The Pharaoh Key

28

YET AGAIN, THEY were roused in what seemed the middle of the night. Yet again, they were led off to begin a long day of forced toil while stars still glittered hard in the sky. As he adjusted the rough garment he’d been given and tried to shake himself awake, Manuel Garza thought back to Gideon’s trial by fire. Had that really only been a week ago? It seemed far longer.

Garza wasn’t sure if they’d become slaves, or manual laborers, or what, but it was growing all too clear that—whatever their status—the tribe had no intention of allowing them to leave the valley. Things had quickly fallen into a routine: roused before dawn, sent out to dig irrigation ditches, collect bundles of wood, or repair corrals with a chain gang of half a dozen others, led by the hateful Blackbeard. They were given little food and water, and were yelled at or struck with sticks if they slacked off. Imogen’s attempts at communication with their fellow workers had met with little enthusiasm: all they’d learned was that the others were all native to the tribe, of the lowest caste in a small but clearly stratified society. Garza hadn’t bothered. The only thing that kept him focused was a fixed determination to learn the language, unbeknownst to his captors. Knowledge was power. He listened intently to every order, watched every gesture, and tried to memorize the responses. He had always been good at languages, having been raised in a bilingual family, and he’d already begun to pick up several words and phrases. Imogen, with her previous experience with ancient languages, had a significant head start. Gideon, on the other hand, was either a dunce when it came to learning new languages or else simply couldn’t be bothered.

At night, after the brutal days of labor, they talked about plans for escape. The only possible method hadn’t changed: steal camels and waterskins and make a break for it. Waterskins were easy to come by—every tent had one hanging next to the front flap. The problem was the camels. Camels were obviously how wealth was measured in this primitive culture, but everyone seemed to know which camels belonged to whom and so there was no theft. As a result they were loosely guarded, and then only at night, apparently due to some beast or beasts feared by all. Garza had overheard his workmates talking about it more than once. From what he could make out, it seemed to be a huge, one-eyed leopard. Apparently, the tribesmen believed it wasn’t a mortal animal, but some kind of demon that lived with others of its kind in a labyrinth of canyons beyond the valley. On numerous occasions it had crept into the encampment and dragged off a goat, causing consternation. They said it had taken more than one tribesman, too, and had a taste for human flesh.

These thoughts ran through his head as the work gang proceeded away from the main camp along a narrow mountain trail, with the obligatory escort of guards armed with spears and daggers. Blackbeard brought up the rear, carrying a whip coiled up and tied to his leather belt. The trail branched, and they headed off in a direction they had not gone before. Garza wondered with little interest what new form of arduous work lay in store for them now.

As they left the confines of the broad valley, the guards became watchful, even nervous. They walked for what seemed a long time but could not have been over half an hour. On reaching a high mountain pass, they stopped briefly to rest.

“Take a look down there,” said Gideon, coming up to him and speaking in a low voice. The sun was just rising over the rim of mountains, and the landscape below was emerging from the shadows. It was a peculiar-looking valley, narrow and sinuous, with steep cliffs and groves of trees among lush meadows of grass. There were no visible pockets of heavy fog: it seemed that, at least as far as this mountain was concerned, mist oases—an important source of water for the tribe—were confined to the eastern slopes. Here and there on the floor of the valley, curious stone structures about fifteen feet high peeped out of the vegetation. Garza squinted, trying to make them out. Imogen came over, staring as well.

“Pyramids?” said Gideon.

“Looks like it,” he said. “Miniature ones.”

Blackbeard yelled at them to rise and move on. Garza felt his pulse quicken. Pyramids. What else could they be but tombs? He had long harbored a secret hope that the Phaistos location might be the tomb of an ancient king.

As they descended into the valley, they passed the first few structures. These were built from carved sandstone blocks, and each pyramid had an inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphics. He exchanged a significant glance with Gideon. This was more proof, if they needed it, that Imogen was right: this was a pre-Islamic tribe, perhaps dating back as far as the time of the pharaohs.

Around a bend in the trail and past a large, raised stone table of very curious composition, they arrived at a worksite. A pyramid, similar to the others, was under construction. Massive sandstone blocks were laid out in rows at the base of the half-built structure. A long, sloping ramp of dirt led up one side, paved with wooden rollers. As Garza looked over the site, he quickly realized this was a primitive system for moving the massive blocks into position—dragging them up the earthen ramp using ropes and harnesses.

And they, no doubt, were to be the beasts of burden.

Blackbeard shouted and gestured toward the blocks, ropes, and rollers. “Bastard,” said Gideon.

Garza followed the others over. They were shouldering harnesses lined with palm fiber pads. Another man adjusted a net of ropes around a block. Garza, Gideon, and Imogen all took up harnesses alongside the others.

With a shout, Blackbeard waved his coiled whip, then gave it a crack. The group strained against their harnesses and the block inched forward. They slacked, then pulled again, then slacked off, in a rhythm punctuated by Blackbeard’s periodic cracks of the whip.

After an hour of backbreaking work they had finally inched the block to the top of the ramp and fitted it into place. Blackbeard now roared orders to get started on the next block. Garza’s shoulders were already aching from the rough fiber pads.

