The Third Gate

46

Once again, Stone went in first, barely waiting for the roustabouts to complete testing the integrity of the entranceway. His movements were quick, even brusque, as if the recent troubles-and the ticking clock-had given him an unseemly sense of haste. He ducked past the workers and through the narrow opening, disappearing beyond the wall of the third gate. For a moment, all was silent; the only indication anyone was in chamber three was the reflected glow of Stone’s flashlight, lancing here and there through the darkness. Then Logan heard Stone clear his throat.

“Tina? Ethan? Dr. Logan? Valentino?” he called in a strange voice. “Please come in.”

Logan followed the others through the gap in the wall and into the final chamber. At first, he thought his flashlight was malfunctioning-it didn’t seem to provide any illumination. And then he realized: the entire chamber was clad in what appeared to be onyx, walls and floor and ceiling, black and unreflective. The stone seemed to soak up their flashlight beams, pulling the light from them and leaving the small chamber so dim that its contents could barely be made out.

“Jesus,” Tina said, shivering. “How creepy.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Tina?” Stone asked.

“Kowinsky,” Valentino called out through the gap in the third gate. “Bring up one of those sodium vapor lamps.”

For a moment, everyone fell quiet, examining the chamber. To Logan, it did seem remarkably bare, compared to the opulent rooms that had come before. There was a single ornamental table placed along the left wall, enameled in gold, containing a dozen papyri, each carefully rolled and set in a line. In the rear of the chamber was what looked like a small bed, quite narrow, that had once been covered by some kind of linen coverlet and a pillow, both now sadly decomposed. Across from the table, placed along the floor by the opposing wall, were three small boxes-apparently of solid gold-along with a single urn.

But everyone’s attention quickly turned to the artifact sitting in the center of the room. It was a large chest, about four feet square, fashioned of some black stone-perhaps onyx again-and set upon a fantastically carved plinth of dark, dense wood. Its edges were lined in strips of gold. On its sides were reproductions of several of the designs they had already seen in chamber one-the box-shaped artifact topped by an iron rod; the bowl-like object trailing wisps of gold from its edges. But this time, the images were fashioned out of a multitude of brilliantly colored gemstones, set into the surface of the chest. Across its top was an elaborately fashioned serekh.

“Tina?” Stone said, pointing at the serekh, his voice almost a whisper. “That’s the rebus for Narmer’s name. Right?”

Tina nodded slowly. “Yes. I think so.”

Stone turned to her. “You think so?”

She had set down her video camera, the room being too dark to film, and was peering more closely at the chest. “The glyphs match, all right. But these scratches, here, through the head of the catfish… I don’t know. It’s most unusual. But it’s all unusual. That cotlike structure in the rear, the shrines in chamber two, the strange emptiness of this room…” She paused again. “It’s like I said once before. It’s almost as if this entire tomb was used as a rehearsal for Narmer’s death, for his passage to the next world, the Field of Offerings.”

“Have you come across anything like this before?” Stone asked.

“No.” She looked around the dim space for a minute, brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s almost as if… but, no, it couldn’t be.” She peered again at the chest. “If only I could get a better look at this.”

“Kowinsky!” Valentino bawled. “What’s up with those lights?”

“Not enough room to get them through this opening, sir,” came the disembodied voice of Kowinsky.

“You might want to take a look at those papyri,” Stone said to Tina. “Maybe they can shed some light on things.”

She nodded, moved away with her light.

Now Stone, followed by Dr. Rush, moved over to the series of small golden boxes set along the right-hand wall. Stone crouched down and began to carefully remove the top of the first with latex-gloved hands.

Logan watched, hugging himself against the chill and a feeling of growing dismay. Ever since entering the chamber, he had been aware of the malignant presence. It sensed them-he was sure of that-but the overpowering evil he had felt several times before was being held in check for the time being. It was almost as if it was watching, waiting… and biding its time. He reached into his duffel, pulled out the air ion counter, and swept it slowly around. The air in here was significantly more ionized than normal-in fact, the air had grown increasingly ionized as they’d penetrated deeper into the tomb. What this meant he wasn’t certain.

Stone had removed the top of the box. Reaching in, he gingerly pulled something out: a curl of metal, beaten very thin. “It appears to be native copper,” he said. “There are at least half a dozen small sheets of it in here.” Moving on to the next box, he removed its lid, peered inside, then pulled out something that in the faint light looked almost like a small bayonet, brownish and badly corroded. “Looks like iron,” he said.

“If so, it’s probably meteoric iron,” Tina said, drawn back from the papypri. “And it would be the earliest known use of iron among the Egyptians by at least a few hundred years.”

But Stone had already moved on to the third box. He opened it, placed a hand inside, then removed it again. In his cupped palm he held dozens of thin filaments of beaten gold, tangled together like Christmas tinsel.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

Tina Romero stepped over to the black-edged urn. She carefully lifted it, shone her flashlight inside. “Empty,” she said. Then she raised it to her nose, took a gingerly sniff. “Odd. It smells sour, like-like vinegar.”

Stone came over, took it from her, smelled it also. “You’re right.” He handed it back.

“Bands of copper, iron spikes, filaments of gold,” Logan said. “What could this all mean?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said. “But that will answer all your questions-and more.” He pointed at the onyx-colored chest that stood in the center of the chamber. “That will be what makes all our careers-and puts me in the history books as the greatest archaeologist of all time.”

“You think…” Rush paused. “You think the crowns of Egypt are in that chest?”

“I know they are. It’s the only answer. It’s the final secret of the final chamber of Narmer’s tomb.” Stone turned to Valentino. “Frank? Have your men give me a hand with this.”

Slowly-as if possessed by a single thought-the group drew together, forming a silent ring around the ebony chest.