17: A Tangent From The Mission
Philip’s eyes raked the surface of the pyramid, searching for any sort of entrance, any sign of where to go next. He was soon to meet up with the rest of his party. All the different streets which they had taken eventually led to the base of the pyramid, it just so happened that Philip had arrived first. He could already see Eve drawing nearer out of the corner of his eye. As she came up to him, she took a long swig of water, turning her head up to see what he was looking at.
“Haven’t you had enough water? I could hear you a mile off.”
Eve forced the bottle into his hand, “As I tried to tell you before; in the desert we have to...”
“And have you noticed the temperature since we came down here? It’s not as hot in here, it’s more bearable.”
“You still need to drink,” she insisted.
He shook his head. He could go longer without water. What he needed was to find a way to get inside the great structure. But its faces were perfectly smooth, with no sign of a door or other entrance. They could try going around the pyramid, but they would have to wait for the others and who knew how long it would take. Too long, most likely.
*
The smell of exhaust fumes hadn’t dispersed entirely. To the animal, it was as if there were two lines in the sand, leading it and its mistress to their goal. Scampering along the desert floor on its four paws, its long black nose rubbing on the ground, it moved faster than any natural animal of the desert had before. The woman in black following was managing to keep up, not walking or running, just moving. Her cloak billowed in the breeze, but no sand touched her form. It avoided her, bending in the air in a race to get out of her way. They were getting nearer. The scent was getting stronger. Their intervention in this was nigh.
*
Tony, Jimmy and Cary were still absent, but by now Noah had joined Philip and Eve at the base of the pyramid. None of them had yet come up with a plan to get inside. They had decided that if nothing occurred to them in the next few minutes, it would be best time-wise to check the other sides of the pyramid. Each face of the edifice was so big that it had taken this long just to scour the first side, not that it produced any positive results. But they would have thought that if there was an entrance, it would have been here, where there was a funnel of obelisks guiding all to its presence. A brief glance at either end showed that at least two of the other sides didn’t have obelisks, nothing as grand as what was at the front. With still no sign of the other three, they conceded that it would be best for them to go on without them. Philip, Noah and Eve began to move clockwise around the central construct. It would be unwise to split up. If one found anything, they would have to waste more time running around to find the others.
*
The lip of the precipice came upon them fairly quickly at the rate they were going. The shaggy fur of the beast was unkempt, blown about in the sandstorm. Unlike its mistress, it was hit by the many waves of sand. Shaking itself, it bound over the edge and raced down to the city. She took her time, gliding down the slope. The sand didn’t roll down or move in any way, it remained absolutely still. She sniffed again, as she had in the wreckage. Away from the wind and sand altering the scent, the path was clearer. She didn’t need her pet’s nasal abilities anymore. She could find them effortlessly.
*
She was here, Gryal could feel it. Everyone who should be here, was. They were too close to fail now. He knew her tactics, and could formulate their movements accordingly. The other Lords were acting on his command; they would follow him to the grave, metaphorically speaking.
“We need to split up. From what I know, there will be an entrance somewhere on the floor around the perimeter of the pyramid. We are on the clock and not the only ones looking for it. Are we all clear?”
They each acknowledged his barked orders. As they set to work, scanning the ground for any sign or marking, Gryal turned on the spot, walking away. Warren strode after him.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“What I’m doing,” Gryal pronounced each word individually, clearly and carefully, “is none of your business. I have something important to do. I’m not saying that to be harsh, I’m trying to protect you. Stay here, brother.”
“The way you’ve been going on about this place, you’d think nothing was more important. What are you up to?” Warren persisted.
Gryal indicated with a bony finger, “Just stay here.”
Gryal departed around the corner of the pyramid. Warren stood for a moment, looking between Mordrin, Petti and Stark kicking sand aside along the pyramid, and the end of Gryal’s cloak disappearing behind the stone wall. In the end, he slunk off after Gryal, trying to do so without the others noticing. Little did he know, Mordrin’s shrivelled eyes were shiftily watching him go.
