“They lowered them on ropes down the center of this spiral staircase.”
“It looks sort of strange,” Garrett said.
“That’s because of the time it was created,” said Eva. “It was at a very critical time for Egypt when there were many foreign influences, not just Egyptian, but also Roman and Greek.”
“When was it discovered?” Mason asked.
“When a donkey fell into a pit on the surface. The catacombs themselves date way back to the first century AD.”
They reached the bottom level. “Water,” Mason said, waving his flashlight at the floor.
“We must be on the lower levels,” Eva said. “They’re well-known to flood from time to time.”
Holding their flashlights up they saw beautiful carvings all over the rock walls, and enormous, complex statues rendered from white marble, and thick marble pillars holding up a carved ceiling.
“There,” Eva said, pointing to a mural of a priest on the wall. “That’s our way to the necropolis. Parennefer has an identical drawing in the codex. He says it’s the gateway.”
After shooting a vulnerable glance at Eva, Mason stepped forward and started to tap the wall with his flashlight. Precisely where Eva had said, over the painting of the priest, the tapping produced a more hollow sound.
Without saying a word, Mason pounded the flashlight on the painting and knocked a hole through the priest’s face. “Looks like we found it.”
“All right,” Eva said, stepping forward. “It’s time to bring this nightmare to an end.” She took a deep breath, and slowly edged inside the narrow slit in the chamber’s smooth, marble wall.
She moved carefully into the dark, damp tunnel which stretched away from the chamber at her back. Behind her, she heard Jed Mason and the others shuffling through the new entrance, but she knew this was now her territory.
Cautiously now, she stepped into the cold tunnel and tried to prepare herself for whatever nightmares lay ahead.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
With the whole team now assembled in the void behind the chamber, Eva Starling knew this was her chance to shine — or humiliate herself. In the lead, she shone her flashlight into the gloom and confirmed what her legs were already telling her — the tunnel’s shallow incline was now getting much steeper. They were getting deeper into the ground beneath the catacombs, and at a faster rate with each footstep.
The tunnel was barely wider than her shoulders, and so they marched down the slope in single file, and Mason, the tallest among them, was forced to lower his head to stop it scraping on the hard rocky roof of the passage. “Now I know what a god-damned sewer rat feels like,” he said. “Please tell me, Eva, that we are almost wherever the hell we’re going.”
“You’re in luck,” she called back over her shoulder. “Up ahead the passage seems to widen a little and I think I can see the bottom.”
They made it to the wider section and spread out until they were all able to shine their flashlights down into the final area. Making their way toward the archway they reached a narrow ledge covered in dust and broken pieces of rock. Peering over the edge, Eva’s head started to spin as she stared down into a pitch black abyss.
For a moment, she felt a wave of nausea and thought she was going to fall inside it, get swallowed up by its gaping mouth, but then she felt a strong hand grip her upper arm and turned to see Jed Mason standing right beside her. “I’d take a step back if I were you.”
She gasped and then realized what had almost happened. “It just disappears,” she half-whispered. “I never saw anything like that in my entire life.”
“Looks like we have a long way to go,” Milo said, peering over Eva’s shoulder. “This place is like the god-damned Grand Canyon or something.”
“He’s right,” Ella said with an impatient sigh. “How on Earth are we going to find a tomb in all this? It’s like an underground city.”
“You’re exaggerating, surely,” Garrett said pushing his way forward to the front. “Oh, Jesus,” he gasped. “I guess not. This place is massive.”
“No one’s been down here for centuries, or maybe longer,” Eva said. “Just look at the dust and cobwebs over everything.”
“So let’s get on with it,” Mason said. “We’re wasting time.”
He and Eva took the lead, shining their flashlights along the ledge and making their way around a curve in the path until they reached a series of steps stretching down into more gloom. “Here,” Mason said. “Looks like we can follow the path to the bottom, this way.”
Once again, they set off into the darkness until they finally reached the bottom of the steps and found themselves in another stone chamber. On the opposite wall, three archways stood like gaping mouths.
“So, which is the right one?” Milo asked.
Eva stared up at the inscription and started to chew her lower lip as she tried to translate the crumbling hieroglyphics. It says that to know the gods, you must know yourself. It’s an ancient Egyptian proverb.”
“So what’s it trying to tell us?” Ella said.
“We go through the central one,” said Eva. “The glyphs above the other archways are warnings.”
Eva spun around and shone her flashlight back up the tunnel behind them. “What was that?” she whispered.
“What was what?” Milo said.
They stared down the beam of her flashlight until it dwindled away to nothing down the long, dark passage.
“I thought I heard something,” Eva said.
“Heard what?” said Mason, moving beside her and adding his beam to the search.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Maybe it was nothing.”
“Great,” Ella said. “Now she’s imagining scary noises.”
“I did not imagine it,” Eva said. “I just mean maybe it was nothing significant, like a loose rock tumbling down or something.”
Mason looked sceptical. “I think any loose rocks around here did their tumbling a long time ago.”
“Maybe we dislodged something,” Milo said.
“Or maybe those freaking maniacs with the leather coats are right behind us,” said Garrett, sliding a round into the chamber of his SIG. “In which case, they’d better start praying they’re pretty damned fast.”
“We can’t start jumping at our own shadows,” Mason said. “This place is giving us the creeps, that’s all. Let’s keep our wits about us and get on with the mission. We’re nearly at the necropolis. We’re not going to start losing it now, all right?”
They reached a crevasse which was too wide to cross. A brief consultation resulted in Mason suggesting the grappling hook gun. He pulled it from his bag and fired it at a ledge on the other side, providing a taut rope they were able to traverse by monkey crawl. They crossed one by one and when they were all safely on the other side they followed a narrow passageway until they emerged into a large underground chamber. It was mostly natural, with stalactites descending from high above, but a pathway of smooth stone slabs divided the cave floor. They continued along the path, lighting their way with the gentle, buzzing light of the flashlights.
Walking in silence now, stunned by the scale of the chamber beyond the catacombs, they started to see more evidence of Parennefer’s handiwork — hollowed out sections in the walls for torches, and ornately carved statues of a host of ancient Egyptian deities staring down at them.
“Well, these things aren’t freaky at all,” Ella said.
“Looks like they’re hiding something from us.”
Emerging from the narrow tunnel, they entered a manmade chamber. Compared to what had come before, it was an anticlimax. Small, plain and damp, it was almost empty apart from a low balustrade which ran along the far end.