Anubis Key Page 6

  “Before or after the thing with his hand?”

  “Oh, long after. He’s had that… injury since he was a young man. Long before I knew him. That was part of our falling out. He insisted it was connected to the Anubis Key.”

  Rose sucked in a quick breath. “So you do know more about that! What is it?”

  Hamza sighed. “I told you, it’s nonsense. It’s a large part of why he and I fell out. He claimed the Anubis Key did that to him, but I wouldn’t hear any of that nonsense.”

  “But you’ll happily try to commune with the dead?” Crowley said with a smirk.

  Hamza saw the look in Crowley’s eyes and his face creased in desperation. “Please, just let me go. I’m harming no one and I’m no use to you.”

  “You can go,” Rose said, “after you tell us where we can find my sister.”

  Hamza sighed heavily. “I honestly don’t know. All I can tell you is what I told her. Where I suggested she look next.”

  Chapter 14

  Dahshur Complex, south of Cairo

  The Black Pyramid at Darshur lay some twenty-five miles south of Cairo. To Crowley’s disappointment, it was mostly a pile of rubble. Named for its dark appearance as it devolved, it stood blocky against the lightly overcast sky, one side fallen into two large squares of ragged stone, the other a sloping scree of tumbled rocks. The pale sand and stone leading up to its base were warm under the occluded sun.

  “Compared to the magnificent order of the pyramids at Giza right by Cairo, this is something of a disappointment,” Crowley said with a laugh.

  Rose smiled. “Yeah, to say the least.” She had studied on the journey back, after their conversation had waned, and found the site fascinating despite its decrepitude.

  The journey back from Siwa Oasis had been long and uneventful. They’d used some of the time to talk about Hamza and the stories he told. Neither could decide how much they believed, but they both agreed that it was clear Hamza himself believed every word of it.

  “You know, The Black Pyramid was the first to house both the deceased pharaoh and his queens,” she said.

  “That right?” Crowley flashed her a grin.

  She frowned. “Well, if you’re not interested…”

  He quickly raised his hands, eyes wide in apology. “No, no! I love your museum brain. Your smarts and your fighting skills are probably the most attract… amazing things about you.”

  She gave him the benefit of looking away as the color rose in his cheeks. He had nearly said attractive and she couldn’t help being a bit pleased about that. He was attractive, too. She pushed the thoughts aside, again refusing to address the inconveniently, constantly present concerns of their friendship. Her sister came first, and whatever was happening with her.

  She looked up at the imposing edifice instead and recited other facts she had recently learned. “It was built by King Amenemhat III during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Five remain of the original eleven pyramids here at Dahshur. The excavations were begun by Jacques de Morgan, on a French mission, in 1892. The German Archaeological Institute of Cairo completed excavation nearly a hundred years later, in 1983. Two nearby are among the oldest, largest and best-preserved pyramids in Egypt, built between 2613 and 2589 BCE. Can you even imagine that age?”

  Crowley whistled between his teeth. “When it comes to ancient history, nothing comes close to Egypt.”

  Rose paused, looking up at the imposing edifice of the Black Pyramid. “It’s a family affair,” she said, almost wistfully. “For all its age and size, these things come down to individuals.”

  “No one person built these!” Crowley said.

  “That’s not what I mean. Of course, hundreds or thousands of people were involved in actually building them, but the impetus came from individuals. The pyramids here were a learning experience for the Egyptians, because they were transitioning from step-sided to smooth-sided pyramids. During the reign of Pharaoh Sneferu, more than four and a half thousand years ago, the Bent Pyramid nearby was the first attempt to make one smooth-sided. Ultimately unsuccessful though. The design flaw was an unstable base made of desert gravel and clay that had a tendency to subside when a large amount of weight was put on top. And the blocks were cut in such a way that caused the weight of the pyramid to push down towards the center. That’s thought to be the reason the pyramid is ‘bent’. It changes angles about halfway up the sides.”

  “I’m guessing old Sneferu wasn’t best pleased about that,” Crowley said drily.

  Rose laughed. “Indeed not. So he built another, called the Red Pyramid because of the color it goes after it rains. That one was the first true smooth-sided pyramid. And that’s what I meant by a family affair. The Red Pyramid is huge, thought to be where Sneferu is buried, and the biggest of its kind until Sneferu's son, Khufu, built a bigger one. And Khufu’s is the Great Pyramid of Giza, the really famous one, which is 490 feet tall! But Khufu could only build that because of the knowledge gained by his father.” She smiled at Crowley. “Individuals, you see?”

  Crowley pointed up at the crumbling mass of the Black Pyramid. “But this one was built much later, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, by five hundred or even a thousand years at best guess.”

  “So why is it so crappy?”

  Rose laughed. “Where’s your respect? This one was originally about seventy-five meters tall, much smaller than the Red or Giza, but typical for the Middle Kingdom. It was encased in limestone like the others, but made of mud brick and clay instead of stone.”

  “Why?”

  Rose shrugged. “Possibly to reduce weight as it’s so close to the Nile. But it began to sink, like the Bent Pyramid of Sneferu did. That’s about a kilometer and a half that way.” She pointed. “This one was abandoned after it started to crush the underground chambers. The builders tried to save it with supporting beams and mud brick walls to stop the sinking, but it was too little, too late.”