Two of the humans had their backs to him, an adult and a teenage girl. They were chatting animatedly by the slanted wall of the pyramid. What was disappointing was that Philip didn’t seem to be with them. Oh well, they could probably tell him where the Mancynn was. Silently, he crept up behind them. Their words were irrelevant to him, but it kept them occupied. He stretched his arm out, reaching for them. They still hadn’t reacted to his presence. Though he was a little distance away, he could still strike at them. He was just about to, when he distinctly heard the adult say:
“I was wondering when you were going to turn up.”
The adult turned around with a pair of handcuffs in his hands. Gryal looked down at them, stunned. Then he burst into a fit of rumbling laughter.
“You really think that that,” he said between laughs, restarting his advance, “is going to be enough to stop me?”
“No.”
His fingers were a hair’s breadth from them. But they hadn’t moved, hadn’t flinched. A pistol cocked behind him. Philip pressed the barrel against the back of Gryal’s skull.
“This is meant to, though.”
A bullet to the skull wouldn’t kill him, but it would certainly hurt and cripple his synaptic activity.
“I would be most grateful if you were to co-operate. I would hate to put a hole in your head. Think what a mess it would make,” Philip said in an overly sweet voice.
In that moment of distraction, Noah snapped the handcuffs over Gryal’s wrists. Gryal looked down and in that moment decided to play along with their childish delusions.
“What’s to stop me just returning to my Tower?”
“Three things,” Philip explained, “One: we’re holding on. Two: you don’t want us in the Tower again. And three: you won’t leave without what you came for.”
“But I’m the one who knows where the entrance to the pyramid is. You can’t kill me, or try to at least.” Philip didn’t lower the gun, “Your friend has put these pathetic and ridiculously tight cuffs on me, what harm do you expect me to do. I have restricted movement in my wrists and arms.”
“Then I guess you have no choice but to comply with our demands,” Noah remarked.
“You can’t keep that gun pointed at me forever,” Gryal pointed out.
Philip nodded to Eve. She reached into her bag and pulled out a block of C4 explosive. Before Gryal could react, she had jammed it up his rib cage, lodging it securely between the bones usually obscured by his cloak.
“I may not be able to follow you with the barrel of my gun, but our remote detonator reaches for quite a distance, so I wouldn’t advise trying to run,” Philip smirked. “Tell us where the entrance to the pyramid is.”
*
Warren had chosen to keep at a distance. He wasn’t meant to be following his brother, but then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d disobeyed an order. He watched his brother approach the humans, engage in conversation with them. It had to be part of his plan, but what was to be gained? It was at that moment that Gryal was surrounded and restrained. He was about to run after him, come to his rescue, but considered that this might be part of his overall strategy.
*
Now Warren was gone, Mordrin turned to Stark and Petti. These two weren’t as high-ranking as Warren or Gryal, their influence was not the strongest in the group, but with his help they could still be useful. The only problem was that they wouldn’t have the confidence to stand up on their own, even if they understood the situation.
“Do you not see what’s happening?” Mordrin asked like he was just making conversation, trying to awaken mistrust within them without them realising.
The pair just continued to scour the sandy floor for some sort of an entrance.
Mordrin persisted, even if they were pretending not to hear him, “All these tangents he’s taken us on, the number of tangents he will take us on, when will he actually make progress and get us to our goals? Gryal has lost sight of what’s important. We need to unite in our cause, to show him his errors, to bring him into the light.”
“You shouldn’t be saying things like that. He has ears everywhere.”
Mordrin almost didn’t hear Petti’s comments; the grotesque Lord had masked them well with the rhythmic swipes of his claws across the ground.
“What could he possibly do to us!” he nearly screamed in frustration. “We’re not invincible, how could he be any different? He’s made himself up to be this omnipotent being, lording it over us, but we only have his words for that! Has anybody actually tried to challenge him, or have you always been too afraid?”
“It’s not that we’re too afraid,” Stark sighed, “It’s that we’re not that stupid.”
“And we do know the Entities bestowed upon him extra abilities, better advancements than the rest of us. It was to certify him as our leader.”
“Well maybe it’s time for a change in command,” Mordrin suggested, menacingly.
