TITLE: Something Lost, Something Found.

By : Aryea

Chapter 8

“Syd! You can’t remove anything from that chamber!” Nigel insisted, quietly, as Da Viega checked their supplies at the entrance to the temple. “It’s cursed!”

            “I thought you didn’t believe in curses?’ Sydney said, trying to lighten the mood and alleviate his concern.

            “That was before I started working with you.” Nigel caught her hand. “Please, Syd. I have a really bad feeling about this. We took just the scepter, and look what happened to us?”

            “Nigel, that was a coincidence…”

            “Perhaps not, it could have been part of the curse!”

            Sydney squeezed his hand. “It’ll be okay, Nigel.” She led him back to the jeep. “You stay here with Preston. Watch for bad guys.”

            “I’m a rotten look out at the moment, Syd,” he joked in protest.

            “What about Preston?”

            “He’s just rotten.”

            “I heard that,” Preston replied.

            “Nothing wrong with his hearing, anyway.”

            Sydney again redirected their argument. “So let Preston be the look out,” she patted his shoulder. “You can supervise.”

            “Lovely.”

            “Enough of this chit chat,” Da Viega insisted as he walked around and grasped Nigel’s arm. “You’re my insurance policy against Ms. Fox doing anything naughty.”

            “He can’t see!” Sydney protested, if anything did go wrong she wanted Nigel away from the temple. “He’ll only be in the way.”

            Nigel flinched at her words, but understood why she had said them, she didn’t want to give Da Viega anything else to bargain with, and in truth he would be in the way without his sight.

            “I’ll just have to guide him, then, won’t I?” Da Viega pointed out, pulling Nigel toward the entrance, his gun trained on the Englishman once more. “Let’s hope he doesn’t have an accident and fall into a pit, or in the way of a spear trap.”

            Sydney glared at Da Viega, then flicked on her flashlight and headed down the stairs into the temple’s entrance. Da Viega waved Preston forward, and then followed pulling Nigel with him.

            They made it through the main areas of the temple, to the hidden wall that concealed Izamidi’s secret chamber. Sydney hesitated over the hieroglyphics on the wall.

            “Hurry it up!” Da Viega snapped.

            I can’t remember the order,” she lied. “If I press one wrong tile it will set off a trap and probably kill us all.”

            Da Viega wasn’t convinced. “Refresh her memory, Nigel.”

            Nigel was unfazed, and surprisingly calm considering their situation. Perhaps not being able to see that he was about to be shot, made it less real for him, and strengthened his courage. “Sorry, I was in an accident, head trauma, no sight and short term memory loss, please try your request later.”

            Sydney would have laughed aloud at his audacity, if Da Viega hadn’t delivered a solid blow to Nigel’s head, knocking her assistant to the ground. She surged forward only to have Da Viega’s gun directed at her.

            “Don’t even consider it,” he warned, roughly grabbing Nigel up from where he had fallen. “I’m running out of patience, Sydney. I got your bloody assistant back, now do what you promised, and you had better remember the order correctly, or you watch him die, long before any traps can kill us.”

            Sydney turned back to the wall and bit her lip. She pressed the first two tiles and nothing happened.

            “Well?” Da Viega demanded.

            “I…I’m not sure which one was third,” she stated, honestly.

            Da Viega growled and put the gun to Nigel’s head. “I’m warning you…”

            Sydney turned on him, furious. “Look, I’ve had a bad couple of days; I honestly can’t remember, so just shut up and let me think!” She turned back to the wall. “Water, moon…damn it!”

            “The bird, Syd,” Nigel offered quietly, all the fight seemed to have gone from him. “And then the…um…the symbol got Re, the sun god, I think.”

            Sydney pressed the bird tile, and hesitated over the sun. “Are you sure, Nige?”

            Nigel was rubbing his head, that smack Da Viega had given him seemed to knock something loose. “No,” he answered honestly. “Not a hundred percent. I remember you pressing the sun…or, were you in the sun?” He winced. “I…I don’t know.”

            Sydney turned around and observed him, concerned; was he remembering the accident or the key for the door?

            Da Viega glanced at Nigel, and then at Sydney. “Press it.”

            Sydney pressed the tile, and then jumped back as a loud noise rumbled through the temple. A small section of the wall before them slid open, leading to darkened stairway leading down.

            “Go in,” Da Viega ordered.

            Sydney checked on Nigel once more before she started to step through. His cry caused her to pause in mid step.

            “Sydney, stop!”

            Sydney stepped back up, out of the path.

            “What now?” Da Viega demanded.

            “I heard a click.”

            Preston gaped at him. “You heard a what?”

