Here he paused to see that most of his small audience was keeping up. “Understandably, this discovery is very worrying, and more data will have to be collected over the coming weeks and months, but the early evidence indicates that we may be witnessing an unprecedented phenomenon. In other words, the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe that we have been measuring for the past fifteen years or so, but that has existed for the past fifteen billion years, may at last be slowing.
“If unchecked, this could trigger a reversal that could result in what is euphemistically called the Big Crunch—a poor choice of words for what is, in reality, nothing less than the utter annihilation of the universe and the entire created order. Everything that exists or has ever existed will be obliterated.” His voice trailed off. “Existence itself will cease . . .”
It would be the end of everything.
There was nothing more to say.
CHAPTER 33
In Which Family Lore Is Fully Explored
The wadi was much as Charles imagined it: a dry channel cut through solid limestone by eons of water runoff from the surrounding hills. It was, however, far deeper than he expected. The smoothly undulating walls rose on either side to a height of twenty metres or more in great curves of banded stone like a giant curtain. In some places, however, the walls towered above the floor as high as thirty metres. The width varied too; sometimes the gap was so narrow the men and cargo-laden donkeys had to go single file; other times the corridor widened to stretches where an army could have marched ten abreast. The narrows were regions of cool shadow; the wider areas, where the sun reached all the way to the valley floor, were stifling hot. The air did not move much in the wadi.
Some of Charles’ earliest memories involved the story of the Skin Map and how it had been carried back to Egypt to be reunited with its owner—“in the wadi tomb where the three branches met.” It was not much to go on, and as he led his little expedition down along the winding corridor of the wadi, he desperately hoped it would be enough.
Deeper into the gorge, the expedition began to pass curious rectangular niches carved into the soft stone. Some of these had inscriptions above or below the recess in a language Charles did not recognise; others were adorned with odd images: winged beasts and men, pomegranates, disembodied heads with oversized eyes, braided cords, the outlines of flowers, meaningless abstract designs involving lightning bolt zigzags or bands of wavy lines. Farther along what had become an unending gallery, these hewn alcoves became more elaborate, more highly decorated—often with human figures in togas or flowing robes. Most of these bore inscriptions in Latin, and from this Charles guessed they were tombs or memorials to deceased aristocrats of the Roman occupation.
On they went, pausing at midday to eat and rest in the pools of shade provided by the rim of overhanging rock until the sun crossed the gap and the shadows began creeping up the wadi wall. It was not long after resuming their trek that they reached a place that matched the description of the location Charles had received from his father over the years. And Charles knew it the moment he saw it.
He had seen the wall ahead for some time and, as they drew nearer, he saw revealed the elaborately carved doorway of a large tomb or, perhaps, funerary temple. Upon reaching this imposing structure some minutes later, Charles saw that it lay across a wide expanse—a bowl of sorts—created by a second large ravine running perpendicular to the main gorge to form a fair-sized Y-junction . . . the place where three branches met.
“We stop here for the night,” Charles told Shakir in his pidgin Arabic. “Make camp.”
Leaving the details in the capable hands of his young assistant, Charles undertook a preliminary investigation of the area. Unfortunately, there was not much to see. Whatever signs he hoped to detect that might lead him to the tomb entrance were nowhere to be found. Aside from a scattering of shallow funerary niches carved into soft stone and the cavernous hollow of the ruined temple, or whatever it was, there was not so much as a crack or seam in the walls anywhere.
Charles made a lengthy survey of each branch of the wadi, but saw nothing he thought might indicate the presence of a tomb. While annoying, certainly, it was not entirely unexpected. He had come prepared with tools for excavation, after all. He went to sleep under the diamond-spangled heavens that night, certain that tomorrow he would locate Anen’s final resting place . . . and was still brimming with certainty the next morning when he quit his bedroll, pulled on his boots, and began a proper systematic search. He strode about the junction fizzing with anticipation and thumping the sides and floor of the gorge with a long iron rod. With each tap and thump he listened for a change in the sound that might betray a hollow or change in the makeup of the rock.
