The Hidden Oasis (56 page)

‘You’ll probably think this sounds silly, but there are things about this place, elements we don’t …’

He broke off, struggling for the right words.

‘Just be careful,’ he said. ‘When we get inside. Try not to disturb anything. OK?’

He held her gaze to make sure his words had hit home, then, with a nod, continued downwards.

The helicopters flew in formation over the desert, six of them powering above the dune tops: five sand-coloured Chinooks and, lagging slightly behind, a black Augusta. They flew fast, towards the south-west, the rising sun behind them, their line of flight taking them slightly to the north of a lone, rearing crag of rock, which meant they missed the white Land Cruiser lurking in the shade beneath an overhang at the bottom of the crag. Only when they were well past, the insidious whining thud of their
rotors fading into the distance, did the vehicle nose its way out into the sunlight. It paused a moment as if sniffing the air, then roared forward across the sands, heading in the same direction as the dwindling choppers, its wheels slewing and skidding as if it was anxious not to be left behind.

‘Jesus,’ said Flin.

They had reached the doorway. Standing one to either side of it, they peered through into a dim, steeply sloping shaft beyond. Below them the sand chute descended for another ten metres or so before gradually petering out, revealing a succession of rock-cut steps that disappeared into the murk as though into a pool of deep black water.

He switched on the Maglite and flashed it around, examining the neatly cut walls and ceiling, the stone still bearing the tell-tale ripples of ancient chisel marks. Failing to find where the shaft ended he dropped onto his backside and slid downwards, reaching the steps and coming upright.

‘See anything?’ asked Freya, shuffling down behind him.

‘Just steps,’ he replied, aiming the torch beam into the blackness below. ‘An awful lot of steps. It must go right down under the Gilf. Although exactly
where
it’s going …’

He shifted, allowing Freya to come alongside him, the shaft just wide enough to accommodate the two of them. There was something oppressive about the space, forbidding – the darkness, the silence, the way the rock pressed in on them from all directions – and for a while they just stood there, even Flin apparently reluctant to go any further.

‘Maybe you should wait up top,’ he said. ‘Let me check where it leads. That way if anything happens …’

She shook her head and told him they either went together or not at all. He nodded – ‘Just like your sister’ – and, with a final sweep of the torch, started to descend, Freya at his side, the two of them stopping every few steps to re-examine the shaft, trying to make out where it was leading. The stairs just continued down, deeper and deeper into the rock, the air growing steadily cooler, the doorway behind them dwindling until it was no larger than a pinprick, a tiny rent in the enveloping blackness. They counted fifty steps, a hundred, two hundred, and Freya was starting to wonder if they would ever end or just descend
ad infinitum
into the bowels of the earth when, as they passed the three-hundredth stair, Flin’s torch beam hit flat rock below. Another fifteen metres and the shaft levelled out.

There was another doorway at the bottom, flanked by the same carved figures as the entrance above. Passing through it, they found themselves in a long tunnel, its curved walls and arched ceiling giving the space a curiously rounded, tube-like feel, as though they were standing inside a gigantic intestine. Unlike the shaft they had just descended, whose walls and ceiling had been bare stone, here the rock had been plastered and whitewashed, painted with a strange looping design which after a moment Freya realized depicted the coils of a multitude of entwined snakes.

‘
May evildoers be swallowed into the belly of the serpent Apep
,’ murmured Flin, his torch picking out a head with jaws levered open, forked tongue flickering menacingly.

‘I’m not getting a good feeling about this,’ said Freya.

‘That makes two of us,’ he said. ‘Stay close. And try not to touch anything.’

They started walking, their feet making a dry, slapping sound on the stone floor, the entwined serpents keeping pace with them, coiling across the walls and ceiling. The swaying of the Maglite beam had the unnerving effect of making the coils seem to roll and slither as though the snakes were moving. The darkness amplified the effect, as did the tunnel’s shape and somnolent, claustrophobic atmosphere, and more than once they jerked to a halt and wheeled, convinced the images
were
moving, gliding up behind them, jaws stretched. But they were just images, and once they had satisfied themselves it was all in their imagination, a sort of subterranean mirage, they turned and continued on their way. The tunnel ran flat for some five hundred metres, driving in an unswerving line through the bare rock before gradually it started to angle upward, gently at first but then more steeply, pushing towards the surface. They covered another few hundred metres – the tunnel and stairway combined having now taken them well over a kilometre into the underbelly of the Gilf – when Flin suddenly stopped. Clasping Freya’s arm, he switched off the torch.

‘Notice anything?’ His voice echoed along the tunnel.

At first she didn’t, the blackness smothering her. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the void, she became aware that above and ahead was a pale thread of light, barely visible, no more than the tiniest vertical crack in the enveloping murk.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘A door?’

‘Well it’s either a bloody narrow one, or a hell of a long way away,’ he replied. ‘Come on.’

