The Cult of Osiris

‘So the pyramids were really just giant dick-waving exercises?’ asked Eddie. ‘People haven’t changed much over five thousand years, have they?’ He turned his attention to the pipes. They were connected, one narrowing considerably at its base before widening out conically below a broad horizontal slot. A woman’s face had been painted around it, the opening forming her mouth.

‘It’s like a church organ,’ Nina realised. ‘They must blow air through it somehow - and that’s where the loud voice comes from.’

‘If they dropped something down the other tube, it’d work like a piston.’ There was another passage near the pipes, this one blocked by a barred metal gate. ‘Let me guess. Try to open the gate, the trap goes off, and the whole room gets as loud as a Led Zep concert.’

‘The who?’ Macy asked.

‘No, Led Zep.’ Ignoring her blank look, he moved towards the opening.

‘Careful, Eddie,’ Nina warned.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not gonna move it. I just want to find the trigger.’

‘No, I meant the gate might not be the—’

A slab shifted beneath his foot.

‘—trigger,’ Nina concluded.

‘Get into the other tunnel!’ Eddie shouted, turning back the way they had come—

A second gate slammed down inside the entrance, making Macy jump. No sooner had its echo faded than another sound began to rise, a deep, mournful note, quickly becoming louder.

And louder.

Air gusted from the slot, the sound resonating up the pipe’s length and bouncing back, amplified. The whole room vibrated, dust dancing from the floor, paint and plaster cracking off the walls.

And the chamber’s occupants were also affected. ‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped, a nauseating sensation rising in her chest cavity. Her own organs were vibrating in sympathy with the booming bass note. She tried to lift the fallen gate, but it refused to budge.

Eddie had no more luck with the other gate. He turned to the pipes. ‘Block it! Shove something in it!’

Nina could barely hear him over the thunderous din, but got the gist. She shrugged off her pack and tipped out its contents, balling up the nylon. Macy followed suit. Eddie was already at the pipe, face screwed up in discomfort as he jammed his jacket and his own empty pack into the slot. The note’s pitch changed slightly, the escaping air screeching shrilly as its exit was obstructed.

The women staggered across the trembling floor to him. He grabbed their balled-up packs and stuffed them into the gap. Nina dropped her flashlight and clapped both hands over her ears, but it made no difference; the sound was inside her, trying to shake her apart from within.

It was doing the same thing to the pyramid. Pieces of masonry fell down the shaft and shattered on the stone floor - small lumps at first, but the cracks spreading across the walls warned that there would be larger ones coming.

Unable to shield his ears, Eddie was finding the noise agonising - but it eased slightly as he twisted the makeshift bungs to block the gaps. Pipe organs were closed at the top, air only able to escape through the slot. If he could completely seal it . . .

The vibration began to die down. All he had to do was hold everything in place and endure the noise for as long as it took for the machine to run out of air—

A clanging shudder ran up the length of the pipe as the pressure rose - then rippled back down it. A blast of compressed air hit the mouth like a sledgehammer blow, firing the blockage out of the slot and bowling Eddie to the floor. With a ground-shaking whump like the clearing of the world’s mightiest throat, the terrifying bass note resumed - at full volume. Plaster splintered from the walls, even the paving cracking.

The noise was so overpowering that Nina could barely think. The beam of her dropped flashlight illuminated the bottom of the pipes. Blocking the mouth had failed, but there had to be another way . . .

Something Eddie had said forced its way through the disorientation.

Two pipes, a piston in one, forcing the air ahead of it as it dropped. The air itself acted as a cushion slowing its fall - there was only one relatively small hole through which it could escape, and the hourglass-shaped pinch at the bottom of the organ pipe restricted it further.

She knew what to do.

She grabbed a mallet from Eddie’s discarded gear. With her ears exposed, the sound became unbearable - she screamed, but couldn’t even hear it. A piece of falling stone hit her arm. More debris crashed around her, a crack leaping up the wall—

She swung the mallet.

It hit the pinch, tearing the metal. A piercing shriek escaped from the rent. Nina hit it again, and again - and the pipe ripped apart.

Air blasted out, the awful bass note dropping in volume. She whacked the pipe again, trying to close off the section producing the sound. The metal bent across the torn hole.

The note faded.

Head ringing, Nina stepped back. The escaping rush of air was still roaring like a jet engine - and there was another sound, a metallic clung-clung-clung rapidly getting louder—

Eddie threw her backwards as the bottom of the other pipe blew apart, something inside it hitting the ground so hard that it smashed a crater into the flagstones. The piston. With air now freely able to escape from the pipe, there had been nothing to slow it, and it had plunged downwards as fast as gravity could take it.

A last few fragments from high above hit the floor, then the rain of debris stopped. The quiet and stillness was almost shocking. Nina brushed dust from her face, then looked at Eddie. His mouth moved silently.

Oh, God, she was deaf—

‘Just kidding,’ he said, grinning.

She hit him. ‘You son of a bitch!’

‘Hey, we’re okay. I think.’ Concern crossed his face as he clicked his fingers beside one ear. ‘Shit, that doesn’t sound right.’

‘You’re surprised, after that?’ She retrieved her flashlight, finding Macy. ‘Are you okay?’

Macy slowly took her hands from her ears. ‘Jeez. My mom and dad were right - you can play music too loud.’

Nina helped Eddie up. ‘Let’s try those gates.’

He went to the exit and strained to lift the gate. It was heavy, but it moved. When they had recovered their gear, he hauled the gate up high enough for Nina and Macy to get underneath, then they supported it as he slid through. He looked back at the wreckage of the trap. ‘Five down, two to go.’

‘Yeah, but the last two sound really nasty,’ Macy pointed out. ‘The Hewer-in-Pieces and the Cutter-off of Heads? Not good.’

‘We can beat them,’ said Nina, oddly buoyed by their survival. ‘And then . . . we’ll meet Osiris.’ They set off down the next passage.

Over two hundred feet above, Osir led his expedition to the Lady of Tremblings. Dust drifted through the room, stirred up by the sound from the massive pipe. ‘I think we’ve found where that noise came from,’ he said, directing a powerful torch beam across the shaft.

The rest of his group followed him on to the ledge. Although there were several men in military-style uniforms, wearing equipment webbing and carrying weapons, they were not soldiers: Khaleel, though accompanying Osir out of curiosity, had chosen to leave his men aboard the hovercraft. The troopers were members of the Osirian Temple, Shaban’s personal security force.

Shaban gazed at the long drop below. ‘Some sort of trap. Wilde and Chase, and the girl - they must have triggered it.’ He smirked malevolently. ‘I’m in two minds, brother. It would be amusing if they died setting off a trap that we then walked through safely, but I’m also hoping they survive - so I can kill them myself.’

‘All that matters is that they can’t get out,’ said Osir. He turned to Berkeley. ‘What do you make of this room?’

‘The hieroglyphs in the entrance chamber definitely suggested that each arit is