            “Bailey, if you’re stalling…”

            “No, I…Syd, I heard a click, like a trap being set.” Nigel explained, pulling away from Da Viega, who was too puzzled to stop him. “Syd, where are you?”

            Sydney stepped up and took his arm. “Right here.”

            “I heard it, Syd.”

            Sydney nodded and glanced around the temple room. “Preston, pass me that bowl.”

            Preston handed her the piece of pottery that was sitting on one of the small shelves of the room, and then watched her toss it through the open doorway. Seconds later a barrage of arrows whizzed passed and were buried into the opposite wall of the stairwell. Everyone jumped back, startled, except Nigel who couldn’t see.

            “What was it?” he asked.

            “Arrows,” Sydney replied, quietly, realizing that she wouldn’t have had a chance if Nigel hadn’t called her back. She squeezed his shoulder. “Lots of arrows. Thanks, Nigel.”

            “Sure, Syd.”

            Sydney was startled when he hugged her, and hid her surprise when she felt his hand slide down the back of her shirt to her waist and slip inside, followed by the distinct press of cold steel; he’d lifted her knife from Da Viega! She pulled back and stared at him, impressed; when had he learned that trick, and without his sight, how had he known where it was?

            “I don’t remember there being any traps on the door when we were here last,” she commented. “Well done, Nige.”

            “They may have been set by our leaving,” Nigel reasoned, showing no signs of the advantage he had just given her. “The texts we found above in the chapel of Izamidi warn of removing anything from the burial chamber, so naturally you assume there are traps for such an event, but maybe things also change once someone has been inside, and traps are reset against a second intrusion.”

            “But you retrieved the scepter,” Preston said, curious. “How did you get that out without a trap going off?”

            “The scepter was not originally placed in the chamber with Pharaoh,” Sydney explained. “It must have been placed there by someone else who found the tomb after it was finished, perhaps a workman or disciple.”

            “Right, which means it may not have been included in the curse.”

            “So, if there are now traps, we can’t go inside, right?” Preston said.

            “There has to be a way,” Da Viega insisted, angrily. He grabbed Nigel. “You, go first.”

            “No! He won’t be able to protect himself!” Sydney refused.

            “He can let his ears be his guide. And if he buys it, we can go around him.”

            “I’m not going to do this, Da Viega,” Sydney warned. “I won’t put Nigel at risk, not again. You can kill us both here, but I refuse to go any further.”

            Da Viega’s patience was at an end, but before he could take her up on the offer, they heard noise from above; the sounds of footsteps and orders being given. “M.” he decided, grimly. “We have no choice now, Sydney. If we stay here, they’ll find the chamber and kill us to get through to it.”

            The air was filled with the silence of indecision. 

            “I really don’t want to be diced and dissected, Syd,” Nigel stated, quietly. “What choice do we have?”

            “But if there are more traps?”

            “There may not be, perhaps there was just the one.”

            “Nigel…”

            “Syd.”

            “We are running out of time, people,” Da Viega warned, as the voices came closer.

            Sydney stared at Nigel; he was usually the cautious one and now it seemed that their roles were reversed. She felt a sudden pressure on her heart, a weight in her stomach and sweat beaded her upper lip; was this how he felt when she charged head first into danger? Did his need to protect her make him seem more reluctant, as she was now with him?  She growled and stepped forward, into the tunnel. “Nigel, stay behind me.”

            Nigel caught hold of her shirt and followed, with Da Viega and Preston close behind. The door rolled shut behind them.

            They walked for only a short distance; Nigel heard nothing else and their flashlights revealed no further traps. The inner chamber had a hidden lever that Sydney remembered and when she reached beneath a small ledge the stone door released and they stepped inside.

            Sydney grabbed two torches off the wall and returned to Nigel. “Do you have your lighter, Nige?”

            Nigel searched his pockets and shook his head. “No, they must have taken it, Syd.” He was glad that he had left his passport and ID in his Knapsack, which Sydney no doubt had.

            Da Viega stepped forward and lit the torches. “Let’s get on with this!” he snarled, grabbing one of the torches and moving further into the tomb. He set his torch in one of the holders, as did Sydney, and then glanced around.

            Izamidi’s sarcophagus lay on a stone altar in the center of the chamber. Around him were a multitude of gold and jeweled artifacts, his offerings to the Gods that would come for him, along with a number of household items, bedding, clothes, chairs, and tapestries; these were what the dead kings would take with them to the next world, to start a new life. The walls depicted Izamidi’s greatness as Pharaoh, his linage, and several prayers for the dead. Around him were stone and wood carvings of Osiris, God of the Dead, and Re, God of the sun and of rebirth. His hand painted coffin depicted his image in gold and blue, the sides held both prayers and curses for those who would dare to lay a finger upon Pharaoh’s resting place.