*
Tony dragged Jimmy by the hand along the winding street in what he thought was the direction of the pyramid. They had lost sight of the other four. Tony had had to abandon his own exploration route to answer the pleading calls for help from Jimmy, because he had ‘gotten lost’ and had heard scary things moving. Now, exasperated and exhausted, he was trying to call to the others, both to regroup and to get this infant off his hands. So far, he hadn’t heard a reply to his calls. They were alone in this section of the city. Jimmy wriggled persistently in Tony’s grasp, trying to break free from the iron grip of his reluctant guide.
“Stop squirming you little squirt!”
Jimmy shot Tony a menacing glare, and then, gathering up all of his remaining strength, gave one last, almighty pull. This didn’t do anything to improve his predicament. Tony glowered down at Jimmy.
“Right, that does it. I’m taking you back to the jeep.”
“But...why?” Jimmy hadn’t quite comprehended his new situation yet.
“I am not going to allow your constant whining to hinder the progress of this operation. I will take you to the jeep, where you will stay until this ordeal is over.”
Tony released his grip on Jimmy slowly, making sure the boy wasn’t about to run off at the first opportunity. Jimmy didn’t make any sudden moves, so Tony stepped back. He turned towards the incline which they had all descended. He took a few steps before he realised Jimmy hadn’t moved.
“We were doing fine until you turned up.”
Tony didn’t turn to look at the boy, “And what’s that meant to mean?”
“The others didn’t have a problem with me at CERN. They were able to put up with me. It’s you that’s making it unbearable, you that’s pushing me out of the group, even though I’ve been here longer than you.”
Tony snapped. He spun on the spot and ran up to Jimmy. He lifted the boy off the ground by his jumper collar with both hands.
“Listen here, you little brat! You will go back up to that jeep and lock yourself in, or with God as my witness I will make sure you fry from the inside out!”
“There you are!”
Tony dropped Jimmy immediately, swivelling to look at a dishevelled Cary stumbling from around a sandy building. From her relieved expression and her chest rising and falling, Tony guessed she had started to panic, having not been able to find anyone. As she approached, meaning to join the pair, Jimmy gingerly got to his feet, scowling at the boy above. Cary came to a halt, bent over with her hands on her knees, panting heavily.
“I’ve been looking...for you guys...everywhere,” she managed to say between gasps for breath. “I was so alone...it was like being lost in a maze...and I swear something has been following me...”
“Not you as well,” Tony moaned, turning to address Jimmy and Cary, “Get this into your thick skulls, both of you. This city is dead; it has been for thousands of years. We are the first living things to walk these streets. Now I am going to take you back to the jeep, where you’ll stay so those of us with any sanity left can get back to uninterrupted work.”
It was then that the dead, eerie silence of the surrounding city was ripped away by an unnatural howl. It was the cry of an ancient creature that hadn’t been allowed to roam for a very long time. It was the cry of a creature that had gone oh-so-long without meat.
“What the hell was that?” Cary screeched.
“That,” Tony said, slightly calmer than his companion, “is the reason you should get back in the damn jeep.”
The pair in front of him didn’t need to be told twice. They immediately began to pelt in the direction of the jeep. Tony took it a little slower, until he once again heard the demonic roar, after which he also began to sprint towards the crater wall.
By the time he reached the slippery sand slope, Jimmy and Cary had already climbed quite a way up. Their progress appeared difficult, however. Though they were scrabbling at the slope as fast as they could, much of the sand they clung onto was slipping away from under their fingertips. Tony was quick to join them in their manic efforts to escape this forgotten pit of the desert. Above, the sandstorm still raged, obscuring their view of the outside world. The trio continued to scramble towards the chaotic event ahead, trying to grip onto weak and sliding footholds, fuelled by the fear of what was behind them.
