King Solomon's Curse

12

With a crackle of tearing roots, the little tree toppled over the tower’s side and plunged to the ground over fifty feet below in an explosion of leaves and dust. Those watching from the roof whooped and cheered.

Eddie, who along with Fortune, Paris and Wemba had dug the tree out from the pit, was less vocal but equally exuberant. ‘Bye, you bugger,’ he said, shaking off sweat.

‘Nice work!’ Nina shouted from below. ‘Was anything underneath?’

‘God, give us a chance!’ He turned to the ragged hole where the tree had stood. ‘More sand, but…’ He jabbed a shovel into the newly excavated space. Muffled thuds as the blade cut into the soil — then came a harsh clank as it struck stone beneath. ‘The bottom’s about a foot down.’

‘How long will it take you to clear it?’

‘The four of us? Twenty minutes, if that.’

‘More digging?’ said Fortune. ‘I am glad I took off my jacket.’

Eddie regarded him sidelong. ‘Yeah, and there’s still not a speck of dirt on you. How do you do that?’

The African gave him a gold-toothed smile. ‘I am just lucky.’

‘If you were that lucky, you wouldn’t be up here digging a bloody hole in eighty-degree heat.’

Fortune laughed, then picked up another shovel. With the four men working in concert, it did not take long to clear the pit. ‘Okay, we’re done,’ Eddie finally announced. ‘The people with an archaeology degree can get their lazy arses up here now.’

‘We will get out of the way,’ said Fortune. He and the two other Congolese descended the ladder.

They were soon replaced by Nina, Ziff and the documentary crew. Nina stepped into the pit to examine its floor. ‘This,’ she said, running a finger along a narrow gap surrounding a block at its centre, ‘looks like it might lift out.’

Ziff probed the crack with a fingernail. ‘It will be heavy.’

‘I came prepared.’ She unslung a backpack, metal clanking inside it.

‘Bollocks,’ said Eddie as she produced some crowbars. ‘No prizes for guessing who’ll be hoiking big stone blocks out of the floor. I should’ve gone back down with Fortune when I had the chance. He is bloody lucky.’

‘Oh, stop moaning,’ Nina said, smiling. ‘You sound like…’ She realised her eyes had gone to Lydia. ‘Mona the moaner,’ she hurriedly concluded.

‘Who?’ Eddie asked, puzzled. Rivero snickered.

‘Nobody, never mind.’ She picked up a crowbar to cover her embarrassment as the New Zealander’s look of suspicion grew. ‘Help me get this thing open.’

Both bars were jammed into the gaps on each side of the block. The couple readied themselves, then pulled. The slab inched upwards as they repositioned the tips of their crowbars in turn. ‘Nearly — got it,’ Nina grunted. ‘Just a little—’ The stone slab jerked upwards. ‘Whoa, wedge it, wedge it!’

‘I’ve got it,’ said Eddie, holding it in place. Nina tugged again. The thick flagstone lifted higher — and dust blew out from beneath it as a dark crack opened up. ‘It’s coming out!’ More effort, and he managed to slide the slab out of its resting place. Once freed, it did not take long to move clear.

Nina peered into the revealed opening. A vertical shaft dropped into darkness below, holes cut into one wall acting as a ladder. ‘This is it!’ she announced in awe. ‘We found the way into the Palace Without Entrance. Or rather,’ she went on, looking up at her husband, ‘you did, Eddie. You bypassed the puzzle — which means you actually out-thought King Solomon!’

Eddie grinned. ‘I always thought I was really wise. It’s just no one ever agreed with me!’

‘It’s very possible that nobody has been inside the palace since Solomon built it!’ said Ziff excitedly. ‘We have to get down there and see.’

‘Your attitude’s changed since we opened up the First Temple,’ Nina said, lightly teasing. ‘You weren’t in such a rush back then.’

‘What can I say? You have shown me the benefits of your… unique approach.’ The old man grinned. ‘But this is an incredible find. The First Temple had been lost, yes, but its existence was never in doubt. This, though? It is a legend brought to life!’

‘We’d better get some more gear, then,’ said Eddie. ‘Lights, for a start.’ He was about to call down to Fortune when he noticed something odd about the slab they had removed. ‘Hold on, look at this.’

