Chapter 3
Ascream wrenches from my throat as I fall through a trap door.
The terror gripping my chest turns out to be short-lived, however: a second later, my boots slam into solid ground—followed by the oil lamp crashing beside me. The glass shatters on impact, snuffing out the flame.
Plunged into near-darkness, my left foot finds the ground solidly. My right isn’t so lucky; I land on the ball of that foot, the forward motion forcing my knee to the hard ground. I cry out at the sudden pain cutting into my bone. That’s going to leave a mark.
Struggling to my feet, I peer up at the opening I fell through. All I can see in the small bit of natural light left is granite dust and sand soaking the air around me. I breathe in the particles without meaning to and sputter.
The air clears in time for me to watch the trap door swing closed, leaving me in suffocating blackness.
My stomach drops: I’m trapped.
“Goddammit,” I swear. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Taking a moment to settle my nerves, I concentrate on evening my breath and reminding myself I can get out of this. This isn’t the first time you’ve been trapped in a tomb, and it won’t be the last. I’ll find another way out of here somehow. All I need to do is focus.
“Why did it have to be an underground cenotaph?” I ask the darkness. “Why couldn’t it have been like Karnak? God, I wish I was at Karnak.”
I never should’ve cursed the sun.
Setting my bag down in front of me, I dig around inside blindly, hoping to come across the flashlight that I convinced myself earlier I packed. But the only metal thing I feel is Claude’s Luger. Panic rises up inside my chest.
“Shit. Shit.”
Then I remember: the matches.
Slinging my pack back over my shoulders, I reach into my pocket and procure the matchbook. I pluck one out, feeling for the rough striker on the bottom. With trembling hands, I scratch the match against it half a dozen times before it finally sparks to life.
“Thank you, John Walker,” I breathe.
With barely enough light to see more than a few feet in front of me, I bend down on my good knee to take stock of my injury. Crimson blood blooms across my beige slacks, seeping through a small tear in the twill.
“Fantastic.”
I rip at the fabric as best I can with one hand to get a better look at it.
Luckily, the injury is fairly minor, the blood already clotting.
I click my tongue in disappointment. It was only a matter of time before I got hurt; it tends to happen on these expeditions when I’m a bit too reckless. Which is always.
At least it’s only a scrape and not a broken bone like last time.
Standing again, the match has nearly reached my fingers. Shaking that one out, I light another and peer into the darkness. I can’t see a damned thing, the room draped in black gossamer, absorbing any possibility of light.
I run my free hand over my braid. “Think, Hawkins: if this is part of the Osireion, then there must be some way to bring light to it. An oil lamp or a torch maybe. Find that, and we’re in business.”
Taking a deep breath of the stale air, I smell… some sort of oil? Turning in every direction on my bum leg, I find it strongest behind me. I limp toward the wall a few paces away—when I notice a golden bowl sitting on a ledge.
Moving toward it, the stench of oil intensifies. It’s thick and heady, like castor oil, which means it can’t be from Claude’s useless lamp. Close enough now to peer inside the bowl, I mark a pool of liquid I’m almost certain isn’t water sitting at the bottom.
Leaning in further, I gag at the intense smell. “Jesus Christ.”
I’m not sure how much light this little bowl of oil can provide, but it’s better than striking a match each time one goes out until there are none left.
I fight to steady my hands again in the near-darkness, holding the disappearing match over the bowl.
“Here goes nothing.”
I drop the remnants of the burning match—and the liquid bursts into flame. I stumble back, throwing an arm over my face.
Once the brightness fades, I lower my arm. Looks like it worked. It doesn’t give off much light, but it’s enough to discern a long, braided wick slick with more oil, trailing up into obscurity.
I barely blink before the flames race up the wick, the fibers sparking and curling in on themselves. It quickly catches on the slight ledge a few feet above me, spreading across the surrounding stone walls of the tomb. In seconds, the entire place is alight with carefully controlled chaos.
I gasp, finding myself grinning. Finally, something goes right.
Gazing up, the ceiling dips low in this room compared to the rest of the temple.
The limestone walls burst with colorful hieroglyphs—bright depictions of stories and peoples and animals I’ve never seen anywhere else, painted in faded reds and blues and blacks, even golds.
