H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part XLI
Created | Updated Dec 1, 2007
It was late again by the time Ody returned back to the camp and his tent having given up for now trying to decipher the mystery inside the chamber.
He'd been staring at the wall with the door cut into the stone, the hieroglyphics had yielded no further clues so, feeling deflated he had abandonned the effort for the night and would try again in the morning.
One the other side of the wall on which Ohio Daltmoorby had for the last few hours been standing, notepook open, there were complicated and unseen system of gears and counter-weights which had stood immobile for centuries; beyond them a maze of pitch black tunnels which bent off in every possible direction; beyond them, only silence.
The silence pervaded the place as certain as the dead air which hung stale and passive as it had done for centuries.
There was little light here but nevertheless the gloom picked out some fine details of towering statuary, vast cavernous halls, tunnels which strecthed out to inky blackness suggesting a network across a citadel that spanned for miles in every direction.
All of it swallowed up beneath the sands of the desert.
At the entrance to one particular corridor, perched across a short flight of steps, there was a statue. This was not entirely out of the ordinary. There was statues lining every room and in most corrdors. They all depicted great warriors and noble kings to tyrants and usurpers who all sort to immortalise themselves against the desert.
All were in vain - and this one in particular had been smashed, whether through disaster or revolt was unclear but all that remained were the trunks of the legs, spread wide, secured to plinths on either side of the tunnel, through which steps leading into the tunnel descended. And on each plinth an incription which read:
"I don't see anyzing" said Vandeveer miserably.
"That's becasue it's dark, you moron!" hissed Von Trapp irritably.
"Daltmooreby, torches!" instructed Mary to the aging spy.
Sean dutifully soaked some wooden torches in parafin from a flask and passed them out amongst the group.
Mary removed a cigarette lighter from her blouse and lit them each in turn.
The torches sputtered to life and the flames burnt yellow illuminating the passage ahead of them.
"Spread out!" Mary commanded and holding the torch ahead of her to light her way she led the cult into the citadel of Rameses the II.
The last of the torches passed to Von Trapp.
"Daltmooreby, keep watch in case we are being tailed by those Agents - I'd rather not run the risk." Mary said
Slepp interrupted. "If you'd rather not run the risk why are you entrusting this mission to a man who cannot be trusted with family issues?"
Vandeveer coughed. "I think Slepp should stay - he is an assasin and..." he looked across at Daltmooreby with sympathetic eyes, "younger. If we are being followed I would rather Slepp was protecting us - besides we need Daltmooreby to show us to the location of The Moon."
Mary considered this last point carefully. "Of course, you are correct. Slepp keep a careful watch, Sean you show us the way to The Turqoise Moon."
Sean smiled this was going better than he could have hoped. and gratiously accepted his reassignment.
Slepp quickly moved down the cracked stairs ahead of them, his light disappearing. By the time the group had caught up there was no sign Slepp had ever come this way.
The bottom of the stair well stretched out in front of them in what was - or it least what used to be - a main road covered in sand. Buildings half buried, streets most visably dead ends. The city was vast but before the desert it was bigger. Still, it was an impressive cave.
"Halt!" shouted a female voice from the roof of a slanted roof from collapse. Mary lifted her torch to see and the young woman made her way over carrying a crossbow. She stopped. "Sister Mary! We've been waiting for word for--"
"We were not expecting any of The Cult to meet us here." Mary said , genuinely surprised.
"We received our orders directly from The Grand Master."
The guard glanced at the others and eyed Mary wairly, "We were told there would be six."
Von Trapp cut in, "Regretablly we lost one of our number in Cairo."
"It seems we were anticipated." Daltmooreby hissed to Von Trapp.
"I doubt this is The Grand Master's doing - the dodering old fool was past it long before we ever left." Von Trapp hissed back.
Vandeveer caught Andrei Sreka's attention and said very quietly "Stick with me Anrei, somethign is amiss."
"Da." Sreka nodded.
"We are returning to Alpha Base." Mary said curtly, striding down the short flight of steps and up to the warrior, placing a palm on the crossbow and forcing it gently to point at the floor. "You'd do well not to obstruct us. We are expected."
"Your mission was successful?"
"Our mission is none of your concern." Mary said squaring up the guard.
"The propechies were most unclear and our journeys have taken us many miles - we are tired, and iritable." Daltmooreby cut in diplomatically.
Another guard other guard stepped forward bearing a flaming torch.
"You are still many leagues distant from the tunnels - you should rest here in these abandonned houses. "We will keep watch"
"We will rest when the future of The Cult is secure." Mary said sharply. "Until then, we press on."
Sreka dourly took a cigartte from the packet, tapped the end on the carboard box and placed it in his mouth then with a casual disregard for antiquity and local litter ordinances, crunched the pack in his hairy fist and threw it into a corner. He lit it in his own torch and took a long, satisfying draught from it.
"My last one." he said sounding a little down. "I don't suppose they sell these where we are going."
The two guards wrinkled their noses in disgust turned and went back to their stations, muttering something just inaudible and very rude.
Mary replaced her torch with one hanging from a bracket on the wall. "Follow me" she said and began heading down a corridor leading
North.
Slowly, one by one, each of her comrades took one final look at the citael and followed her down the coridor until they are the light from Mary's torch rounded a corner and they were all lost from sight.
Arthur woke suddenly the next day, sunlight was already streaming in brilliant white through a gap in the tent door; a shadow crossed over him.