He indicated the bottom of the square flag. Beneath the inches of pale stone was a layer of a dull grey material. ‘Is that lead?’ Nina asked. She tapped it with a crowbar. The soft metal dented with the contact. ‘It is.’

Ziff pointed into the entrance. ‘There is more here, on the inside.’ Beneath its lip was another line of grey, close to an inch thick. ‘It goes all the way around.’

Eddie drew back in alarm. ‘The place is lead-lined? It is fucking radioactive!’ Several of the others pulled away from the opening. ‘No wonder all the bloody trees are sick! We need to get out of here.’

Lydia shook her head. ‘A radiation source wouldn’t make that low-frequency noise.’

‘What are you, a nuclear physicist?’

She looked offended. ‘As a matter of fact, I did study physics at university.’

‘Oh, well, then I wholeheartedly apologise,’ he said with a sarcastic lack of contrition. ‘But King Solomon bricked up whatever’s down there inside a lead-lined palace because it killed off the people who lived around it! This whole place was called the City of the Damned, remember?’

‘There’s a way we can check,’ Lydia insisted. ‘Jay, put the camera’s lens cap on and point it down the hole, then shoot some footage.’

Rivero shot her a bewildered frown. ‘What good’ll that do?’

‘If there’s any dangerous radiation down there, the camera’s CCD will still pick it up even through the cap — it’ll show on the recording as static. We did an experiment using an old phone camera where we put tape over the lens and filmed a radiation source. It looks like snow.’

The cameraman was still unconvinced. ‘Wait, so you want me to poke my face into Chernobyl?’

‘If it really is radioactive down there, we’ve already been exposed to it,’ Nina pointed out. ‘And David and I have been closer to it than anyone else.’

‘Okay, then you shoot the footage!’

She impatiently held out her hands. ‘Give me the camera, then.’

The prospect of surrendering what was practically an inseparable appendage gave Rivero second thoughts. ‘No, no, it’s okay, I can do it,’ he muttered, sulkily attaching the lens cap and moving to the shaft. All the same, he held the camera at arm’s length as he pointed it into the darkness. ‘All right, five seconds — that better be long enough,’ he said, rapidly retreating.

The Sony had a small fold-out monitor. Everyone clustered around it as he reviewed the recording. ‘It just looks black,’ said Fisher, relieved.

Rivero paused playback, zooming in on the frame. Blocky digital artefacts became vaguely visible, but there was no sign of the snow Lydia had described. ‘I think it’s safe,’ she announced.

Expressions of relief echoed around the group. ‘Second kid’s still an option, then,’ Eddie said to Nina.

‘As if the first isn’t enough of a handful?’ she replied. ‘So why would Solomon have lined the roof with lead if not to keep radiation in?’

‘It would protect whatever is inside from water,’ suggested Ziff.

‘Only one way to find out.’ Nina went to the top of the shaft. ‘We have to go inside.’

With the help of the three porters, the team brought all the equipment needed to explore the palace’s interior to its entrance. ‘Okay,’ said Nina, ‘I think we’re ready. We should limit the number of people going inside to start with, though. Sorry,’ she added to her Congolese companions.

‘We don’t get to see the treasure?’ said Wemba, disappointed.

‘We don’t even know if there is any treasure,’ Ziff told him. ‘For all we know, the shaft could be blocked at the bottom.’

‘I could send the drone down to look,’ Howie suggested, patting the quadcopter’s case.

‘I’d rather get the first look with my own eyes, thanks,’ said Nina. ‘And why did you bring it with you at all? A drone won’t be much use indoors.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Fisher said. He indicated the vaulted roof. ‘There could be a big open space underneath that. If there is, then the drone can fly up to the ceiling and get some great shots of the whole interior.’

‘Just remember that this is an archaeological expedition first and a photo opportunity second,’ Nina insisted. She donned a backpack, then shone a powerful flashlight into the darkness. The holes cut into the wall descended all the way to the bottom, which she estimated was at least twenty feet below the level of the palace’s main roof. ‘Long climb, but doesn’t look too hard.’

‘Someone should stay up here while we’re inside, just in case,’ Eddie said to Fortune.

‘You are expecting trouble?’ his friend asked.