  Crowley scanned the enormous ruin. “Amazing to consider, isn’t it. The panic, the process, all the hours of labor. Such mammoth undertakings.”

  “And all so long ago. But we’re not really here for history, are we.” Rose looked about them. Small groups of tourists wandered nearby, but the area was not busy. She had hoped there would be people whom they could ask about Lily, archaeologists perhaps, but the lack of activity dented her optimism.

  Crowley appeared to have read her mind. He pointed to a bus parked nearby and said, “What about that guy?”

  The bus had a tour company logo emblazoned on its sides and the man Crowley pointed out stood on the step of the front door addressing a crowd gathered around. They moved closer to listen, smiled as the guide repeated a lot of what Rose had recently shared.

  “So you weren’t making all that up,” Crowley whispered.

  She swatted his shoulder, shook her head. “Hush!”

  Crowley bowed his head slightly by way of apology. “But given that he clearly knows his stuff, perhaps he comes here regularly.”

  “Would Lily join a tour?” Rose said.

  “Maybe. But even if not, that doesn’t mean that fellow didn’t see her.”

  The guide sent his tour group off with a wave. “You have one hour, then we move on to the Bent Pyramid,” he said, his voice accented, but with an American twang underneath.

  Rose approached as his charges drifted away. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, madam?” The man was young, maybe early thirties at most, lean but fit-looking, with short black hair and deep brown eyes. He let his gaze roam quickly down and back up as Rose closed the distance between them.

  She sighed internally; men were always so predictable. She noticed he wore a name badge that read, Kenny. “Do you tour here regularly?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid you can’t join halfway through. You need to book in Cairo…”

  She held up a hand to interrupt. “No, no, that’s okay. I was wondering if you’d seen my sister.” She pulled the photo both she and Crowley carried, showed it to
the guide.

  Kenny stepped down, taking the photo for a closer look. He smiled. “I have seen her. And it’s no surprise you’re her sister, you’re very alike. Normally I wouldn’t remember, I see so many people day to day, tourists, you understand? But I like the Asian look.” He flashed an embarrassed glance at Rose. “No offense intended!”

  She ignored the comment, glad he had recognized her sister. “Did you speak with her? Or see anything?”

  “See anything?”

  “She’s missing. I’m trying to find her.”

  Kenny pursed his lips, made a sound of sympathy. “That’s no good. I didn’t talk to her, but I noticed her here two days running. That’s why I remember her, I think. She and another man were talking with Kasim, a tour guide from a different company. Kasim is short and fat, a greasy man with a thick mustache.”

  “Sounds like you don’t like him,” Crowley observed.

  The guide smiled crookedly. “He’s not so bad. But he works for the opposition. One of many competitors. You can ask for him at the Sacred Tours Company in Cairo. You’ll find him there.”

  Rose felt a thrill of excitement ripple up, a new hope sparking into life. Another person who had dealt directly with Lily, more recently. Perhaps they were getting closer. And Lily had been with another man, apparently. Could that be the guy with the man-bun they had learned about before? They would need to find out who he was. “Thank you so much,” she said, shaking the guide’s hand.

  Crowley moved forward slightly. “Incidentally, are you aware of any connections to Anubis in Dahshur.”

  Kenny seemed to flinch slightly at the mention of the god’s name. “Anubis? Connections?”

  “Statues, images, locations associated with him in this region?” Rose said.

  “No. I hope you find your sister. I’m sorry, I have to…” He gestured over his shoulder at the bus and climbed back aboard without another word.

  “That was a bit weird,” Rose said.

  “Wasn’t it.”

  “But did you notice something?”

  Crowley smiled, nodding. “If you mean the way his eyes flitted to the Black Pyramid just now, then yes.”

  She smiled back, pleased to be picking up tricks from Crowley when it came to reading people. “Shall we?”

  Chapter 15

  The Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt

  As Crowley and Rose made their way towards the Black Pyramid, Crowley reflected on how well they worked together. Rose had definitely found her stride with this situation and was probably using the focus to distract her from the bigger issue, that her sister was missing. She developed new skills every day and Crowley had to admit that he had learned from her as well. They made a formidable pairing when it came to this stuff. The previous adventure with Landvik and all that had entailed seemed like it might have been a one-off, some random lucky sequence of events. But these last few days were proving that Crowley and Rose were well-suited to investigations of this kind, and together they were far stronger than either would have been alone.

  “We should keep an eye out for this Kasim character,” Rose said, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Short and fat, greasy man with a thick mustache.” Crowley parroted Kenny’s description in his best impression of the man’s faux-American accent.

  Rose laughed. “That’s him. I imagine that could match any number of people, but Kenny said he worked for Sacred Tours, right?”

  “That’s it. Well remembered. And yeah, let’s keep an eye out, but I didn’t see any buses marked with that company.”

  As they rounded a corner of the tumbled down old pyramid, another tour guide, obvious from his logo-emblazoned t-shirt, addressed a group of a dozen or so tourists. They were too far away to hear what he said, but whatever it was seemed to be a conclusion and he disappeared inside, his group trailing behind.