If only I had the time to properly enjoy this.
The sooner I find the amulet, the quicker I can find another way out of here.
I’m not sure if finding the Amulet of Amun will break me out of this self-made prison, but I have to try.
I didn’t go through all that just to leave empty-handed.
Besides, there’s no telling when Claude might wake up.
And since he already watched me crack the code of the first two locks, even he could figure out the final one.
Being trapped in a room with no way out is bad—being trapped in the same room with a Nazi is far worse.
Even if I’m the one with the gun this time.
Golden sarcophagi line the walls at even intervals, looming over the center path of the hidden tomb like sentries. Although, if they’re buried with Osiris, they’re more likely to be priests than guards.
At the other end of the room rests a lavish sarcophagus crafted in the image of Osiris himself. Just as Claude mentioned. The rectangular bottom is forged from solid gold, with the eye of Horus emblazoned at the center and a myriad of other glyphs wrapped around it.
That must be where the amulet is. Tightening the straps on my pack, I head for the tomb of the god who’s given me so much trouble today.
Limping slightly from the abrasion on my knee, I shuffle across the thin layer of sand that found its way down here over the thousands of years this place has sat dormant.
From my current vantage point, the sarcophagi on either side of me appear untouched.
A rare thing. On more than a few expeditions, Nonna and I weren’t the first ones to find the tombs, caves, or temples we searched for, and many sites had already been stripped of their artifacts.
This place, however, remains unsullied by modern excavations and ancient grave robbers.
God help me, I’m giddy over it.
The gold of the sentries shimmers in the firelight as I creep along, waiting for my feet to drop out from under me again. Or for a mummified medjai to appear from the shadows and strike me down.
Thankfully, I reach the rectangular sarcophagus without incident.
The top greatly resembles photographs I’ve seen of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, found in the Valley of the Kings when I was a child, but in the likeness of Osiris instead.
My chest swells. The amulet has to be in there.
Unlike the boy-king Tut’s burial mask, this one is made mostly of precious malachite, giving his face the green hue it’s known for.
His Atef crown is also much more complex: gold, blue lapis, quartz, and hints of pink feldspar make up his pointed hat, the snake in the center shaped with shards of black obsidian.
Elbows bent, his fists nearly touch each other across his chest. His green hands grasp the crook and flail for which he’s also known, the two never crossing.
Someone took great care crafting this.
If I wasn’t in such a hurry, I’d attempt to sketch him for later analysis. But I’d rather find a way out of this place and come back, than stay trapped inside with him here for much longer. If there even is another way out.
I touch his face. “Never have I been so happy to see you, you beautiful green god.”
I crouch down to get a better look at the sarcophagus, wincing from the sting of my injured knee.
The line along the top of the coffin has been filled in with dust and sand.
Which means I might not need the crowbar—that I don’t have—to pop the top off.
Small miracles. Procuring my father’s switchblade, I press the release and scrape the tip of the blade along the seam, loosening the packed dirt all the way around it.
Slipping my fingers inside, they find purchase underneath the edge.
I lift it—but the top budges a mere half an inch.
I huff, squaring my shoulders. My only solace is I wouldn’t have been able to move it at all if it were made of solid gold.
I’m surprised they spared some expense when it came to what I wager to be a purely symbolic burial for Osiris.
I’m not complaining, though.
Bending my good knee for leverage, I manage to slide my fingers and half my palms inside this time, pushing up.
A gap opens at the seam and the earthy aroma of wood bursts out.
With one last surge of strength, I slip my hands fully in-between and shove it backward, grunting.
The top slides off and crashes to the ground on the other side.
Thankfully, I don’t hear the sound of stone cracking. I hope to God it remains intact.
Forgive me, Osiris.
Peering inside, I don’t find a decomposed corpse. Instead, a human-sized skeleton lies there, shaped from the wood I smelled when it first opened. Wood was a rare commodity in ancient Egypt, so I suppose it makes sense Osiris’s celestial bones would be hand-hewn from it.
However, the wooden bones are nothing compared to what he grasps in his hands: an ornate blue vase, exactly like the one Claude described.
“Now, we’re talking.”
I reach inside the vase blindly, praying I’m not met with a rat or some poisonous insect. Instead, my fingers brush something that feels like the small links of a chain.