Curse of the Pharaoh: A Brock Stone Adventure

Interlude 4

The Place de la Concorde sat on the Rive Droit in between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. The public square was dominated by the Luxor Obelisk, a towering monument to Rameses II that had been gifted to the king of France by Egyptian leader Mehemet Ali in 1830. The three-thousand-year-old monument stood seventy-five feet tall and marked the spot where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed.

Rose arrived right on time, gliding out of the darkness like a wraith. She looked Stone up and down, taking his measure.

“You’re my muscle?” she said.

“I suppose. I wasn’t given any instructions beyond who to meet and where.”

“And you’re an expert in Ancient Egyptian?” Rose asked.

“I have studied it. I hope that will be enough for whatever it is we are supposed to do.” Stone cocked his head. “What is it we’re supposed to do, exactly?”

Rose shrugged. “Recover something.”

“You don’t know either?”

“Your superiors say it will be obvious, and these clues should get us there.” She reached into her coat, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to Stone. Several lines of disjointed French were scrawled across the page in a sloppy hand. Capitalization was arbitrary and punctuation absent. “This is the written account of a local man, one who lives underground. Lost his mind years ago. This man found something down there that your people apparently want but he couldn’t find it again. These are his recollections of how he got there. I haven’t gotten past step one.”

Stone took another look at the paper. The first line read, Travers la mer.

“Across the sea?” Stone said.

Rose shrugged. “I haven’t come up with anything. I thought the sea might mean the Seine but there are countless bridges spanning the river.”

Stone mulled over the clue, considering the possibilities. Travers could also mean “through” or “by way of”. His eyes drifted to the Egyptian obelisk looming overhead, and an idea came to him. He had been instructed to familiarize himself with Ancient Egyptian. Could the answer lie there? He carried with him a small historical dictionary of Ancient Egyptian. He took it out and thumbed through to the letter M. There it was!

“Mer ancient Egyptian for pyramid. Is there a pyramid in the city? One we could pass through, perhaps?”

Rose’s eyes brightened. “Yes, there is. Come with me.”

It was a short walk to Parc Monceau, a twenty-acre greenspace just north of the Arc de Triomphe. Rose led him along a curved pathway past a Roman colonnade to a miniature pyramid made of bricks.

“They call this the Egyptian Pyramid,” Rose explained. “It was designed by Phillippe d’Orleans, cousin to King Louis XVI. Phillippe was a Freemason and fascinated by all things Egyptian, especially the Hermetica.”

Stone nodded. Hermetica were books of Egyptian magic that had been popular throughout the medieval period and into the Age of Enlightenment.

“Let’s take a look inside.”

The way inside was barred by a padlocked door. Stone broke the lock and they crawled inside. The interior was empty.

“Dead end,” Rose said glumly.

“Don’t be so quick to give up. I have some experience with hidden passageways.” He began a close inspection of the blocks from which the pyramid was built, running his fingers over each.

“What are we looking for?” Rose asked.

“A button, an engraving, any irregularity.”

A few minutes later Rose gasped. “I feel something!”

She was right. Engraved in worn lines that had almost faded away, was a star with a circle in the center.

“What is it?” Rose asked.

“A Seba. It’s the hieroglyphic representation of Duat — the Egyptian underworld.”

“You believe it’s important?”

“It’s worth a try.” Stone ran his fingers over the image. He tried pressing down on it but it held firm. He tried turning it, but also without success.

“Maybe the entire block moves,” Rose suggested.

Stone leaned in close. She was right. This block was not mortared in. He took out his knife and worked it around the edges, clearing enough space to take hold of it with his fingertips.

“Here goes nothing.” He gave the brick a pull and it slid free. Behind it was a handle. He grabbed hold of it, took a breath, and gave it a pull. The ground trembled and a low rumble filled the pyramid.

“You opened a trapdoor. Look!” Rose pointed to the back of the pyramid where a gaping hole led down into the darkness.

“I’ll go first,” Stone said.

“No, you won’t. This is my specialty.” Without another word, she descended into the hole and disappeared.