The workers—having risen, tended the animals, and breakfasted—now sat under their turbans watching him stalk the wadi like a thief knocking on the walls of a house to find a secret nook. This was, of course, exactly what he was doing.
When the sun rose high enough to begin pouring hot light down onto the floor of the wadi, Shakir approached with a bowl of mashed prunes mixed with pine nuts and a cup of water, beseeching his employer to eat and rest a little. Discouraged by his lack of success, Charles reluctantly agreed and went to sit in the shade of one of the low tents that now lined the eastern wall. As he munched his porridge and sipped his water, he regarded the nearly flat floor of gravel and pebbles and sand. It occurred to him that four thousand years of time and weather had conspired to alter the configuration of the wadi—subtly perhaps, but enough to thwart easy access to its secreted treasures. Clearly, a new tactic of discovery was necessary.
He finished his breakfast and summoned Shakir to join him at the west-facing wall. The young man watched as Charles, beginning at the junction corner, marched off a dozen paces and then a dozen more. Using his iron rod as an oversized stylus, he then etched two deep lines in the loose grit of the ravine floor—a short one of a metre or so perpendicular to the curtain, and a slightly longer one running parallel to it. Then, pointing to the space he had just defined, he pantomimed digging and said, “I want this all cleared away.” He grabbed a handful of loose rubble from inside his described box and threw it aside. “See? I want to dig a hole.”
Shakir likewise scooped up a handful of dry grit and tossed it away to show he understood. He then turned and called a command to the labourers, who gathered their tools and, upon receiving the boss’s orders, began to dig. Charles, his head now swathed in a makeshift white turban, stood by, watching as the hole deepened. At a depth of around one metre they reached bedrock, or at least the stony bottom of the gorge.
“Good! Excellent! Now take it that way,” Charles cried. Using the rod once more, he extended the line along the wadi face another metre or so. This was duly excavated and the hole cleared—at which point Charles extended the length yet again. The work continued, and slowly the trench took shape. He drew more lines in the opposite direction, whereupon the workers downed tools and returned to the tents.
“Come back!” called Charles. “We must make it bigger!”
“Laa, laa, Sekrey,” said Shakir, frowning and shaking his head. He pointed to the sky, shielded his eyes, and then wiped sweat from his face, all the while saying, “No.”
“Okay, okay,” relented Charles, waving his hands. “I understand, Shakir. We rest and eat.” He mimed eating, then pointed to the sun standing directly overhead and traced an arc towards the west. “We dig more later.”
The young Egyptian hurried away and ordered the midday meal to be prepared. While the others were thus occupied, Charles climbed down into the narrow trench and walked its length, tapping every few inches with the rod. The exercise did nothing to advance the project, and after a while Charles gave up and went to join his men in a meal and a nap during the hottest part of the day. When he awakened again the shadows had begun to gather in the wadi; he roused the men and directed them to extend the trench a few more metres—which was all that could be accomplished that day.
/> The next day was an almost exact repeat of the day before, as was the one after that. Progress was achieved, but at a pace Charles considered painfully slow. Though maddening, the lack of speed was understandable. The soaring heat meant that, at best, only six hours of actual labour could be maintained: three hours in the morning and three in the evening before the sun set. And while in England the luscious, lingering twilight hours might make up for an afternoon’s idleness, sunset in Egypt was an abrupt, truncated affair. Darkness descended with a rapidity that Charles found disconcerting—the drawing of a curtain, or snuffing of a candle.
Five days after the first pick struck the rubble, Charles had a handsome trench but little else to show for the effort, and supplies were getting low. He called Shakir to the cook tent. “We need more food and water,” he said, gesturing to the bags and skins heaped in the corner. “More men too.”
The youth nodded sagely. “Okay, Sekrey.”