“Now we know we’re slaves,” Gideon said as they walked back down the ramp. “Do you suppose this is some kind of promotion for good behavior? I preferred digging ditches.”

“This is how the great pyramids were built,” said Imogen, slipping into a harness. “Hasn’t changed in three thousand years.”

“Who do you think it’s for?” Garza asked, gesturing at the half-finished structure.

“Who else but the chief?” said Gideon. “He’s not exactly a spring chicken.”

Blackbeard roared at them, swinging his whip for silence.

“This is getting old really fast,” murmured Gideon as he adjusted his harness.

The whip cracked and they began pulling up another block.

They spent the morning inching blocks up the hill. Finally, with the sun almost at the meridian, Blackbeard called for a rest. A lunch of chickpeas with boiled goat meat was served: far better than their usual fare. Blackbeard retired to a rectangle of shade under a hanging rock and sat down, playing idly with his bracelet of human teeth, which he seemed inordinately fond of. Maybe, Garza speculated idly, it was some symbol of status in the tribe. It wasn’t long before the man went to sleep, snoring loudly. The other guards settled down, resting and watching over their charges.

Garza ate lunch with Gideon and Imogen. They were so tired they hardly spoke. After lunch, Gideon and Imogen dozed under an overhang. Garza, meanwhile, retired to a shady spot with a stray piece of rope and some sticks he’d collected from a pile of discarded rollers. He looked around the flinty ground, found a sharp rock, struck it hard along the edge with another stone, and knapped it to a sharp blade. He unraveled the discarded piece of rope into its individual strands and used them to lash the twigs together, creating a scaffolding. Using the sharp stone, he then carved a crude pulley wheel from rounds cut out of a broken pole lying in the nearby dust, cored it, slid it onto the twigs, and then lashed it to the scaffolding.

“What are you doing?” came a feminine voice. Imogen and Gideon had wandered over and were watching him work. “Haven’t you already slaved enough in the Home of the Dead?”

“The what?”

“The Home of the Dead. That’s what the other coolies call this place.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know about the rest of you Israelites, but I’m tired of dragging those fucking blocks up a ramp.”

“So what’s this?”

“A demonstration model.”

“Of what?”

“Of how to do it better. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

Gideon shook his head. “Once an engineer, always an engineer.”

“Instead of the smart comments, how about some help?”

Garza set them both to work carving more pulley wheels with sharp flakes he knapped out from the flint, which he in turn mounted in series on the scaffolding. He fashioned a crude crane out of sticks that could rotate using two strands of rope. Finally, he passed another strand of rope through the crane and tied it to a sling, threaded it through the pulleys, and attached it to a swatch of headcloth. Into that he put a rock.

“Now pull the string,” Garza said to Gideon. “Carefully.”

Gideon pulled the strand and the pulley apparatus lifted the rock, held in place by the scaffolding and crane.

“Now watch.” Garza maneuvered the crane and it swiveled on its fixed base, carrying the rock.

“Now ease the string down.”

Gideon let the thread slide through his fingers, lowering the rock into a new spot, atop a small mound of sand Garza scraped up.

“You get it?” Garza asked. “Each pulley wheel provides a mechanical advantage. Four wheels reduce the force required to lift something to one-quarter.”

“Physics?” Imogen asked.

“Physics. With a four-wheel pulley system, a thousand-pound block of stone can be lifted with only two hundred fifty pounds of force. No more damn dragging.”

“Yeah, but can we get them to try it?” Gideon asked dubiously.

“Hence the demonstration model.”

From their resting places, the guards had idly watched Garza build the model. There had been no comprehension in their eyes, but it was obvious they were curious.

Now Garza motioned to them to come over. With gestures and broken phrases, he demonstrated the model by lifting and moving the rock several times. Now some of the other workers came over, gaping.

Garza gestured at one of the more alert-looking workers. “You try it. Try it.”

The worker stepped forward and knelt, taking the strand of rope in his hand. He pulled it gingerly, lifting the stone, pushed the swiveling scaffold, and placed it on the small hill of sand. A smile appeared on his face and he nodded, realizing that the stone did indeed move more easily.

Garza gestured at a guard. “You. Try.”

The guard came forward and, looking nervously around, tried it—again with an expression of amazement at this seemingly magical contrivance.

Garza launched into a broken exhortation of words and gestures, explaining that they should built a larger version of the apparatus over the pyramid using the poles and rope lying around to construct the scaffolding, pulleys, and wheels.

Suddenly a roar came from the worksite and the guards jumped as if struck. Blackbeard came swaggering down, his whip out. With a curse he lashed Garza across the shoulder so violently that it knocked him to his knees. Blackbeard brought his massive foot down on the model, stomping and grinding it into the sand and reducing it to a mass of broken sticks.

Garza, seeing his model destroyed, blood streaming from the lash on his shoulder, rose with a furious cry and ran at Blackbeard, who was still occupied in destroying the model. He took a swing and caught the overseer by surprise with a blow to the head; the man went down but quickly surged up in a fury, drawing his dagger and slashing at Garza.

