The Cult of Osiris

disappointment. Half a mile. Less. The landscape ahead was indistinguishable from what they had already covered.

The GPS bleeped. ‘This is it,’ said Eddie, stopping the Land Rover. ‘We’re here.’

Macy jumped out, turning to see only endless empty desert. ‘I . . . I don’t get it,’ she said, running to the other side of the 4?4 as if expecting to find a different view. ‘We followed all the clues, we found the silver canyon . . . why isn’t it here?’

Nina put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder as Eddie clambered on to the Land Rover’s roof to survey the surrounding plain. ‘Hey, it’s okay. There might still be parts of it under the sand.’

‘Only parts of it?’

‘This is what archaeology is usually about - it’s very, very rare that a completely new site is found intact.’

‘They’re intact when you find them, though.’ To Nina’s surprise and dismay, Macy seemed on the verge of tears.

‘Hey, hey, what’s wrong?’ she said. ‘We haven’t even started checking the area yet. We might still find something.’

‘No we won’t,’ Macy stammered. ‘There’s nothing here. I’ve wasted your time - I’ve wasted everybody’s time, I almost got you both killed, and for nothing! Oh, my God, I’m sorry!’

‘What - why are you sorry?’ Nina asked helplessly. ‘Macy, why are you so upset?’

‘Because . . . because Dr Berkeley was right about me! And so was my professor, and so were my teachers at high school . . . and so were you.’

‘Right about what?’

Macy couldn’t look at her, tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘I’m-I’m-I’m worthless,’ she managed to say.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Nina, shocked by the young woman’s sudden and total collapse of confidence. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘Because I am. I’ve never had to work for anything in my entire life. I always got whatever I wanted just because I was rich and pretty and popular, and people did things for me.’ She bowed her head miserably. ‘And the one time, the one time, when I really, really try hard to prove I can achieve something myself . . . I completely fail and let everyone down! I let you down.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Nina. ‘Really, you didn’t. You said it yourself - if it hadn’t been for you, Osir would have gotten away with the zodiac and nobody would ever have known. And you have achieved things for yourself. You got a place on the dig.’

‘Only ’cause my mom called in a favour. Oh, God . . .’ She finally raised her head. ‘I wanted to be like you because I thought you were cool. I never realised how hard you worked, how much you went through. I thought that if I tried to be like you, everything would just come to me like it always did . . . but I was wrong, and now we’re in this fucking horrible place with nothing to show for it. Nothing! ’

Nina couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, she put her arms round the sobbing woman, trying to provide some comfort.

‘I’m sorry,’ Macy mumbled. ‘I really am.’

‘You don’t have to apologise for anything,’ Nina assured her. ‘And we should still search the area. Maybe there’s something to find.’

‘There won’t be,’ she said miserably.

‘Oi!’ said Eddie, jumping down from the Land Rover. ‘Enough with this fucking defeatism, okay? I just got my wife through one bout of it; I’m not having someone else start.’

Nina was about to berate him for his insensitivity when she realised his attitude had changed; his obnoxiousness was a deliberate set-up for something. ‘What is it?’ she asked instead. ‘I know that face - you’ve got something.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got something. It’s not a pyramid, but it’s man-made.’ He pointed northwest. ‘Over there.’

Nina saw nothing except more sand and rocks. ‘Where?’

He gave her the binoculars and pointed again. ‘Those rocks, the ones in a sort of L-shape?’

‘Yeah?’

‘They’re not rocks.’

The magnified view revealed something new. Two large stones, one flat on the ground touching the base of another poking up from the sands.

Stones . . . with straight edges. Not rocks.

Blocks.

The same size and colour as the ones used to construct the Osireion.

‘My God,’ Nina gasped. ‘It’s a building!’

‘What’s left of one, anyway,’ said Eddie.

Macy looked back and forth between Nina and Eddie, wondering if they were playing some cruel joke, before realising they were not. ‘Wait, you - you’ve found something? There’s really something here?’

‘We were just a bit off course,’ Nina told her, giving her the binoculars and pointing out the ruin. Macy gave a little gasp when she saw it. ‘See? I told you not to give up, didn’t I?’

Macy wiped her eyes. ‘Well - well, what are we waiting for?’ she said, her hesitant attempt at a smile quickly becoming genuine. She climbed into the Land Rover. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

‘Wow,’ said Nina, amused. ‘Wish I could bounce back that quickly.’

Eddie put an arm round her shoulders. ‘You do all right.’

The two stones revealed themselves as the remains of a small structure, roughly twelve feet by twelve, the other walls barely protruding above the sand. The thickness of the blocks meant the interior was even smaller. If it had once been a dwelling, it would have made a prison cell seem spacious.

Nina had another theory, though. ‘It’s a marker. There aren’t any natural landmarks, so they had to build one. But what’s it marking?’

Macy examined the blocks for further clues. ‘Maybe there’s another set of directions here.’

Nina shook her head. ‘The zodiac text said that after you come out of the silver canyon, the next stop is the actual pyramid.’

‘So where is it?’ Eddie asked. ‘It can’t have been buried, can it? I mean, this thing’s still sticking up, so unless it’s the world’s tiniest pyramid we should be able to see something.’

‘Unless it was buried deliberately.’ But she dismissed the idea. The amount of sand needed to completely bury even a small pyramid would be unimaginable.

It was the right place, though. Finding the canyon required specialised knowledge of the Osireion, which would have been limited to a small number of people, and the astronomical calculations needed to deduce the direction of the journey’s final leg were the province of even fewer. The pyramid had to be here.

So why couldn’t they see it?

It all came back to the zodiac. Nina took out the stolen photo of the ancient relief.

‘Doing a bit of astrology?’ said Eddie.

‘There must be one more clue on here, I’m sure of it.’ Macy hopped down to join her as she perused the image. ‘Which way’s north?’

Eddie checked his compass and pointed. Nina aligned the zodiac with it . . . then flipped the paper over and held it above her head. ‘This is how you were meant to view it,’ she said. ‘Looking up at it - and facing north. The clue’s here, it’s on the map, it’s . . . here!’ She brought the chart sharply down, keeping it oriented so that north, which had been ahead of her, was now at the bottom of the page. ‘The pyramid marking! Do you see it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, ‘but what about it? It’s just a triangle.’

‘Maybe, but which way is it pointing?’

‘Down,’ said Macy, the implications sinking in a moment later. ‘No way!’

Nina smiled. ‘Way.’

Eddie frowned at the map. ‘Okay, what am I missing?’