The Cult of Osiris

its release after six millennia had broken the mechanism. ‘Least we’ll be able to get back out.’

‘We made it,’ Macy said, panting. ‘We got through - that was the last trap!’ She hesitated. ‘Right?’

‘If the hieroglyphics were telling the truth, then yeah,’ Nina assured her. Even so, she still stood with a degree of caution. Ahead was another bend, the passage angling downwards.

She looked round the corner. Steps led down a short distance to another set of columns.

But these were not the kind that marked each arit. These were something altogether different.

And magnificent.

‘Oh, you’ve got to see this,’ she said softly, barely breathing despite her recent exertion.

Macy gasped at the sight, and even Eddie was impressed. ‘Pretty flash.’

The columns were carved in the form of an Egyptian god, mirror-images facing each other. But they were not any of the figures that had watched their descent into the heart of the pyramid. This was another, a man in a tall headdress, bearing a crook in one hand and a flail in the other. His body was encased in tight bindings, like those of a mummy, but his face was exposed, skin an oxidised copper-green. Both figures were liberally adorned with gold and silver leaf.

Osiris.

Between the twin statues was the entrance to a dark chamber. Nina raised her flashlight. More gold and silver glinted within, treasures stacked round the walls, but her gaze was fixed on what lay at the centre of the large room: a bulky, rounded-off object, its skin pure silver.

A sarcophagus.

Nina slowly advanced, checking the two figures for any sign of some last, sneaky trap. There was none. They had reached their goal, the final chamber.

‘We found it,’ she said, looking at Eddie and Macy in wonderment. ‘We found the tomb of Osiris.’

25

They entered the chamber, a match to the Osireion in dimensions and form, torch beams flashing over the artefacts and treasures inside. They ranged from the astounding to the prosaic - gleaming statues of pure gold beside simple wooden chairs; a full-sized boat bearing a silver and gold mask of Osiris upon its prow against which had been propped bundles of spears. It was a find to exceed even the tomb of Tutankhamun. The famed pharaoh had been a relatively unimportant ruler of the New Kingdom, less than three and a half thousand years ago, but Osiris was a myth given flesh, a foundation stone of Egyptian civilisation dating back almost twice as far.

And they were the first to reach him.

Nina examined the sarcophagus. The lid was a larger than life representation of the man within. The sculpted silver face gazed serenely at the ceiling, kohl-lined eyes wide.

‘The craftsmanship’s absolutely incredible,’ she whispered. ‘All of this is.’ She gestured at the objects surrounding them. ‘I never imagined the pre-dynastic Egyptians were this advanced.’

‘It’s just like Atlantis,’ said Macy. ‘They were really advanced for their time too, but nobody knew about them. Until you found them.’

Nina smiled at her. ‘Y’know, this is really more of a joint discovery, Macy.’

Macy beamed. ‘Not bad for a C-student, huh?’

Eddie took a closer look at a set of painted wooden figurines, symbolic representations of the servants who would attend their king in the afterlife, then eyed a cruder statuette carved from an odd purple stone before moving to the other side of the sarcophagus. ‘All right, so what do we do now we’ve found all this?’

‘Normally I’d say photograph, catalogue, then examine,’ said Nina, ‘but this isn’t exactly a normal case. First thing we need to do is secure it. We’ll have to contact the Egyptian government, go to Dr Assad at the SCA.’

‘So what about this bread Osir was after?’ He looked for anything resembling food. On a small wooden table was what might once have been loaves, but they had long been reduced to mouldering dust. ‘Don’t think he’ll get any sarnies out of them. Is there anything else?’

‘Look down.’ Eddie did, seeing a recess set into the coffin’s base, a pottery jar about ten inches high inside it. ‘Canopic jars. The Egyptians used them to store the body’s vital organs after they were removed during mummification. Osir thinks there’ll be yeast spores in his digestive system.’

Macy saw another jar on the floor by Nina, then went to the head of the sarcophagus to find a third. ‘There’s one here, too - and there should be another down by his feet.’ Eddie checked, and nodded. ‘One for each compass point. This one’s got a monkey head, a baboon - it’s the god Hapi. That means it’s got Osiris’s lungs in it.’ She was about to pick up the jar when she realised what she had just said and flinched away. ‘Gross.’

‘Which jars are which?’ Nina asked.

‘Hapi represented the north, so . . .’ She worked out the compass directions. ‘The one on your side should be a jackal - that’s Duamutef.’

Nina shone her light on the jar, revealing that the painted cap was indeed in the long-eared shape of a jackal’s head. ‘Yep.’

‘So that’ll be the stomach. The one opposite’ll be a falcon, that’s Qebehsenuf. Or is it Qebehsunef? That’s what you get for having a language with no vowels, I guess. Anyway, that’ll have his intestines inside.’

‘Lovely,’ said Eddie. ‘A jar full of guts.’

‘And the one at the south end, under his feet, that should look like just some guy because Imseti was a human god. That’ll be Osiris’s liver.’

He smacked his lips. ‘That’s more like it. Anyone got any fava beans?’

‘It’s six thousand years old, Eddie,’ Nina warned with a grin. ‘And we didn’t bring any Pepto-Bismol.’

‘I’ll give it a miss, then. So if Osir’s after these jars, what should we do with them? Smash ’em?’

‘I’d really rather you didn’t,’ said Osir from the entrance.

Nina jumped in shock, and Macy yelped as they spun to see him leaning almost casually against one of the Osiris figures. Beside him, Shaban’s stance was anything but casual as he covered them with a gun.

Osir stepped forward, revealing that more people, Diamondback and Hamdi among them, had crept down the steps. ‘It’s more incredible than I imagined,’ he said, taking in the chamber’s contents. ‘And now, it all belongs to me.’

‘No, it absolutely does not,’ snapped Nina.

‘We were here first,’ said Eddie. ‘Finders keepers.’

Shaban gestured for them to move away from the sarcophagus. ‘I have something else you can keep. A bullet.’

Osir went to the silver coffin, picking up the canopic jar from its foot. ‘And the organs of Osiris himself are here. Just as I said, Dr Wilde.’

Nina was about to reply when someone else entered. ‘Logan?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, you son of a bitch. You’re working for these clowns now?’

Berkeley regarded her coldly. ‘This is a habit of yours that’s starting to piss me off, Nina. I make a big find, but you’ve beaten me to it. At least this time you’re not making me look like a complete jackass on live TV.’

‘Oh, boo hoo,’ Nina sneered, pretending to wipe away a tear. ‘Poor little Logan, someone stole his thunder - so he’s going to go against everything I thought he believed in and sell out to a bunch of wack-jobs from some stupid bogus religion.’

Shaban’s scarred face twisted angrily and he aimed the gun at Nina, but Osir shook his head. ‘Not in here. I don’t want the tomb despoiled.’ He put down the jar and slowly circled the sarcophagus. ‘Four jars - the liver, intestines, lungs . . . and stomach.’ Almost reverentially, he raised the jackal-headed jar. ‘This holds the key to eternal life, Dr Wilde. In this jar are spores of the yeast used to make the bread of Osiris. All I need is one sample, and the secret will be mine. I will cultivate it, I will own it, and I will control it.’

‘That’s assuming there are actually any spores in there,’ said Nina. ‘Maybe Osiris hadn’t eaten any bread before he died. Maybe it was overcooked and the yeast cells were killed. You might have gone through all this for nothing.’

‘Not nothing,’ said Osir, shrugging. ‘I’ll still have the tomb, no matter what. But that’s why I brought Dr Kralj.’ He waved for a bearded man to join him. It took Nina a moment to identify him: one of the scientists working with