Cary was the first to clamber over the edge of the crater, shortly followed by Jimmy and Tony. Immediately they were met by the full force of the storm, being blown across the desert floor, just lucky that they were forced towards their vehicles, which too had been blown around slightly in the wind. Digging his heels into the ground, Tony steadied himself against the nearest jeep. After a moment, in which he made a very difficult decision, Tony swung round and caught Cary and Jimmy as they stumbled past, trying to similarly grab onto some handhold. But he couldn’t hold on for long. Suddenly, Jimmy’s small hand slid from Tony’s grasp. Thrashing wildly with panic, the boy caught a hold of the jeep’s door handle. The force of the storm propelled him further, but he didn’t let go. The combination of these two factors resulted in the jeep door swinging open on its metal hinges. Tony and Cary took their chance and clambered into the vehicle, Cary helping Jimmy in at the same time. Inside, Tony made his awkward way into the driver’s seat. Cary sat herself down in the passenger seat, pulling Jimmy onto her lap, shutting the door behind them. They sat there for a moment, nobody moving.
“Well? Get going!” Cary cried to Tony, stressed and exasperated.
Spurred on, Tony turned the key in the ignition, the engine coughed into life, and he put his foot down on the accelerator. He knew a thing or two about how to drive a car, but that didn’t mean this was going to be easy with only theory to assist him. They turned the four by four around so the wind was behind them. The tyres span, throwing even more sand into the Egyptian tempest. It began to move forwards, more thanks to the wind and sand than to the engine of the jeep. The vehicle picked up more and more speed, diving blindly further into the unending plains. It was almost rhythmical, the bumping up and down over the dunes, racing against the elements. All around were shades of gold, ochre and beige, swirling around in an assortment of patterns. That’s all there was, up until the moment the black mass rammed itself into the side of the car. The jeep was knocked to the side. The black mass fell behind. Jimmy screamed. They stared at the inward dent left in the passenger door.
“What was that?” Tony asked, cautiously.
Cary’s face was ashen, “Who gives a damn?! Just keep driving!”
*
“I swear I heard something,” Eve insisted.
“It was just your imagination,” Noah assured her, stepping over a pile of fallen blocks of sandstone, not taking his eyes off Gryal.
The Brethren Lord had been leading the group through this secluded part of the ruins, closely followed by Philip and Noah, each holding a gun to the back of Gryal’s skull, Philip also holding the remote detonator. But now Eve jogged up in front of the group, blocking their way.
“I didn’t imagine it!” she pleaded. “You must have heard it as well.”
“Let it go, Eve.”
Philip continued walking forwards, disregarding Eve standing in the way. In doing so, he pushed Gryal unexpectedly. The skeletal figure stumbled over, falling in front of Eve. She didn’t react fast enough to get out of his way, so she didn’t avoid the sharp bone tips of Gryal’s fingers which tore through her trouser legs and into her shin. As quick as they could, Gryal scrambled back to his feet and Eve shuffled hastily backwards, looking down at her leg. Noah dashed around the skeleton and knelt down by Eve.
Philip looked over Gryal’s shoulder as he pulled him back in front of the loaded gun, “Is it bad?”
“No,” Noah said, pushing the ripped fabric away from the wound, “It doesn’t appear to have broken the skin that much.”
“You’re lucky,” Philip prodded Gryal with the gun, and then turned back to Eve. “Can you walk, or does it hurt too much?”
She walked, a little gingerly at first, back to Philip behind Gryal, and Noah was close to follow.
“Does that answer your question?” Eve replied.
“Close enough. And if there’s no more interruptions, let’s keep moving, shall we?” Philip prodded Gryal once more.
“We’re nearly there,” Gryal mumbled.
Taking the hint, Gryal raised his head high and strode on through the lines of buildings, leading the group round a corner and into a circular clearing.
“Wow, when you said we were near...” Eve breathed.
In the middle of an area of untouched sand was a trapezoid building caught in the coils of a massive serpent sculpture. The serpent appeared to be a cobra, its hood as wide as its open mouth, fangs bared, head reared off the coils of its body. Its long, patterned body was wrapped many times around the building, finally ending in a pointed tail flicking up in the air. In between the enormous coils were spaces, here and there, maybe just big enough for someone to fit through.
Gryal hadn’t stopped his route march, not wasting any time, and reached the largest gap in the statue at such a pace that the others had to jog to keep up, still keeping the guns pointed in the right direction. Ahead of the rest, Gryal clambered through the gap. Philip was first to go after him, followed by Noah and finally Eve.
