Zahra
Zahra bit down on her mouthpiece as hard as she could. It wasn’t caused by an act of physical exertion. It was the result of anger and frustration. Eleven of the twelve crates had turned up nothing. Every one of them held the decimated remains of the wine amphorae. A few of the containers were in better shape than others, but none were in the condition the buyer was seeking.
She had just sheathed her knife. Both of her hands rested on the edge of the eleventh crate. Her eyes were closed, and her head was dipped. The rest of her body bobbed at a forty-five-degree angle. She opened her eyes and looked right. The twelfth and final crate awaited her.
Come on, she willed. Please be there.
Zahra unsheathed her knife and jammed it into a gap between the lid and the crate itself. She gritted her teeth and pushed the grip down, forcing the blade upward. The ancient wood gave way and broke apart. The effort was exhausting and met with a groan from both Zahra and the ship. She paused and looked up. The wreck had made a handful of noises since she had entered, but none louder than this.
Oh, shit, Zahra thought, watching as the deck above her head cracked inward. As luck would have it, after 1,700 years, the Roman cargo ship was about to fall apart, and with Zahra inside it. She removed the blade from beneath the crate lid and took a deep breath.
The wreck settled. The lid was now free.
Breathing easier now, Zahra sheathed her knife and removed the broken pieces from in between her and her prize. She leaned over the opening and impatiently waited for the cloud of particles to settle. When they did, Zahra grinned ear to ear.
Yes!
The majority of the crate’s contents were smashed, but at its center, Zahra counted four very much, intact amphorae. She’d done it! Now, she had to remove the artifacts without damaging them, a feat she had never attempted while being underwater.
This should be interesting.
She used her knife blade to meticulously remove debris from around the tall wine jars. For a moment, Zahra pictured herself doing the same thing, but with a paintbrush from a dino dig site. She poked and picked at itsy bits of wood, and whatever-the-hell else was in the way. Once she was satisfied with her work, she detached one of the four nets folded on her dive belt. Zahra unraveled it and stuck it into place beside her, pinning it to the side of the crate with the tip of her knife.
She flexed her tired hands and shook them as fast as her surroundings allowed. Not only were they strained from the effort, but so was her mind. A nagging pressure had built up in the back of her head, exacerbated by the burden of being underwater. She floated higher until she was directly over the opening. She reached down and gently gripped the exposed handles. Zahra bit her lip and pulled, enthused to feel it slip free with very little resistance. Once it was completely free of its 1,700-year-old bondage, Zahra took a second to admire it. She frowned. There wasn’t much to appreciate. The amphora was covered in hundreds of years’ worth of grime and growth.
Hey, there.
A tiny shrimp scurried around to the top of the amphora and raised its pincers up at Zahra, giving her what could only be a double middle finger.
Come on, little buddy. She softly flicked it aside with the back of her hand. Off with you. The shrimp went tumbling before its tiny legs found purchase, kicking feverishly. Zahra watched it slow and drop down toward the floor of the hold before she continued with her illegal excavation. With the help of the water, she easily moved the two-foot-tall amphora into place and held open the net sack with one hand.
One down, three to go.
Chapter 51
Baahir
As the hours ticked by, Baahir was becoming more and more suspicious as to why he was actually here. The work had all, seemingly, been done before he had arrived. The only missing piece, it seemed, had been the canopic jar. He pondered all of this while sitting at the light table, staring blankly at the Book of the Dead. He still couldn’t believe it.
Mom would be proud. The thought was short-lived, though. Would she? The discovery had led to some very bad people trying to do very bad things.
The stone tube that had housed the scroll for centuries laid on the table just a few inches from the relic found within it. Baahir could easily use the tube to destroy the glass pinning the scroll in place. Then, all he’d have to do was tear up the artifact. The idea had been short-lived. Baahir could never do such a thing. He didn’t have the heart to destroy the scroll, no matter how foul the subject it contained was.
“Dr. Hassan?”
Baahir took his eyes off the scroll long enough to see a thin, hunched man standing off to this right. Salem was the oldest person here by several decades. While Baahir’s conversations with the elder had been brief so far, he found the man to be kind and incredibly knowledgeable.
“You don’t believe in all of this, do you, Salem?”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “I do.”
“Really? You believe that this scroll,” Baahir motioned to the Book of the Dead, “contains directions to a place to help replicate the Biblical plague? The ‘Temple of Anubis?’”
Salem’s face was stoic and unemotional. “I believe in what Khaliq believes.”
“But why?” Baahir asked, turning in his stool.
“Because the man terrifies me, and I find it better to be on his side than oppose it.”
Oh. Baahir had thought it was because Salem shared the same radical beliefs. But, no, it wasn’t that at all. He identified with Khaliq as a way to ensure his survival.
“How long have you been working for him?”
Salem’s eyes fell. “Too long.”
Baahir didn’t push it. It was plain to see that the subject was a rough one to talk about. But maybe the old man could help Baahir understand something.
“What about me?”
Salem regained some composure. “What about you?”
“Why am I here?”
“Your sister—”
“Besides that,” he interrupted. “There has to be more to it than just being a shield against my sister's sword. Khaliq doesn’t like my family. That much is easy to see. Every time he says my last name, his voice is laced with disdain — Ifza too.”
Baahir’s eyes opened wide. “Is there any information, unrelated to the plague, that we have access to down here?”
“There might be something, yes.” Salem thought it over. “We have looked into the Ayad family tree extensively. There could be something useful, I suppose.”
It’s worth a shot.
Baahir stood. “Show me.”
Salem led him over to a computer that was in desperate need of an upgrade. The load time was slower than Salem’s footspeed, which was hard to believe. Once it booted up, Salem walked Baahir through the process of pulling up the research that had been done over the years.
Decades of research.
“Woah,” Baahir said, “you weren’t kidding.”
“Yes, we’ve been very thorough.”
Baahir scrolled down to the origin — the first name listed.
“Anubis… Of course, it says Anubis.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
Baahir sat back in the creaky folding chair. “Because Anubis wasn’t real! Sure, maybe there was a person who believed he was a god, but it wasn’t actually Anubis in the flesh. He,” Baahir jabbed a finger at the screen, “was just another man.”
“A man far more intelligent than anyone of his time.”