the mountain of the dead. But first we need to get to the temple of Amun-Re, built by Nectanebo II himself. Unfortunately there’s only one wall left standing, after some Ottoman general blew it up in 1896 to use the stone to build himself a mansion. But the hieroglyphs we need still exist. Is the astrarium secure?’

I nodded, indicating the rucksack strapped tightly over my shoulders. The growing knot of anxiety in my gut had doubled with dusk approaching. Strangely, another emotion had set in - resignation, and reassurance from the fact that I finally had a plan. It might not work, but a plan nevertheless.