On the other side of the serpent, there was a constricted space between the statue and the building itself, allowing some movement. The four explorers had to shuffle around the perimeter of the building to arrive at the dark entrance. Gryal came to a halt when he got to the rectangular hole in the sandy wall.
“Are you sure you wish to proceed? Once inside, you may not find things the same as they were.”
“You’re going in anyway, this is why you came. And we’re definitely going to follow,” Noah explained.
“So budge,” Philip insisted bluntly.
If Gryal had had eyebrows, he would have raised one, and if he had had lips over his pointed teeth, he would have smirked. But he didn’t, so he simply turned his head and continued on into the building.
From the outside it hadn’t appeared to be that big, and it was such a distance from the pyramid that Eve had been wondering how it could possibly provide a method of getting inside the pyramid. So when she looked beyond the Mancynns and Brethren Lord and saw a stairway, descending into the ground in the direction in which they had come, she was both satisfied and intrigued further. The top of the stairs was in the middle of a room lined with decorative pillars, covered in hieroglyphs which were crammed in wherever there was blank stone. The cobra they’d passed outside often popped up among these ancient carvings and as major depictions on the walls behind the pillars. Between the pillars on the back wall were old torch brackets, which had not been lit in thousands of years. The only source of light in the room was through the entrance they had come in by (oh, and a little light was given off by Gryal’s eyes). This meant that much of the extremities in the room were hidden in shadow, lost from sight.
The group moved around the room and to the top of the stairs. They looked down into the darkness below in unison. Just as with the corners of the room, they could see nothing of their path before them. Noah broke away, reaching behind him to pull a torch from the wall. He laid his hand on the top of the torch, screwed his eyes up for a moment, and when he took his hand away, the torch was burning faintly.
“The human body gives off heat in the form of infra-red radiation,” Noah explained without being asked, to nobody in particular. “Give something enough heat, and it will combust. It’s just a matter of dialling up the heat given off.”
“Nobody gives a damn,” Gryal rumbled, “You have a source of light, you take the lead for now.”
“I don’t know,” Noah pretended to consider the option, “Your eyes give off enough for you to see what’s ahead of you. I’m sure you could keep the lead without the aid of fire.”
“My eyes may illuminate that which is directly before me, but no one can argue that the torch in your hand is far superior when it comes to emitting light.”
Noah glared at Gryal, trying to think of a witty retort. He didn’t come up with one, other than a crude reference to his new pointed teeth, so, reluctantly, he took the lead into the unknown underground of the city.
Noah waved the torch in front of him, brushing aside hanging cobwebs. The weak glow from the serpent-entrapped building could still be seen at the end of the staircase behind them as a shrinking rectangle. The only sounds were that of the crackling fire and the clicking of Gryal’s bones rubbing against one another. The stairs down here were not as even as the ones elsewhere in the city that they’d seen. Some were slanted, steep or gentle, while others were rough and hard to get a grip on. The stairs weren’t that wide either. As they got lower and lower under the lost settlement, the steps seemed to get progressively narrower. It had got to the point that where they had been able to fit three easily on a step, now they could only just fit one between the encroaching walls. Dust fell down in spreading clouds on their heads as they progressed. All were focused, not speaking, which is why at the same time they all noticed the growing swishing sound, like the tearing of silk. The next thing they noticed was that the passage was levelling out, which they saw by the light of the torch.
They all filed out into the level tunnel, thankful that it immediately widened out again. Ahead, the tunnel stretched on, blank, without any visible decorations or branching corridors. However, that swishing sound had become louder, filling the path before them. Cautiously, they took steps forward. Something golden flew across the width of the tunnel, further down, as quick as a flash. None of them had been able to see what it was, but all knew it was what was causing the noise. Philip slipped to the front of the group and took another step towards the unknown. The golden streak sped across the tunnel once more. The others followed suit, walking together towards the decelerating gold something, which was travelling from side to side. And it was when they were but a few steps away from the obstacle that it grounded to a halt before them, revealing itself to be a large, gold disk, as wide and as high as the passageway, concealing their path entirely. On the walls either side of the disk were tall, thin gaps, through which it swung, and above they could just see the end of a vine of thick rope attached to the top. It was a pendulum, a pendulum that had stopped mid-swing. Philip took another step forwards, once again leading the group.