  “Let’s catch up,” Crowley said, jogging forward. “We’ll slip away inside if we need to, but we might learn something.”

  The pyramid entrance led immediately to a steep downward slope, the hot day left behind in an instant. The cool, dim interior was a relief and the guide’s voice echoed back in the confined space.

  “…explained before that so close to the Nile, the groundwater leaked into various areas, causing the pyramid to sink and become unstable. Lots of areas are compromised, but there are still numerous passages and chambers accessible. This network of passages contains the king’s section, which remains mostly intact and has a sarcophagus and canopic jar, but the king was not buried there. The queen’s section was long ago broken into and looted, and there are four other burial chambers but it is unknown to whom they belong. Some scholars postulate that two of them were for King Amenemhet IV and Queen Sobekneferu.”

  The steep passageway leveled out and the guide led them through various chambers and corridors, the pale stone lit with low wattage electric lights that caused their shadows to flit and dance.

  “After the sinking caused underground chambers to be crushed,” the guide went on, “the pyramid was abandoned.”

  “We know all this stuff,” Crowley said. “It’s interesting, but not really relevant. No mention of Anubis, nothing to indicate he had any particular influence here.”

  Rose put a hand on his arm to slow him and he looked at her expectantly. She smiled, put a finger to her lips as the group moved away from them, then rounded a corner into a small side chamber.

  “I saved this image to my phone.” She pulled it out, the screen bright in the dim space. It showed a three-dimensional diagram of the underground network they were in.

  “Where did you get that?” Crowley asked.

  She grinned. “Wikipedia. It’s amazing what fantastic info is just lying around on the Internet these days.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was mocking him or not, but he chose not to pursue that. “So where are we?”

  She pointed, using her pinky so as not to cover the small display. “Right here. But we’ve missed this side passage. That guide didn’t even mention it.”

  “Maybe it’s buried and inaccessible. He said several were.”

  “Yeah, but I saw it. There’s at least some open passageway we can get into. And I’m bored of his lecture, aren’t you?”

  Crowley smiled. “We work better alone anyway.”

  They headed back and slipped into the side passage just as the sound of the guide’s droning voice became louder. They pressed themselves to one wall around a corner of blocked stone and held their breath as the tour group passed by.

  “That’s better,” Rose whispered after they had gone. “Now maybe we’ve got the place to ourselves for a little while. This way.”

  Disappointment was quick when the passage ended in a solid wall and no further chambers. Rose frowned. “Damn it.”

  “There was another passage alongside this one, wasn’t there?” Crowley said, recalling the diagram she’d saved.

  “There was. Let’s try it.”

  A few minutes later they found themselves at another dead end, this time in a large square chamber.

  “Well, this is a boring maze.” Rose pocketed her phone, put her hands on her hips. “Maybe we’ve run into a dead end in our hunt too. Should we go and find this Kasim?”

  Crowley paused, something niggling at him. What had he seen? “Just a second.” He took out his phone and turned on the flashlight. By its small but bright white glow, he checked the walls and floor again.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Crowley drew a deep breath. “Something caught my eye. I can’t see it now… Ah!” He grinned, moved aside and waved Rose forward.

  “What is it?”

  Shining his light to get the best angle of light and shadow across the floor by the far wall, he said, “What do you see?”

  “A wall. Stone floor. Dust. Footprints.”

  “Yep. Keep looking.”

  Rose frowned, annoyance playing over her face, then her eyebrows shot up when she spotted some of the footpr
ints in the dust heading straight into the wall and not coming back. One was neatly bisected by the wall itself, like the huge stones had come down right on top of it.

  “There must be a way through there,” she said.

  Crowley crouched low, shining his light close to the ground. A dark line between the floor and wall showed the two weren’t quite connected. “This section of wall must be a doorway. But how to open it?”

  He stood back, looked left and right. The floor and wall, in fact the entire chamber, was empty and featureless.

  “There must be a hidden control somewhere.” He began looking closely at the floor stones, pressing them with his feet, feeling along the wall. His frustration grew as nothing yielded. Then he jumped at a sudden scraping of rock, and hopped back as a section of the wall about a meter wide and two high swung slowly open.

  He turned to see Rose on the far side of the chamber. She grinned at him from beside a stone that she had moved aside to expose a small lever set back out of sight.

  “You were looking too near the door,” she said. “I guess it makes sense to have a secret control further away. Helps to stop people stumbling across it.”

  “I suppose so.” Crowley looked into the dark space she had revealed. Even with his phone flashlight, the shadows obscured everything beyond a few meters. “Shall we explore?”

  Rose slid the stone back into place to conceal the lever and joined him. She gestured politely, grinning. “After you!”

  Chapter 16

  The Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt

  As they entered the dim passageway, something still tickled at the back of Crowley’s mind. He paused and Rose bumped into him from behind. She laughed and began to speak, but Crowley whipped up a hand to quiet her.

  “What is it?” she whispered, voice tight with tension.

  Crowley pointed to the ground, finally realizing what his subconscious had been digging him about. “I think there’s someone up ahead.”