The Cult of Osiris

‘The pyramid on the zodiac, it’s upside down,’ she told him. ‘Don’t you see? It’s an inverted pyramid - and the people who made the map meant it literally. They were representing what was actually here.’

Macy was also caught up in her excitement. ‘Some tomb paintings, like Ramesses VI’s, show the Egyptian Underworld as a mirror world right underneath ours - like a reflection in the Nile. Maybe they built Osiris’s pyramid upside down to be an Underworld version of the real ones . . . no, wait, that doesn’t work. If the zodiac inside the Sphinx is older than Khafre, it would have to be older than any of the other pyramids.’

‘The Pyramid of Osiris isn’t an inverted copy of the other pyramids,’ Nina realised, breathless. ‘The other pyramids are inverted copies of the Pyramid of Osiris - they were built above the surface to imitate Osiris’s tomb in the Underworld! That’s why they put so much effort into matching the shape.’

‘Hang on,’ said Eddie. ‘You’re saying they built this pyramid upside down?’

Nina scooped a handful of sand from the ground, leaving a roughly conical depression. ‘They dug a hole and built the pyramid inside it, with the point at the bottom and working upwards. Or maybe they dug out each new layer below the one they’d just built and filled in the pyramid’s core once the outer walls were in place, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be any harder than building the Great Pyramid. It might even have been easier - they didn’t need to lift any of the stones up, just lower them down. Gravity was on their side.’

‘So we’re standing on it?’

‘One way to find out.’ She went back to the Defender and took out three shovels. ‘Let’s get to work.’

‘Where?’ Macy asked.

Nina indicated the ruin’s interior. ‘In there. I don’t think it’s just a marker - it’s an entrance.’

They started digging. It was slow going under the baking sun, requiring frequent breaks for water, but after a while Eddie’s spade struck something hard. ‘Let me see,’ Nina said, sweeping away sand with her bare hands. A flat stone slab was revealed.

‘Might just be this building’s floor,’ Eddie cautioned.

‘I don’t think so. Come on, let’s get the rest of it clear.’

They set back to work, Nina now too eager to take any more breaks. By the time they were done, a space just over six feet to a side had been mostly cleared. Nina brushed away more of the gritty covering, finding a narrow crack about a foot in from the wall. She traced its path with her finger; it formed a square. ‘It could be a cover stone for the entrance.’

Macy found something else at the slab’s centre. ‘Look familiar?’ she said, wiping away more sand. Revealed in the stone was a carved symbol.

The Eye of Osiris.

‘Guess we’re in the right place, then,’ said Eddie. ‘So what now?’ The women looked at him. ‘Oh, right,’ he sighed. ‘I get to lift up a two-ton stone block. Bloody marvellous.’ But he climbed out of the newly dug pit and returned to the Land Rover for more equipment. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Nina as he jumped back down with a long crowbar, ‘drink some water. I’m not having you keeling over, all right?’

‘All right,’ grumbled Nina, who had all but forgotten the heat. She retrieved her water bottle as Eddie examined the slab’s outline.

Finding the widest part of the gap, he inserted the crowbar. Straining, he pushed at it. There was a crunch, and the slab shifted slightly. ‘Not as heavy as I thought - it’ll only give me a little hernia,’ he said. ‘Nina, there’s some metal spikes in the Landie. Bring ’em, will you?’

Nina found them. As Eddie levered the slab open little by little, she pushed the tapered spikes into the gradually opening crack so it couldn’t fall back down. Before long, a thin line of darkness appeared beneath its lower edge. Eddie moved the Land Rover closer and used the 4?4’s winch to raise the slab higher. It rested on an inner lip of stone; grunting, he pushed it up to its tipping point and let it fall back against the wall with a bang.

‘There we go,’ he said, theatrically wiping dust from his palms. ‘Piece of piss.’

‘A bit too . . . piss piece-y,’ said Macy, looking down the hole. ‘The entrances to the other pyramids were all hidden.’

Nina had the same thought. ‘Either they reckoned the only people who would ever find it were supposed to be here . . . or that’s not the only obstacle.’

‘You’d better not be saying what I think you’re saying,’ Eddie growled.

‘Afraid I just might be, hon.’

Macy was confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Nina said.

They collected their equipment, then, exchanging wary looks, lowered themselves into the hole . . . to become the first people in over six thousand years to enter the Pyramid of Osiris.

22

The floor of the entrance chamber was about eight feet beneath the hole. Sand had seeped through directly below the opening, but beyond it everything was clean.

Almost too clean. There was a stagnant feel to the air. Nothing had moved here since the tomb was sealed, time standing still - or pausing, poised, waiting for someone foolish enough to disturb the eternal silence.

Macy shone a flashlight across the walls, revealing the chamber as somewhat larger than the structure above. ‘Hieroglyphics,’ she said, stepping closer. ‘Huh.’

‘What?’ Nina asked, joining her. ‘Can you read them?’

‘Just about, but they’re weird-looking. They must be really old.’

‘They’re beautiful, though.’ Nina slowly moved the beam of her own light along the white wall. The hieroglyphs were as clear and colourful as the day they had been painted, figures from Egyptian mythology standing amongst the text. She recognised some of them as gods: Ra, the sun-god, creator of all things; Nut, goddess of the sky, her naked body arched to form a vault over the entire earth.

But there was one god missing. ‘No Osiris.’ The key figure of ancient Egyptian religion was conspicuous by his absence.

‘No Horus, either,’ Macy added. ‘Or Set, or Isis. Not even Anubis, and since he’s the god of tombs, you’d kind of expect him to be here.’

‘They were all contemporaries of Osiris, or his children,’ Nina reasoned. ‘They hadn’t been deified yet. Which means this place really does pre-date the Old Kingdom - Osiris and the others were already worshipped as gods by 3000 BC.’

‘I was right,’ said Macy. ‘Yay me!’

Eddie explored another part of the chamber. ‘Got a doorway here.’ A pair of decorated pillars marked the exit. ‘There’re some stairs. Pretty steep.’

‘Let’s hold on - this room might tell us something useful.’

Macy examined the texts. ‘Freaky,’ she said. ‘They’re lists of all the trials that newlydeads have to go through in the Underworld. Like the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts.’

‘They sound cheerful,’ Eddie commented.

‘Earlier versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead,’ Nina told him.

‘Oh, perfect bedtime reading. By Stephenkingmun, was it?’

Macy giggled, then returned her attention to the walls. ‘What I don’t get is that in the other texts, all this stuff is basically prayers telling you how to get through each arit, each land, of the Underworld. Like instructions - if you haven’t sinned and you do what it says in the texts, you’ll get through all the trials to meet Osiris. This is written differently, though.’

‘How so?’ Nina asked.

Macy pointed out one section. ‘This is talking about the first arit of the House of Osiris. When you go in, you have to face the Lady of Tremblings, one of the guardians of the Underworld. But it only really says that she’s bad news, “the Lady of Destruction”. In the Book of the Dead it also says that she’ll deliver the person going through the Underworld from destruction if they’re doing things right - I remember it, because I thought the idea of being the Lady of Destruction was neat. Kinda metal.’

Eddie nudged Nina. ‘You know all about being the Lady of Destruction, don’t you?’