Jumping back, Garza just missed being cut. Blackbeard rushed him, stabbing and slicing while Garza stumbled back, trying to keep out of the way of the blade. Gideon and Imogen immediately tried to come to his aide but the guards turned on them, knocking Gideon down and pinning Imogen, holding them at spearpoint.

Blackbeard drove Garza up against the cliff wall, blocking further retreat. Seeing that his quarry was trapped, a cruel smile broke over his face. He stepped forward and placed the dagger on Garza’s throat, still scabbed from the previous cut. He pressed the point slowly in, and Garza could once again feel the blade bite into his skin. Blackbeard’s breath, reeking of mutton, washed over his face.

“Aghat mu!” the man yelled, pushing the point deeper into Garza’s throat—when a voice rang out.

Blackbeard ignored it. The blood was running more freely now and Garza could feel the blade digging toward his windpipe. The sadist was going to make it slow.

The voice rang out again, much sharper. It was the chief, being carried down the trail in a litter. The bearers stopped at the worksite and the chief stepped out, swept his robes around his shoulder, and spoke angrily a third time to Blackbeard. This time the man hesitated, and then Garza felt the pressure on the knife lessening. Finally, it ceased altogether.

Breathing hard, his face creased with wrath, Blackbeard stepped back. The guards released Gideon and Imogen. With obvious effort, the chieftain came over and, ignoring Blackbeard’s scowling face, spoke to Garza, gesturing with his staff at the ruined pile of sticks. It became evident that the chief had been watching the entire scene play out from the trail overhead. He’d seen the model from a distance, but had no idea why it had generated so much excitement. Now, it seemed, he wanted Garza to rebuild it. The chief pantomimed his way through a long explanation that Garza did not understand, but assumed it meant that he was very old and wanted his tomb completed in a hurry—and judging by the man’s wan and sallow appearance, Garza wasn’t surprised.

Sweating and inwardly cursing his own temper, Garza wiped away the blood from the wound in his neck. He nodded in agreement and went to work building another model as quickly as he could. When Gideon and Imogen went to help the chief waved them off, the gold watch glittering on his bony wrist, leaving Garza to construct it alone.

In forty minutes it was done. Garza demonstrated with the small rock, and then the chief knelt and tried the apparatus himself, raising and lowering the rock by the thread. The delight and amazement on his face were evident. He stood and, with a loud voice, ordered the workers and guards to construct a working version of the pulley. To Garza’s surprise, the chief put him in charge of the detail.

With the slaves all working together, and the sharp bronze daggers of the guards to carve pulley wheels, and the fashioning of bronze pins to act as pulley axles, the work proceeded quickly. As they erected the scaffolding over the half-built pyramid and its adjacent pile of cut blocks, Garza could see Blackbeard standing off to one side, motionless, hand on his dagger, staring at him with an expression of pure hatred on his face.

“You better watch out for that one,” Gideon said quietly.

“You’re not kidding. The bastard’s tried to cut my throat three times now.”

By late afternoon, as the alpenglow painted the surrounding peaks, the contraption was finished and ready to be tested. Garza realized he was nervous. Normally, as with any engineering project, he would have done the math, run the bearing loads and structural members through computer programs to make sure everything would hold. In this case he’d been forced to make do with estimates. The most critical component, he knew, was the weight of the blocks. He’d measured them at roughly two feet by two by six, making twenty-four cubic feet of sandstone. Stone, as any building engineer knew, weighed about a hundred fifty pounds per square foot, which gave each block a mass of thirty-six hundred pounds. His six-pulley, three-rope block-and-tackle system meant that two hundred pounds of lift would need to be applied on a rope manned by two workers. With this design, it would only take six men to raise a thirty-six-hundred-pound block of stone. Or so he calculated. Because of poor tolerances and lousy building materials, friction would add a few hundred more pounds, for a total load of two tons. He was pretty sure of the ropes—they were well made and strong. The big question was whether the jerry-rigged scaffolding and crane would hold up.

But the moment of truth had come. The chief, standing nearby, was leaning on his staff and waiting with an eager expression. Garza now directed the workers to fix a net of ropes around a block, preparing to lift it. Additional ropes were threaded through the pulley apparatus, and still more were attached to a lever arm built to swing the dangling block into position over the pyramid.

Gideon stood next to him. “You sure this is going to work?”

“No.”

“They’ll probably cut off our heads if it doesn’t,” said Imogen.

“Anything’s better than dragging those stones the rest of our lives,” Garza said.

He took a deep breath and gestured for the six workers to pull. They had practiced with the rebuilt model and knew what to do. With a creaking sound and a flexing of the scaffolding, the stone block rose into the air. The chief watched intently.

When the block was at the right height, dangling free, Garza waved his arm and the workers controlling the crane swiveled it above the pyramid. With another order, Garza called for the workers to let it down carefully, watching as it was slowly adjusted into place.

It worked perfectly.

“Khehat! Khehat!” The chief came over excitedly and grasped Garza’s shoulders, enveloping him in a bear hug. “Khehat!”

When he was finally released, Garza leaned over to Imogen and murmured: “What does khehat mean? Builder? Friend? Man of genius?”

“I think it means ‘undertaker.’”