‘No, but I want to be ready for it. If anybody gets hurt, we’ll need to get them out quickly — and our radios won’t work through walls this thick even if they weren’t lined with bloody lead. So we might have to shout up to you.’

‘Somebody will always be here on watch,’ Fortune assured him. He issued instructions to Paris and the porters, who descended the ladder.

Rivero had by now switched on his camera. ‘Nina, if you could give us a speech to camera about descending into the unknown?’ said Fisher as she put on a head-mounted light and prepared to enter the shaft.

The redhead gave him an impatient look. ‘I’m about to descend into the unknown,’ she said, before starting down the ladder. Eddie laughed as the director sighed in annoyance. ‘Okay, here I go.’

The initial climb was easy, boosting her confidence. She paused a few feet down to examine the underside of the entrance. There was no accumulated dirt or evidence of water damage; the slab had been tightly sealed. As Ziff had suggested, it was entirely plausible that it had not been opened since Solomon’s time.

She continued down the stone ladder until darkness surrounded her, then switched on her head torch. The beam followed her gaze, revealing that the stonework was cut with incredible precision. Again, she was reminded of the interior of the First Temple in Jerusalem.

The remainder of the descent was straightforward. Nina finally stepped down at the bottom. Fine dust crunched under her soles. More had accumulated within the lowest stone rungs, as if it had been blown from somewhere below. She turned to see a passageway with a thin layer of the same residue on its floor. Were there openings beyond to let in air from outside? None had been visible on the palace’s exterior…

‘Nina!’ Ziff, his voice echoing down the shaft. ‘What do you see?’

She looked up to the little square of light above. ‘There’s a passage leading into the palace. Everything looks safe. Come on down.’

Some jockeying for position took place at the ladder’s top, Eddie reluctantly ceding his place to let Ziff start down before him. Nina moved clear of the shaft, unable to resist the temptation to explore further. She took out her flashlight to complement her head torch and advanced down the tunnel.

A chamber opened out ahead. She entered the new space — and stopped, both in awe and a suspicion born of painful experience. Eight stone slabs resembling doors were set into the walls around the room, but the only open way out was a narrow passage. A prominent inscription in Old Hebrew had been carved above its entrance, and as she moved closer she spotted horizontal slots set into both walls of the tunnel. At the far end, some fifty feet away, was another chamber. All she could see inside it was a squat statue of a male figure, its mouth gaping open. Her torch beam picked out silver glinting within.

The wall slots were what had triggered her sense of lurking danger. She had encountered more than enough booby traps in the past to guess that something would sweep out of them at anyone trying to pass. Checking the floor, she saw that the individual flagstones forming its first half gave way to a single large slab at the other end. A channel of the same width was set into the floor of the room beyond.

Deciding to hold off on investigating the passage for now, Nina instead examined the doors. They seemed to be relics of the lost civilisation, inscriptions in an unknown language set into their surfaces. She cautiously touched one, but it didn’t move. Moving to the next, she was about to test it when a thump of feet on stone told her that someone had reached the bottom of the ladder. ‘David?’ she called.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ Ziff replied, switching on a flashlight. ‘Have you found anything?’

‘You could say that.’

The Israeli made his way to her as Eddie dropped down behind him. ‘Oh…’ gasped Ziff as he entered. ‘I see what you mean.’ He shone his light at the inscription above the narrow passageway, then moved for a closer look.

‘Don’t go in there,’ Nina warned. ‘I’m getting a nasty feeling of “booby trap” from it.’ He stopped sharply.

Eddie entered. ‘What was that about a booby trap, and why am I not even the slightest bit surprised?’

‘That would fit with the inscription,’ Ziff said as he gazed at the text on the wall. ‘It says… “The great King Solomon has decreed that those who wish to reach the Mother of the Shamir must prove their worth. This test of wisdom is the first of three. Only the dead shall pass alive; the living who enter shall die.”’ A rough translation, admittedly.’

‘It gets the point across.’ Nina went as close to the entrance as she was willing. ‘Have you seen what’s at the far end?’

Ziff directed his torch beam down the tunnel. ‘Ah! Another part of the legend! Solomon found an idol with a silver tablet in its mouth bearing a message from the former ruler Shaddad, son of ’Ad.’

‘So dad ’Ad ’ad Shaddad?’ said Eddie. Both archaeologists shot him stony stares. ‘I’ve ’ad that look before. What was the message?’

