“Was there any kind of writing or artwork carved into this section?”
Abbas shrugged. “I don’t believe so. Why?”
Baahir stood and shook his head. “No reason, though, sometimes the Ancient Egyptians would warn us of what awaited those who entered sacred places like this.”
“Like what?” Abbas asked. He sounded nervous.
“Oh, you know, just your run-of-the-mill curses and boobytraps.”
Abbas paused mid-stride and gawked at the Egyptologist.
Baahir glanced over his shoulder and gave the guy a sly smile. He was kidding, of course. Abbas’ reaction was priceless. He huffed in annoyance and flared his nostrils. Baahir dipped his head inside the quaint doorway. As he lifted his left foot to step over the threshold, he could hear the foreman cursing under his breath in Arabic. What he said wasn’t very nice at all.
Baahir mentally translated the curse, and thought of his reply. No, Mr. Construction Worker, my mother wasn’t an ill-tempered goat… my mother was a living saint. Until my father killed her.
Deep down, part of Baahir understood that it wasn’t his father’s fault that his mother had died when he was just a boy. He even recalled her saying that it was her family that had been after them. Still, George should have been able to protect her better than he did. Plainly, Hanan Kane should still be alive today. It was because of Baahir’s love for his mother, and his equally strong disdain for his father that he had changed his last name to her maiden name when he was old enough to do so. Then, on his eighteenth birthday, Baahir left England forever and moved to his mother’s homeland, Egypt. Happily, he had not seen or spoken to his father since. The only person he stayed in regular contact with was his older sister, Zahra.
“Ghazzi!” Abbas bellowed back the other way. “With us!”
The punitive man fell in behind his boss, without so much as a word.
“I’m coming too.”
And so did Mr. Rahal.
Baahir and Abbas gave each other a look of aggravation. Already, the Egyptologist and foreman had seemed to have fashioned a semi-comfortable rapport. Baahir respected the foreman to a degree, and he knew Abbas did not like having the government agent along for the ride.
Wherever the hell we’re going.
After two minutes of traveling like old hermits bent over at the waist, Baahir’s flashlight, which had been swinging back and forth from wall to wall, found… nothing. He stopped and knelt, giving his lower back a much-needed respite. There, while inspecting the tunnel exit, he kneaded his spine with the knuckles of his left fist.
“Why did we stop?” Rahal asked.
Baahir shook his head, even more annoyed than before. “You in a hurry to be somewhere? Whatever is here, it has been here for centuries. I think it can wait a little while longer.”
Abbas softly chuckled behind Baahir. If there was one single thing the two men had in common, it was their joint contempt for the pushy government agent.
“Dr. Hassan,” Rahal countered, “I’m on a tight schedule, and—”
“Well,” Baahir interrupted, “I’m not. And as the only person present who’s qualified to be here, I will be moving at the pace I see fit.” He turned and leaned around Abbas’ hulking mass. “You are welcome to go outside and wait if you prefer.”
Typically, Baahir was soft-spoken and well-mannered to everyone he met. It was a quality he had inherited from his mother. But when someone stood in the way of him and his work, he tended to erupt and lash out. He blamed it on the other half of his bloodline — his father’s half. But, in reality, it stemmed from his unresolved issues with the man. That’s what Baahir’s therapist had said, anyway. Not everyone deserved his wrath. Those that didn’t received a quick apology from him.
Baahir spun and continued forward. Mr. Rahal wouldn’t be getting an apology.
Slowly, Baahir leaned into a chamber. It was empty, save for a three-foot-tall altar built of stone near its rear wall. Definitely not a tomb. Thankfully, the space was tall enough for them to stand erect. Baahir unfolded himself, instantly forgetting his sore back. The walls of the room were etched from floor-to-ceiling in hieroglyphs and pictographs. He immediately dove into the story — a story Baahir knew well. But when Baahir was halfway through skimming over the text, he realized that it wasn’t the same familiar story, after all.
He dragged his light back to the beginning, stopping on the wall to the right of the chamber entrance. He was still missing something.
“What’s that?” Abbas asked, pointing his light at a section directly above the doorway.
Baahir added his light and was astonished by what he read.
“It can’t be…”
“It can’t be what?” Rahal asked, not understanding the significance.
As far as Baahir knew, he was the only one who could read the hieroglyphs.
Abbas’ voice was low and soft, and he uttered a single word — a name. “Anubis.”
Baahir looked up at the construction foreman. Abbas had figured out part of the riddle, but how?
Somewhere between finding the text above the passageway and Baahir deciphering it, Abbas had turned back toward the altar. And Abbas hadn't figured out the Anubis thing by reading the scripts, it had to have been something else. So, Baahir turned to see what Abbas had been looking at — something each of the had missed when they had entered the room. The wall above the altar put the entire story into context. It was easy to understand, even for a child.
“What?”
Apparently, Mr. Rahal still didn’t get it.
Baahir shivered with excitement and explained. “This — all of this — describes a collection of scrolls that was eventually put together to become the Book of the Dead.” He took a deep breath. “The first Book of the Dead.”
Baahir’s eyes opened wider as he stepped forward and inspected the altar. It wasn’t an altar at all. It was a chest of some kind — a vault! And as vaults only really existed for one purpose, Baahir was pretty sure he knew what was inside of this one.
We’re inside a temple dedicated to Anubis that features texts highlighting the god and his burial practices and funeral rites.
“And him?” Rahal aimed his light at a figure looming over the rest of the carvings, as well as the altar and the people inside the tomb. The impossible individual held out his hands as if he was offering something of value to them — to the world.
Knowledge, Baahir decided.
But there, between his open hands, was a depiction of a single canopic jar. It reminded him of another one he had seen many times before.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Baahir asked rhetorically. He peered up at the jackal-headed being. “That is Anubis…” he took a deep breath as Abbas, Rahal, and even the grizzled laborer, Ghazzi, encircled him, “author of the original Book of the Dead.”
Chapter 4
Khaliq
Less than a mile south of the Giza Pyramid Complex sat the most luxurious nightlife destination in the entire region. Originally opened as a local watering hole in the mid-seventies, Seti’s Place had been purchased by a private investment group, torn down, and rebuilt into the spectacle it was today, The Pharaoh's Lounge. Only the social elite, or those with enough money, could get in without making a reservation months in advance. Not only were the services and menu impeccable, but so were the second-floor accommodations.
Weapons, drugs, women… The Pharaoh's Lounge dealt in them all.