Outside, Charles pointed to the mules. “You take beasts and one man,” he said, taxing his Arabic to the breaking point. “Get food. Get water.” He held up his palm, fingers spread. “Get five men—workers. Five.” Charles then mimed counting coins into his hand. “I give you money. Okay?”
“Okay. I go.”
Shakir and one of the younger labourers departed after the midday meal, taking the animals with them. It would be five more days before they returned, bringing with them enough supplies to replenish the stores and more besides. Also added to the number were five more men. Although two of the newcomers were scarcely more than teenagers, Charles was grateful for the help and put the younger ones in charge of the kitchen and menial chores, thus freeing three others to join the digging crews.
Life in camp settled into a daily round of work and rest, punctuated by meals and sleep. Every fortnight Shakir and one other would make the journey to secure more supplies, and the round began again—disturbed only by the occasional mishap: a heavy stone dropped on a bare foot; a swollen hand from a scorpion bite; food poisoning from inadequately salted fish; and, for Charles, prostration due to sunburn when he foolishly removed his shirt one day to allow it to be washed.
The trench gained length from both ends and a new excavation was begun on the opposite side of the wadi. But with each passing day, hope of finding the tomb dimmed a little more. Until one day, almost two months into the dig and with optimism and funds at their lowest ebb, Charles was stirred from his tent by urgent shouts.
“Sekrey! Sekrey!” cried one of the workers, and the summons was taken up by others. Charles emerged from the tent to see men gesturing wildly for him to come and see.
He hurried over to where the diggers were clearing the rubble from a narrow crevice little more than a crack in the stone—but a crack that ran perpendicular to the wall and straight as a ruler: a join that could only be man-made.
“Splendid!” cried Charles. “Clear it away!” He scratched a box in the dirt, indicating the area to be excavated. “Clear it all away!”
Work proceeded to expand the narrow ditch, following the line in the stone until the hole stretched halfway across the floor of the gorge. At times both labour and labourers were obscured by the heavy clouds of dust that hung in the dead, unmoving air. Bit by bit, as the blades of picks and shovels, rakes and hoes laid bare the base, certainty grew that they had found a series of hand-cut stones—blocks used to cover an opening.
Once the dust cleared, the extent of the brickwork was revealed; Charles estimated that they were looking at a sealed opening roughly two metres wide and about three metres long. “This is it!” he cried, fairly hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement. “This has got to be the place. Well done!”
The enforced rest through the afternoon heat was difficult to endure, but digging resumed in the shadow of the gorge and ceased only when it finally grew too dark to see. When the last digger crawled from the hole, Charles thrust in his torch to verify that they had succeeded in prying up most of the capstones to reveal a staircase; it angled down and into the base of the wadi wall. “Well done, Shakir,” he said. “Well done, everybody. We’ll begin again in the morning.”
The men, exhausted and hungry, dragged back to the tents for a well-earned supper and rest. Everyone slept soundly that night and rose the next morning to a day already stifling. The sky was parched white; the air lay heavy upon them—not enough movement to even stir the dust that billowed up with each basket of rubble cleared from the doorway. By midmorning the entrance stood revealed: a narrow doorway sealed with mortared stone. Charles, who had spent most of the morning down in the hole, called for a pick to begin chipping away at the blocks.
With each blow the stonework gave slightly, tumbling inward after only a few hefty swings of the pick. The bricks collapsed with a deep resonant clatter that sounded like thunder. It happened so fast, Charles stood for a moment listening to the echo and peering into the darkness yawning before him. “We’re in!” he called up the steps to Shakir, who was waiting at the top. “Bring torches. I need light.”
He was still speaking when there came another low rumble. It sounded so very much like another crumbling wall that Charles glanced back into the void half expecting to see the doorway collapsing. But all was as it had been moments before. He looked back up to Shakir and saw the young man and several of the workers gazing skyward.
“What was that?” he called from the hole. Cupping a hand to his ear, he shouted, “Shakir—that sound. What was that sound?”