"You were talking in your sleep." Ody said simply.
"I - I was asleep?" Arthur stumbled semi-conscious and embarressed, wiping his chin free of drool with his forearm.
Arthur swung his legs over the edge of the bed. A twinge in his back let him know he was coming out in what felt like an all-over bruise. But Arthur was doctor enough to know that at least meant he was on the mend.
"So", Ody broke the silence. "What about this key?"
"Key?" Arthur asked, confused.
"It's all you've been murmuring about for the last half an hour."
"er...probably nothing I er."
"Forget it. I've been in the back in the temple since first light trying to work out some more of those damn hieroglyphs around the door. Jamilla and your partner are down there too. There's some fruit outside - take what you want and come down and join us." With that civil repairing of bruised egos, Ody swung open the tent and left.
Arthur felt as tired as when he'd fallen asleep - an unpleasent feeling.
Stepping gingerly onto the floor of the tent, Arthur stood upright for the first time since he'd fallen off the roof in Cairo.
Limping a little as the blood worked it's way round his shins giving him a wicked case of pins and needles - Arthur grabbed an apple from the fruit stand under the fly net where Ody had indicated breakfast was and biting into the tart flesh, set off for the entrance into the temple under the rising sun.
Arthur lowered himself down into the temple - his back complained but he grimaced through it - and for the first time laid eyes on the turqoise network of illumated diamonds which everyone had been talking about.
"Damn - that's....."
"Beautiful isn't it?" said Jamila.
"Over here Arthur." X called.
Ody and X awere joined by Jamila and Arthur stood by what Arthur had correctly identified at first glance as a door set into the stone work of the chamber. The hinges were sealed inside and there was no obvious means of leaverage, indeed the only thing that distinguished this as a door at all and not just a wall, was the slight indentation - and they keyhole set into the head of an Ibis.
"Did Marcus ever get back to you?" Jamilla asked Ody.
"I've not checked. I'd just come from The Post Office when all that commotion erupted into the market square and Arthur here fell off that rook and onto that marktet stall. I bought him and his partner back to camp and we've been here ever since."
"Of course!" Jamila said slapping her forehead.
"It was a long shot with marcus anyway." Ody confessed, "I've never heard of any egpytian tomb that has a locked door and a keyhole - and I'm supposed to be the expert."
"I have." Arthur said.
Ody and Jamilla turned to look at him.
"You asked before ...about the key."
"And?" Ody prompted.
"Well were in Paris inside The Louvre - we met a contact in the Egpytology department it was he who told us to come to Egypt in the first place. He told us about some god Thoth...
"Yes this temple is dedicated to Thoth...and pilchards...amongst other things." Ody said furrowing his brow, "It's rather confusing."
The Ibis was the symbol of Toth - correct?"
"Yes he's often depicted with the head of an Ibis."
"X chimed in, recalling the conversation from France
"Thoth....associated with the moon, magic and astronomy..he...um", X screwed up his face in concentration, "he...er..served in the Underworld, weighing the souls of the dead."
Jamilla smiled at X.
"and here is our new mystery", said Ody bending down trying to peer though the hole, a door and no key."
"I was about to say...in The Louvre - the curator gave me a key inscribed with an Ibis - he said it would open something in the tomb of Rameses - but he didn't know what."
Ody's eyes were saucer shaped. "and do you still have that key?" He asked, almost begging.
"Of course", Arthur said reaching into his breast pocket.
His fingers closed around nothing.
"It's not here." he said horrified.
Ody's expectant face began to shatter.
"Oops no, wrong pocket."
Ody's collapsed settled into a frown.
Arthur pulled from the other side of his jacket, the key inlain with the turqoise gem with the Ibis on the revserse and an odd number of teeth set at unusual angles.
Arthur walked up, the group parted like the Red Sea and he inserted the key which clunked like gears settling. He took a deep breath and tried turning it.
He was amazed at how easily it moved.
Beside them the sound of sealed air escaping after centuries erupted around the edges and the temple door swung open and beyond they could see a city.
"Oh my god." Jamila gasped he hand clasped to her mouth, she touched Ody on the elbow.
"It's..."
"The Lost City of Ozymandias." Ody smiled - that same glassy look in his eyes that told everyone the tomb raider had a new mission. "It was here all this time."
Not everything was ancient as it appeared.
Indeed, there were some recent scuffled footprints visible in the ancient dust, and a crumpled packet of cheap Russian cigarettes in one corner.
"Sreka" Arthur growled.
"Easy there." X tried to calm his partner down.
"If I find Sreka in there I'll make him pay for what he did to Anna. "Come on." and Arthur walked in to the Lost City.
"Wait!" Ody cried.
Arthru stopped.
"Just two seconds!"
He ran over to the skylight and called up "Haziz! Haziz!"
A few moment later the cheerful face of the dig's forman appeared. "Yes Dr Daltmooreby?"
"Take care of things at the camp. Me and Dr Najil are going to excavate a new area of the Cavern. I'm leaving you in charge. Make sure the artifactes are returned to New York."
"Of course." said Haziz.
"Hand me my whip will you."
Here you go - and a tight coil landed at Ody's feet.
"Goodbye Haziz."
Ody ran over to where Arthur, X and Jamila were waiting by the open door grinning like a schoolboy.
Jamila folded her arms and looked Arthur square in the eyes, reading her partner's thoughts exactly. "We're coming with you." she said.