            Preston paused over a pair of jeweled daggers, turning them over and over in his hands, examining every inch. “These are extraordinary! I’ve never seen such intricate detail.” He rose. “Nigel you should see…” He halted, abruptly. “I…sorry, old man.”

            “That’s okay; I still remember them from last time.”

            “Where is the book?” Da Viega demanded, searching the chamber for his treasure. “Where is the other sarcophagus?”

            ‘That’s what we were trying to tell you,” Sydney insisted, angrily. “There was only the one; Pharaoh’s body is all that is here.”

            “No. The book must be here and so must Isres!”

            “We’ve been here before,” Nigel added. “There was no book and no extra sarcophagus. You’ve wasted your time, it isn’t here.”

            Da Viega grabbed him by the collar and threw him up against the wall, jabbing the gun into Nigel’s throat. “You’re lying! You’ve hid it somehow! Tell me where it is, tell me!”

            Sydney couldn’t risk making a move to help, Da Viega could still pull the trigger and Nigel could die. “Da Viega!”

            “How could we hide it? We didn’t even know about it, until you told us!” Nigel cried, anxiously, he could feel the barrel of the gun rubbing against his Adam’s apple.

            “Face it, Da Viega,” Sydney hissed. “You’ve been on a wild goose chase.”

            Da Viega glared at her, and then pulled Nigel around in front of him, pressing the gun to his head. “I know I’m right about this, so you’d better figure out where Isres’ body is, or Bailey will be sent to the Gods to join Pharaoh!”

            “I’m getting a little tired of your threats, Da Viega,” Nigel suddenly snarled, his fear turned to anger and his feeling of helplessness to haste  “If you’re going to kill me then be done with it, but she can’t find what isn’t here.” He took a deep breath and pressed on before his courage deserted him completely. “We searched this chamber thoroughly the last time, and there was no evidence of another burial rite, not even on the walls; they only depict Izamidi.”

            “Maybe she’s buried in another area of the temple?” Preston suggested. “It was often the habit of royalty to bury entire families inside the same temple where they rested, so Isres could be here, just not in this chamber.”

            “There could be hundreds of rooms, Preston,” Sydney denied. “Fifty other burial chambers belonging to just Izamidi’s family, not to mention how many would be false mazes and hidden traps.”

            “We have no time to check the rest of the temple!” Da Viega growled. “Or have you forgotten our organ hungry company above us? They could find us any minute!”

            “You got us into this, Da Viega,” Sydney reminded. “You figure it out!”

            “If I die, so do all of you, remember that Professor.”

            Sydney’s eyes narrowed. “If you die, I’ll make sure to throw a party first.”

            They glared at each other, their eyes promising the each other a painful death if the chance was presented.

            “For the love of God!” Preston exclaimed. “Can’t we discuss this like civilized people?” He moved between them as there were noises outside the chamber, and it wouldn’t take those men long to find the hidden lever. “No one will be able to do anything if we’re all dead!”

            “The Gate!” Nigel suddenly cried and everyone looked at him, startled. “Syd, there was something on the sarcophagus, remember? The inscription we found, what did it say about a gate?”

            Sydney moved over to the side of the coffin and knelt down to translate the hieroglyphics; Nigel was much better at it than she and she stammered over a few of the symbols. “Nigel, you’re a genius!” she complimented, she had forgotten about the inscription that they had both fussed over the last time, trying to ascertain what it meant. “My guardian in life is my love in death, to be joined at eternity’s gate.”

            “What does it mean?” Da Viega demanded as the poundings on the walls became louder.

            Sydney rose and stared hard at him. “Let Nigel go and I’ll tell you.”

            Da Viega’s grip on Nigel tightened instead. “You’re in no position to bargain, Sydney.”

            “Oh, but I am. I know how to get out of here, and I’m not telling you anything, until you let Nigel go.”

            “You’re mad, they’ll be in here any minute and they’ll kill you just as quickly as me.”

            Sydney shrugged, folded her arms and leaned against the sarcophagus. Da Viega growled, and then thrust Nigel at her. Preston caught him and guided him over to Sydney.

            “Now get us out of here!”

            Sydney knelt once more, and placed one finger on the symbol for life, the other on death and her thumbs rested on the symbol for gate. The sarcophagus slid sideways and revealed a stairwell leading to a tunnel. She grabbed the torches off the wall, threw one to Preston, and took Nigel’s hand as she headed down the stairs.

            “Careful. Nige, three more steps and we’re there.”

            “Okay, Syd.”

            Preston and Da Viega followed and the sarcophagus moved back into place, sealing off the sound of the chamber door opening.

 

 

Continue to chapter 9