Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [130]
Zoe, Fuzzy and Stretch (who had also been reunited with the team when Judah had revealed Lily) were being held in a second helicopter travelling behind the Super Stallion—a Black Hawk—that landed at the base of the Great Pyramid. They were being held for another reason: to control Lily. Judah had told her that if she disobeyed him at any time, Zoe, Stretch and Fuzzy would be killed.
On the short helicopter flight from Cairo Airport to the pyramids, Lily had found herself seated beside Alexander. A brief conversation had ensued:
‘Hi, I’m Lily,’ she said.
Alexander gazed at her airily, as if he was deciding whether or not to bother replying. ‘Alexander is my name . . . my young sister.’
‘Young? Come off it. You’re only older than me by twenty minutes,’ Lily said, laughing.
‘Nevertheless, I am still the first-born,’ Alexander said. ‘To the first go certain privileges. Such as respect.’
‘I bet you probably get out of doing your chores sometimes, too,’ Lily said.
‘What are chores?’ the boy asked seriously.
‘Chores,’ Lily said in disbelief. ‘You know, things like cleaning out the horse-pooh in the barn. Washing up the dishes after dinner.’
‘I have never cleaned a dish in my life. Or a barn. Such activities are beneath my station.’
‘You’ve never done any chores!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘Man, you’re lucky! Wow, no chores. . . ’
The boy frowned, genuinely curious. ‘Why do you do such things? You are high-born. Why would you even allow yourself to be dragooned into performing such tasks?’
Lily shrugged. She’d never actually thought about that. ‘I guess . . . well . . . while I don’t really like doing them, I do my chores to contribute to my family. To be a part of the family. To help out.’
‘But you are better than they are. Why would you want to help such ordinary people?’
‘I like helping them. I . . . I love them.’
‘My sister, my sister. We were born to rule these people, not to help them. They are beneath you, they are your inferiors.’
‘They’re my family,’ Lily said firmly.
‘To rule is lonely,’ Alexander said, as if this was a phrase he had been told a lot and learned by rote. ‘I expected you to be stronger, sister.’
Lily said nothing after that, and minutes later, they arrived at the Great Pyramid.
And so it was that at 11:30 a.m. on the Day of Tartarus, thirty minutes before the blazing sunspot rotated in direct alignment with the Pyramid, a ceremony began on the summit of the Great Pyramid at Giza, an ancient ceremony that had not been performed in over 4,500 years.
Standing on the platform, Judah clipped himself to a long safety rope, to take care of his fear of heights.
He gazed at the bare summit of the Great Pyramid, saw the ancient verse carved into it:
Cower in fear, cry in despair,
You wretched mortals
For that which giveth great power
Also takes it away.
For lest the Benben be placed at sacred site
On sacred ground, at sacred height,
Within seven sunsets of the arrival of Ra’s Prophet,
At the high-point of the seventh day,
The fires of Ra’s implacable Destroyer will devour us all.
Beside this carving, in the exact centre of the bare stone summit, there was a shallow indentation carved in the shape of a person. The ‘head’ of this person-sized indentation was weathered and worn, but it was clearly that of Anubis, the jackal-headed and much-feared god of the Underworld.
And in the heart of this Anubis indentation—in the exact centre of the summit and thus the centre of the entire pyramid—there was a small dish-shaped hole the size of a tennis ball. It looked like a stone crucible.
Judah knew the purpose of the crucible. The Nazi archaeologist, Hessler, had too:
THE RITUAL OF POWER
AT THE HIGH ALTAR OF RA,
UNDER THE HEART OF THE SACRIFICIAL ONE
WHO LIES IN THE ARMS OF VENGEFUL ANUBIS,
POUR INTO THE DEATH GOD’S HEART
ONE DEBEN OF YOUR HOMELAND
UTTER THOSE ANCIENT EVIL WORDS
AND ALL EARTHLY POWER SHALL BE YOURS
FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.
Pour into the Death God’s heart