‘A reminder of man’s mortality,’ Ziff continued. ‘For all his achievements, all his conquests, Shaddad couldn’t escape death in the end.’

‘Nope, not ominous at all,’ said Nina ruefully.

‘Wait, whatever you’re doing, wait,’ said Fisher as he hurried into the chamber. ‘We need to film whatever you find as you find it, that’s kind of the point of the show. Oh, wow.’ He looked around. ‘This is impressive. What’s behind all these doors?’

‘I don’t know,’ Nina answered. ‘I haven’t tried opening them yet.’

‘Okay, you can have a go once Jay and Howie get here with the cameras.’ He saw the idol in the beam of Ziff’s flashlight. ‘Hel-lo! Who do we have here?’

‘Don’t go down there,’ said Eddie. ‘Nina thinks it’s booby-trapped.’

Fisher regarded the corridor dubiously. ‘Is that likely?’

‘You did actually watch my first series, didn’t you?’ Nina said. ‘But yeah, the Hebrew text above the entrance is a pretty big warning sign. So we’re not going down there until we know what we’re dealing with.’

Fisher held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. This is the part where you’re the expert.’

Rivero and Lydia entered, Howie trailing behind them carrying the drone’s case and a bag of equipment. ‘What’d we miss?’ asked the cameraman.

‘Dire warnings of death, the usual,’ Fisher replied dismissively. ‘Howie, let’s set up some lights. Flashlight beams are cool if you’re making The X-Files, but we need more visibility.’ The crew started to take out lighting gear.

‘What do we do while we’re waiting?’ Eddie asked Nina. ‘Try the doors?’

‘We could, although I’m a lot more wary about touching anything after David read that little note from King Solomon,’ she replied.

‘It does seem to refer specifically to that exit, though,’ said Ziff. ‘Which door did you try?’ She pointed. He tested it as well, with no better result.

Eddie examined it. ‘Want me to have a go?’

‘I don’t think it would help.’ Ziff aimed his light at the door’s edge. ‘I’m not even sure if there is anything behind this. It looks as if…’ He flinched in annoyance as Rivero switched on his camera’s spotlight and shone it at his face. ‘As if it has been fixed directly to the wall.’

‘I did wonder if they were more like exhibits, or prizes, from Zhakana,’ said Nina, nodding. ‘Solomon might have rescued them from some important building in the ruins.’

‘The design definitely doesn’t match the rest of the palace,’ the Israeli noted. ‘And as for this text…’ He peered at the inscriptions over his glasses. ‘I thought at first it was a completely unknown language, but actually…’

‘Proto-Ge’ez?’ Nina offered. ‘Some of the characters are similar.’

‘Very close, yes. Perhaps with Sabaic influences, they both have South Semitic roots…’ Rivero retreated, clearly bored, as the two archaeologists continued talking, turning to film other parts of the room.

Eddie went to the neighbouring door. ‘We could try the others. They might not all be fake.’

‘Maybe, but not just yet,’ said Nina, still intrigued by the ancient writing. ‘I’m wondering if this…’ She stopped, registering on the edge of her vision that Rivero was continuing away from her—

Into the passage.

She whirled in alarm. The Hispanic cameraman had gone through the opening, regarding the slots in the wall with indifference before fixing his gaze upon something more attention-grabbing — the idol. He quickened his pace towards it. ‘Hey, you guys seen this?’

‘Jay!’ Nina cried, rushing after him. ‘Stop, get out of there! It’s a—’

Rivero reached the large floor slab — which shifted under his weight, sending him stumbling.

A deep, crunching rumble came from behind the ancient stonework. The others stared in shock as the walls at the passage’s far end began to move, closing in on each other.

The slab beneath Rivero dropped farther into the floor. He regained his balance, regarding the narrowing space around him in disbelief before his fear response kicked in. He turned to flee, vaulting up over the deepening step and charging back towards the first chamber.

A new sound, a dry metallic rattle. Chains scraped over each other, catching for a moment on the accumulated dirt of three millennia — then jerking free.

The brief pause gave Rivero enough respite to run farther along the passage… but not enough to clear it. Metal poles with savage hooks at their ends whipped out from the wall slots, lashing at him as he passed—

And tearing into his body.