Even as he spoke, the sky lit up with a flash of lightning; a few seconds later the low rumble echoed through the gorge. Thunder, unmistakably. A storm was on its way. A rare event in one of the driest regions in the world, it nevertheless happened. And it was about to happen now.
“The torches!” shouted Charles again. “Bring torches. No time to lose!”
He stepped into the yawning entrance of the tomb. Slowly, his light-dazzled eyes adjusted to the darkness. He began to make out the obscure bulk of objects, their edges outlined by the light slanting in from outside. He was about to call again when Shakir appeared in the doorway and thrust a torch into his hand.
Turning once more to the chamber, the flickering glow revealed an untidy mess of junk heaped in careless, haphazard piles, all of it covered with a hoary coat of dust. Charles had seen such a jumble before, in his own much-neglected attic. But where Charles’ loft contained tea chests full of old clothes, books, obsolete furniture, seasonal bedding, and the like, this chamber contained chairs and beds and lampstands, the slender wheels of several disassembled chariots and the chariot cars themselves, spears and rods and bows with quivers of arrows, painted screens, chests made of stone and wood, and numerous small statues. And everywhere: jars. All shapes and sizes of vessels in obsessive perfusion from tiny delicate alabaster unguent pots with the heads of goddesses on the lids to titanic terra-cotta grain jars that would have taken half a dozen men to shift.
The walls were decorated with the paintings—elaborate scenes of life on the Nile lovingly rendered in exquisite detail—recording a time and culture now at least three thousand years distant, yet still as fresh as wet paint. The colour, the immediacy, the intimacy, were breathtaking.
Charles observed all this in a single prolonged gape of enraptured astonishment. So many wonderful things! The depth and extent of the treasure was staggering. He had grown up hearing about the wealth of the ancients, but he had never imagined it amassed in heaps for the taking. Here it was, spread before him, untouched since the day it had gone into the tomb.
He moved into the treasure house of objects, his torch revealing more and still more wonderful things—many of them glinting warmly gold in the fluttering light. Yet the more he saw, the more concerned he became. With a sinking heart he realised he did not see the one object he had counted on finding. Nowhere amidst the bewildering welter of objects was there a sarcophagus.
As Charles gazed around, dismay grew. Where was the great burial vault containing the earthly remain
s of High Priest Anen? More to the point, where was the casket of his grandfather Arthur?
He was puzzling over this when a sharp cry from the stairway outside drew Shakir from the chamber. Ignoring the commotion, Charles moved farther into the tomb and made another sweeping examination; holding his torch high, he searched the room corner to corner and side to side.
There was no sarcophagus or coffin to be seen.
As large as they were, the great stone burial vaults could be neither missed nor confused with anything else. The grave of Arthur Flinders-Petrie was simply not there.
CHAPTER 34
In Which Hindsight Yields Perfect Vision
Sekrey! Sekrey!” The shout came first, and a moment later Shakir thrust his head through the doorway of the tomb. “Sekrey!” he cried again, pointing to something outside. “You come now.”
Returning to the entrance, Charles followed the youth up the stairs to find the workmen milling about in a state of agitated alarm. The donkeys were braying and pulling at their tether lines. Directly overhead, the dull white sky was now the colour of an angry bruise—blue-black and swollen with low, ominous clouds. The air was much cooler and surging on an erratically gusting wind. Charles could smell the rich, spicy scent produced by rain on dry desert soil, mingled with ozone. Even as he watched, a streak of forked lightning arced from west to east in a blinding flash. The crash of thunder that followed trembled the ground and quivered through the entrails.
“Sekrey!” shouted Shakir, pointing down the ravine where a thin snake of something dark and sinuous was meandering down the bottom of the gorge. “Heset!”
Charles stared at it for a few seconds before realising that it was, in fact, water—a probing, muddy tendril of filthy liquid blindly groping its way along the bone-dry wadi floor.
“You!” Charles pointed to a nearby worker. “You and you! Come with me,” he commanded, retracing his steps to the tomb. “You and you! Bring tools. Follow me.”