Ben Bova: Vengeance of Orion

The wall opened, the huge stone pivoting noiselessly, and we stepped silently into the chamber beyond. A small oil lamp burned low on a table next to the door. Hetepamon took it, and the stone slid back into place.

I followed the fat priest through a narrowing corridor, our only light the small flicker of the lamp he held.

“Careful here,” he warned in a whisper. “Stay to the right, against the wall. Don’t step on the trapdoor.”

I followed his instructions. Again, farther down the corridor, we had to keep to the left. Then we went down a long, long flight of stairs. It seemed interminable. I could barely make them out in the flickering lamp’s flame, but they seemed barely worn, although heavily coated with dust. The walls of the stairwell pressed close; my shoulders grazed against them as we descended. The roof was so low that I had to keep my head bent forward.

Hetepamon stopped, and I almost bumped into him.

“It becomes difficult here. We must skip over the next step, touch the four after that, then skip the one after those four. Do you understand?”

“If I miss?”

He puffed out a long breath. “At the least, this entire stairwell will fill with sand. There may be other punishments that I am not aware of; the old builders were very careful, and very devious.”

I made certain to follow his instructions to the inch.

Finally we reached the bottom of the stairs and started along a slightly wider corridor. I was starting to feel relieved. The worst was over. No more warnings about trapdoors or steps to avoid.

We stopped and Hetepamon pushed against a door. It creaked open slowly and we stepped past it.

Suddenly light glared all around us, painfully bright. I threw an arm over my eyes, waiting to hear the mocking laughter of the Golden One.

Then I felt Hetepamon’s hand tugging at me. “Have no fear, Orion. This is the chamber of mirrors. This is why we could not approach the tomb until after sundown.”

I lowered my arm and, squinting, saw that we were inside a room covered with mirrors. On the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling, nothing but mirrors. They were not flat, but projecting outward at all sorts of weird angles, everywhere except for one zigzag path across the floor. The light that had shocked me was merely the reflection of Hetepamon’s lamp, dazzling off hundreds of mirrored facets.

Pointing upward, the fat priest said, “There are prisms above us that focus the light of the sun. During daylight hours this chamber would kill anyone who stepped into it.”

Still squinting, I followed him across the polished, slippery path, through another creaking door, and back into a dark narrow corridor.

“What next?” I growled.

He replied lightly, “Oh, that’s the worst of it. Now all we must do is climb a short staircase and we will be in the temple of Amon, beneath the pyramid itself. From there it is a long climb to the king’s burial chamber, but there are no more traps.”

I felt grateful for that.

The temple was a tiny chamber, buried deep underground, barely large enough for an altar table, a few statues, and some lamps. Three of the walls were rough-hewn from the native rock; the fourth was covered with faint carved reliefs. The ceiling seemed to be one enormous block of dressed stone. I could sense the tremendous weight of the massive pyramid pressing down upon us, oppressive, frightening, like a giant hand squeezing the air from my lungs. A shadowed alcove hid the flight of almost vertical steps that led upward to the king’s burial chamber.

Wordlessly, Hetepamon lifted his lamp over his head and turned toward the wall of carved pictures.

He pointed with his free hand. “Osiris,” he whispered.

It was my portrait. And beside it stood the picture of my Athene.

“Aset,” I whispered back.

He nodded.

So it was true. We had both been in this land a thousand years ago, or more. And she was here now, waiting for me to restore her to life. I knew it. I was close to her. The thought made me tremble inside.

“I will remain here, Orion, while you go up to Khufu’s tomb,” said Hetepamon.

I must have flashed him a fiercely questioning glance.

“I cannot climb the steep ascent, Orion,” he apologized hastily. “I assure you that there are no further dangers to be wary of.”

“Have you ever been in the king’s burial chamber?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, each year.” He guessed my next question. “The procession enters the pyramid from its outer face, where a hinged stone serves as a door. The ramp leading to the tomb is much easier to climb than the shaft you must go through tonight. Even so,” he smiled, “I am carried along by eight very strong slaves.”

I nodded understanding.

“I will await you here, and offer prayers to Amon for your destiny, and for the safety of Prince Aramset.”

I thanked him and, after lighting one of the altar lamps from his, started up the steep winding stairs.

It must have taken an hour or more, although I lost all sense of time as I plodded up the steep steps, winding around and around and around. They seemed to be cut into the walls of the shaft, some of them little more than narrow clefts in the native stone. My lamp provided a little pocket of fitful light against the darkness, and as I climbed I began to feel as if I was not actually going anywhere, as if I was on a vertical treadmill, trudging achingly, painfully forever. It was almost like being in sensory deprivation: no sound except my own breathing and the scuffling of my boots against the stone steps; nothing to see except the dusty walls in the dim light of the lamp. The world might have dissolved outside or turned to ice or burned to a cinder and I would never have known it.

But I plodded on, and at last came to the end.

I climbed up through a hole in the floor and found myself in a large chamber where a great stone bier bore a magnificent sarcophagus, at least ten feet long, made of beautifully worked cypress inlaid with ivory, gold, lapis lazuli, porphyry, turquoise, and god knows what else. Splendid implements filled the chamber: bowls bearing sheafs of grain and vases that were filled, I was certain, with fine wines and clear water. Probably they were renewed each year, as part of the ceremonies Hetepamon had told me about. Tools and weapons were neatly stacked against the walls. Stairs led upward, toward other storehouse chambers. Everything the king needed in life was here or nearby, ready for his use in his next life.

But there was no sign of the Golden One.

I stood before Khufu’s dazzling sarcophagus, surrounded by the finest implements that human hands could make, and clenched my fists in helpless anger.

He was not here! He had lied to me!

Neither the Golden One nor the body of Athene was in this elaborate burial chamber. I wanted to scream. I wanted to smash everything in sight, rip open the dead king’s sarcophagus, tear down the entire pyramid, stone by giant stone.

Instead I merely stood there, dumb as any animal, feeling tricked and defeated.

But my mind was working. The Golden One had made this pyramid his fortress, protecting it with energies that not even the other Creators could penetrate. It took an ordinary mortal to physically penetrate the passages built into the pyramid to reach this far. Trying to translocate oneself from outside the pyramid would not work, the energy defenses would prevent it.

So why did the Golden One defend this pyramid? As a decoy? Perhaps.

Or — perhaps this chamber was in reality a jumping-off spot to his actual hiding place. He is protecting the pyramid because it contains some clue to his true whereabouts. Some clue, or some device for making the transition.

I knew that the Creators were not gods. They did not shift their presences from one realm of the continuum to another by mystical fiat . They did not generate energy by divine willpower. They used machines, devices, technologies that were godlike in their power but the offspring of human brains and hands, just as the weapons and implements in this tomb were.