Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘Yep, it’s a building,’ Hunter said. ‘Now, a woman, there’s a mystery of mysteries. And one worth spending your life uncovering.’

‘I spent two thousand years getting back to my own time,’ Church said, ‘and this was ancient when I started the journey.’

Fayed clapped a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. ‘You are a military man, I can tell. Where you stand now, Alexander the Great once stood, ruminating on the great mysteries.’

‘I’ll do my ruminating when I’m a few hundred miles from here.’ Hunter scrambled after Etain as she made her way to the entrance.

The transition from the heat of the evening to the dank cave-chill of the tunnel made them all shiver. Hunter took out his pencil-torch, but Etain appeared to need no light.

‘Is it true that no body of Khufu was found, nor any tomb goods?’ Shavi whispered. His words echoed much further than he had anticipated. ‘Indeed, is it not said that this pyramid was not a tomb at all, but served some other mysterious purpose?’

‘The Supreme Council of Antiquities does not accept that theory,’ Fayed replied with some hesitancy, which suggested he was not wholly convinced. ‘I do not know what you expect to find in here. For the vast size of the pyramid, there is very little space inside. A few passages, a shaft, the tiny Queen’s Chamber and the slightly larger King’s Chamber. Nowhere for the gods to gather.’

‘The space you see is not always the only space there is,’ Church replied.

‘Don’t get him started,’ Hunter said to the baffled Fayed. ‘Next he’ll be drawing you diagrams.’

They hauled themselves up the steep, treacherous Ascending Passage, breathing heavily from the exertion in the claustrophobic tunnel. But when they entered the Grand Gallery and the quality of the echoes changed with the high ceiling lost to the shadows above them, Etain came to a halt.

‘What’s she doing?’ Hunter whispered.

‘Listening, I think,’ Church replied.

‘It’s too dark in here,’ Hunter said. ‘Why couldn’t they set up their camp out in the desert?’

‘Hush,’ Shavi said. ‘Can you hear it?’

A whisper of movement, a scratch and a scurry, growing louder.

‘It’s coming from the other side of the wall.’ Church pressed his ear to the stone.

‘This can’t be good.’ Hunter shook the torch. The beam was growing noticeably dimmer.

‘The batteries?’ Fayed suggested.

‘They’re new.’

In the growing gloom, Etain’s face glowed spectrally. She moved further along the Gallery and waited. The scurrying and scratching behind the wall was now clearly audible, and magnified by the odd acoustics of the passage.

Church pulled away from the stone. ‘Spiders. They’re moving behind the walls.’

Hunter glanced at Etain. ‘She led us into a trap.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Church said.

Fayed picked up on the others’ anxiety. ‘Then we must retreat,’ he said, skidding down the steep slope to where the Grand Gallery met the Ascending Passage. He came to a sudden halt. Peering into the dark of the tunnel, he caught sight of tiny fronds waving from the almost imperceptible gaps between the monolithic blocks. The impossible logic of the sight meant it was a moment before Fayed realised he was seeing the legs of the spiders Church had mentioned as they pulled their bodies out through a space that could not possibly admit them. The first emerged with a plop, black and shinily metallic. And then they were falling in streams from the ceiling and bursting from the walls, a seething wave rising up the passage.

His eyes wide with fear, Fayed scrambled back up the Grand Gallery. ‘Yes, spiders. Thousands of them.’

‘What if,’ Shavi said, ‘the entire pyramid is filled with them. A repository, a base, perhaps even the place that allows them passage into our world.’

‘Now you’re just trying to upset me.’ Hunter bounded up the slope behind Etain.

‘Stating-the-obvious time: we can’t go back,’ Church said, watching the spiders spilling into the Grand Gallery. ‘We have to stick with her.’

They followed Etain into the stark King’s Chamber, which contained only an empty granite sarcophagus.

‘No exit.’ Church cursed under his breath. The Grand Gallery was now alive with spiders rushing across every available surface towards the entrance to the King’s Chamber.

‘Might as well draw your sword,’ Hunter said. ‘We could probably squash a couple of dozen before they take us apart.’

As the torrent washed towards the entrance, Etain stepped past them and placed one hand on a barely visible indentation in the stone. Instantly, a block fell from above and crashed into the door space. Once the dust had settled, they saw they were sealed in.

As they breathed with relief, Shavi held up a hand to his ear; from every side of the small chamber came the sound of spiders.

‘Let’s review our situation,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re trapped in a tiny room, at the heart of a mountain of stone, surrounded by what could very well be ten billion lethal spiders.’ He looked to Church. ‘Now’s the time to tell us your plan.’

Etain gently edged Church towards the sarcophagus and made it clear that she wanted him to lie in it. Unsure, he complied. When he was lying flat in the cold stone box, Etain pressed something out of his line of vision. The bottom of the sarcophagus fell away, and Church plummeted into the dark.

Miller wrung his hands together. ‘Where are we? Inside the pyramid? Or not?’

‘You’ll get used to it.’ Ruth watched the door for any sign of Veitch returning. He’d been gone for at least two hours with the Anubis Box. Ruth had tried to accompany him, but the gods had barred her way.

She waited with Miller in an opulent state-room covered in hieroglyphics and decorated with gold and lapis lazuli. Water splashed from a graven lion’s head into a large rectangular pool that reflected the torchlight. Everywhere appeared cool and peaceful, but there was an underlying air of tension.

Way out of his depth, Miller hugged his knees. ‘Are they really gods?’

‘They like to think they are. Higher powers, say. None of them can be trusted — they’ve all got their own agendas.’

‘I wish Ryan would tell me why he needs me.’

‘Why do you keep giving him the time of day?’ Ruth replied with frustration. ‘You should brain him with a rock the first chance you get.’

‘Ruth!’ Miller tried to see if she was joking. ‘He’s a good man. He just doesn’t know it.’

‘He’s murdered hundreds of decent people, if not thousands. That’s not any definition of “good” that I know.’

Miller shook his head defiantly, but Ruth noted he didn’t press her with any more questions.

‘I’m sorry you got dragged into this,’ she said. ‘You seem all right.’

‘I just don’t understand what part I have to play.’

‘A big part.’ Ruth put a maternal arm around his shoulders. ‘You’re not alone, Miller. We’re all pawns that those higher powers shuffle around the board, and most of the time we’ve got no idea what part we’re playing in this big, incomprehensible game.’

‘I wish I was like you. Confident.’

Ruth was surprised; she didn’t feel confident. Most of the time she was acting on instinct, trying to hold it together. Was that really how others saw her?

‘And that spear you’ve got. Sometimes when I look at it out of the corner of my eye, it doesn’t seem like a spear at all. It’s like a …’ He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

‘I’m surprised Veitch lets me keep it.’

Miller laughed. ‘You don’t know how he feels about you!’

‘What?’