The Pharaoh Key

25

AS THEY WERE herded along a faint trail, Imogen tried to speak again, but Blackbeard silenced her with a blow from the flat of his dagger. At length, they entered a ravine at the end of the valley and continued along a trail that skirted a cliff, with a drop on one side and a sheer wall on the other. A hot wind blew up from the depths of the ravine and a pair of ravens rode on the air, cawing at them before sweeping away.

Around the side of the cliff a small barren area came into sight, surrounded by scree slopes. A hideous spectacle revealed itself: a rough pit dug into the hard ground, surrounded by a semicircle of twisted wooden spikes on which human heads had been impaled. The heads were mummified, mouths agape, lips shrunken and drawn back from rotten teeth, with only hollow sockets for eyes. Some were clearly far older than others. Several ravens sitting on the spiked heads now rose into the sky, screeching their displeasure at being disturbed.

The crowd following them spread out and fell quiet, kneeling, heads bowed, waiting for the show to commence.

They were led to the edge of the pit. The ends of the leather ropes they were tied with were drawn tight, then staked into the ground on either side of the pit. Blackbeard took up a position behind them.

It was becoming all too clear to Gideon what was about to happen.

He began to mumble desperately, trying to speak through the foul gag, but nobody paid any attention. Imogen began speaking Arabic again, in a soft, pleading tone, but was also ignored.

The four men carrying the young woman and old crone now lowered the sedan chair to the ground, helping the crone out of it. Taking up her gruesome walking sticks, she shuffled forward with the presumed chief and came to a stop on the opposite side of the pit. She was joined by four old men in white robes, each with a long, forked beard. They looked like priests, it seemed to Gideon.

The crone, flanked by the old men, gave them what looked like a series of instructions or—perhaps—commands. Then she raised her withered arms to the sky, tilted her head back, and broke out in a strange, high-pitched wail that then turned into a sort of chant. The crowd dropped to their knees, heads bowed as the crone’s cracked voice echoed among the surrounding cliffs. Gideon tried not to look into the pit, but found that he could not help himself. In the gloom below, he could make out numerous corpses sprawled at the bottom, in various states of mummification. A few retained the rotting vestiges of Western clothing, but most wore Arab garb. All were missing their heads. Gideon took a shuddering breath. They were transgressors—and now they were going to be ritually beheaded, their bodies thrown into the pit, and their heads placed on stakes. What an end.

Three men appeared, each carrying a fresh wooden pole with sharpened ends. They drove the poles into the ground, following the same gruesome semicircular arc as the other decapitated heads. Meanwhile, two young women carried a long, wooden inlaid box up to Blackbeard. They opened it with great ceremony, and the bearded man reached in and removed a huge broadsword—the first sword Gideon had seen in the camp, and the first sign that these people had steel rather than just the copper and bronze of the daggers they carried. A murmur rose from the crowd. The man held the sword out, examined it this way and that, and gave it a few test swings. The blade was encrusted with dried blood, but its edge nevertheless glittered ominously.

At length, the man began walking toward them with great solemnity, holding the sword high.

Gideon couldn’t take his gaze off its edge. He frantically tried to think of a way to escape such an unexpected and dreadful fate, but to no avail. He’d tried to come to terms with his impending death, but he’d never imagined anything like this: at the hands of an executioner’s ax. Imogen again renewed her pleading, but Gideon doubted the tribe could even understand her. This pit was clearly the reason this place had remained so untouched by the outside world—any visitors unlucky enough to happen upon it were quickly and brutally dispatched. He recalled the camel drivers who said that those who ventured this way never returned. At the time, he’d dismissed this as rumor and superstition, but now it appeared to be all too true.

The crone went on chanting, her voice high-pitched and grating. Imogen had fallen silent. Gideon glanced at her face, and their eyes met. She was calm now, seemingly resigned.

The crone suddenly stopped her wailing and a hush fell. The crowd remained kneeling, but their heads were no longer bowed; they were looking on avidly.

Blackbeard stepped forward and gestured at Garza. Two guards came over and cut the thongs attaching him to the others. Gideon could see Garza trying to protest, but he could make little noise and no one paid any attention. The guards, with a violent but efficient gesture, forced him to his knees at the edge of the pit. A third came up and grasped Garza’s hair tightly in his hands, while Blackbeard positioned himself, legs apart. The man lifted Garza’s head, exposing his neck, and the big bearded man touched it with the edge of the sword, as if calculating the best position for his strike. Then he raised the weapon. The edge of the blade flashed once in the sunlight.

Gideon began to feel strangely detached, as if this terrible thing were happening to someone else, someplace far, far away. Distantly, he hoped it would be quick. Judging by the fearsome muscles on the executioner, his determined expression, and the massive sword, it would be.

The man clutched tightly at Garza’s hair, so he wouldn’t lose his grip at the moment the head was struck off. It was obviously a practiced motion. Gideon could see Blackbeard bracing himself for the swing. The silence was now absolute. He closed his eyes.

Then he heard Imogen shout in English: “Don’t do this! For God’s sake, stop!”