He switched the torch back on and they resumed walking, faster now, both of them anxious to be free of the oppressive darkness. The corridor carried on upwards, the walls and ceiling imperceptibly widening and lifting so that where initially they had only just been able to fit two abreast, they now found they could do so with room to spare. They broke into a stride and then a jog, hurrying forward, yearning for sunshine and clean air, no longer caring where the tunnel led them or what was at the end of it, just wanting to get out. Although the corridor continued to widen, and their pace to quicken, the thread of light seemed neither to strengthen nor to come any nearer. It just hovered on the edge of sight, a tenuous slash of grey that beckoned them while at the same time seeming to hold them at arm’s length.

‘What the hell …’ growled Flin, speeding up even more. He started to pull away from Freya, aiming the torch at the floor so as to spot any obstructions before they tripped him up. Still the light remained distant, tantalizing, taunting, and, frustrated, he broke into a sudden sprint, charging at the grey line as if he hoped to take it unawares, get to it before it could recede again. For a moment the tunnel reverberated to the slap of his feet, then there was a sudden jarring crash and a thud as of something soft falling onto something hard. The torch rolled away across the floor with a metallic tinkle, its beam throwing juddering blobs of light over the stone. Freya slowed, peering into the blackness.

‘Flin?’

A groan.

‘Are you OK?’

Another groan, then, woozily, ‘Bollocks.’

Freya reached the Maglite, picked it up and shone it forward. Flin was lying on his back gazing up at the ceiling, blinking groggily, a bemused look on his face, like a boxer who has been flattened by a vicious right hook. Just beyond him, the reason his sprint had come to such an abrupt halt, the tunnel was blocked by a pair of very solid-looking wooden doors. Between them was a hair-thin seam of daylight, the source of the ghostly crack they had seen from back along the tunnel.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, hurrying over and helping him to his feet.

‘Not entirely,’ he mumbled, clasping her shoulder for support, swaying against her. ‘Ran straight into the bloody thing. Christ, it feels like I’ve been hit with a fucking …’

He couldn’t think what it felt like he’d been hit with. Instead he just stood there, touching a hand gingerly to his forehead and trying to gather his scrambled senses. He remained like that for several moments, then – still looking distinctly befuddled – he took the torch from her and played it back and forth over the doors.

Hung on bronze hinges driven into the tunnel walls, they were twice as tall as he was and so perfectly carved and fitted – their tops arched to match the curve of the tunnel’s ceiling – that aside from the minute streak of grey sandwiched between them, nothing whatsoever was visible of what lay beyond.

‘Hear that?’ he asked.

She did indeed: a faint twitter of birds and, even fainter, the soft plash of running water. Flin pressed his face to the gap, trying to see through, but it was much too narrow. He backed off and aimed the torch at the bolt that ran across
the centre of the doors, holding them closed. A length of coarse, thin rope had been wound around the device and secured with a clay seal impressed with an image that three days ago Freya would not have recognized, but which was now only too familiar. The outline of an obelisk, with inside it the looping
sedjet
sign.

‘Still intact,’ said Flin, tapping the seal. ‘Whatever’s beyond here, no one’s got to it this way for four thousand years.’

‘You think it’s the oasis?’

‘I don’t see how it possibly can be, given that I flew over this precise area an hour ago and there was bugger all here. Then again if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about the
wehat seshtat
it’s that nothing is ever quite as it seems. I guess there’s only one way to find out.’

He reached into his back pocket, produced a small penknife and pressed its blade against the rope. For a moment he hesitated, seeming reluctant to damage the ancient bindings, then started to cut, slicing through the rope and pulling it away.

‘Ready?’ he asked, easing back the bolt and laying a hand against the right-hand door.

‘As I’ll ever be,’ she said, putting her weight against the left-hand one.

‘In that case … open sesame!’

They pushed. The doors swung outwards with a soft whispering sound and brilliant daylight rushed forward to greet them. The sounds of birdsong and running water suddenly grew much louder.

The moment the helicopters landed their doors slid open and disgorged figures in full-body radiation suits. Making their way ponderously down to the doorway in the rock, they probed at it with an array of electronic gadgetry, continuing for several minutes before radioing an all-clear up to those still waiting in the Chinooks. Others spewed out onto the desert. Some – heavily armed men in sunglasses and flak jackets – established a security cordon around the mouth of the sand crater. Others began unloading the aluminium equipment cases, carrying them down through the opening and into the shaft beyond. Only when the last of the crates had disappeared did Girgis and his colleagues make their own way down to the door. They paused beside it, Girgis turning and staring up at the figure silhouetted on the crater lip above. Then, with a nod and wave, he turned and the group began their descent into the blackness beneath, the twins bringing up the rear. Hands stuffed into their pockets, they looked supremely uninterested in the whole affair.