“Wait!” He turned his head to see Eve had lunged forwards, her arm outstretched, “We don’t know if it’s safe. Don’t touch it!”
“And we won’t know until we try,” Philip retorted.
Ignoring her, he strode up to the disk and rested his palm against its surface. Unlike the walls around them, the disk did have inscriptions upon it. Most were of an obscure dialect, one that probably the best Egyptologists would have trouble understanding. Even Philip could make neither heads nor tails of it. But there was one thing that stood out, and didn’t need translating. At about Philip’s eye level was an engraved shape, but not of any hieroglyph letter or word.
“Does anyone know what this is?” Philip called over his shoulder.
“It looks like the Heqa-sceptre,” replied Gryal. “Sometimes described as the shepherd’s crook, it’s a staff owned by a Pharaoh to prove his authority. One was found in a place I believe you call Abydos. You all assumed there was only one, but evidently this is another area at which humans are ill adapted.”
Philip looked back at the impression of the sceptre, “So do you think we have to place one in the disk, like a key in a lock?”
“Most likely,” agreed Noah, “Which means we have to hope the sceptre’s in the city.”
Eve butted in, “So let me get this straight. We walked all the way down here, just to find out that we have to walk all the way up again?!”
“Not necessarily. We could get out of here through transit,” Noah suggested.
Eve’s jaw dropped like a stone, “Why in hell did we walk down here if you were able to do that, like in Switzerland?!”
“Because we didn’t know the layout of the pyramid. If we had just come down here, we could have materialised halfway through a wall.”
“Okay, what about the flight here? That whole hijacking thing could have been avoided.”
“Similar problem,” Philip said, “We weren’t certain that this was the right coordinates until the plane was about to be shot down. If this had been the wrong place, then we wouldn’t have a mode of transportation to do flybys over the desert. We’d have had to randomly jump from place to place. And before you ask, we can’t just teleport beyond the disk, as for all we know the path could suddenly go up, and to reappear at ground level would result in us losing our lower legs.”
“Also, for point of reference,” Noah said, quickly, “it’s not exactly teleporting. That would involve disassembling our bodies into their smallest components and transmitting them across subspace to the new location to be reassembled. What we do is rewrite reality so that we were already at the new location.”
“Not that I want to disrupt that fascinating explanation that, let’s face it, no one was really listening to,” Gryal groaned through his bare teeth, “but there’s a sceptre to be found and I still have a bomb in my chest. So if you don’t mind...”
“Okay, grab a hold on everyone,” Philip instructed.
Philip kept a strong grip on Gryal, so he could not escape on his own. He shut his eyes and concentrated. Then they were gone, allowing the pendulum to resume its swing.
*
All was the same. It had been for the past god-knows-how-long. Just sand brushing by the sides of the car, the three children staring ahead, and the dread of what had made the indentation in the passenger door still hung in the air. Suddenly, through the swirls of sand, a dune cliff edge loomed. Instinctively, Tony swerved to avoid falling over into the sand below. Cary cried out.
“What is it?” Tony asked, panicking.
“Down there,” Cary stuttered at first, but pulled herself together, “I’m sure I saw the wreck of the plane.”
“Are you certain?”
“Positive.”
“We have to go and rescue the crew,” Jimmy implored.
“You’re assuming that green light didn’t kill them,” Cary shifted the boy on her lap to get a better view of the plane wreck.
Jimmy followed her line of sight, “What was that light anyway?”
“How are we meant to know?”
Tony mulled it over for a second, and drew the four by four to a stop. Tony got out of the car, only to be forced back by the wind. However, he balanced himself on his two shaky legs, and made his careful way to the ledge. Now he too could see the outline of a plane wreck. He tested the steadiness of the slope with his foot.
“It’s not too steep,” he yelled back to the others, as they also got out of the car, “We could walk down, but I wouldn’t advise trying it in the jeep. It could tip over.”
So together, they slid down the slope to the plane wreck. It did indeed look like their plane. It at least belonged to the same private company. Down its side was a deep gash, cutting the whole of the craft in two. It was through this that they entered the remains.
This skeleton of a craft offered so