She swallowed hard. “What is this place? Who’s buried in there?”
His eyes darted to the side, then back to her as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. Then, he spoke. “No one.”
CHAPTER 42
He actually answered. The man was full of surprises. Or was he sick? What was going on? Why would he be showing her this?
But then, if he was going to open up, she had to use it to her advantage. Stall whatever plan he had cooked up. Give Xander enough time to catch up to them. Give her a chance to break free. Whichever came first.
Keep him talking.
Luckily, there was plenty to ask. Leila lifted her eye-brows, then turned to the doorway. The gold, all the detail; it was fit for a king. That made sense. The rest, not so much.
“But… Alexander the Great?”
Abdullah’s shoulders rose as he took in a deep breath and stepped up to the left side of the doorway. He traced the carved hieroglyphics with his fingertips.
“The sepulcher was built around 30 B.C., at the fall of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Queen Cleopatra commissioned a new hiding place for the family idol’s remains, to keep them safe from the Romans.” His voice was eager. Like a history teacher recalling a random fact he’d been dying to tell someone about.
She wondered if she was finally getting a glimpse of the old Abdullah. Encouraged, she cleared her throat. “So we’ve got Cleopatra and Alexander the Great. Where do the Medjay come in?”
“The Medjay were still the protectors and preservers of the Pharaoh’s tombs. By that time, they were experts at working in secret. Most had no idea they still existed. Cleopatra knew, of course. At her request, they designed and built this place.”
“Then it makes sense why there’s ancient Egyptian and Greek on the walls. Cleopatra was the only Ptolemy to ever know how to speak both.” Leila twisted the end of her scarf in her hands, blood still rushing in her ears. Her gaze flicked to the dagger at his side. Maybe, if she was fast enough. If she made her move when he least expected it… Her pulse thrummed frantically. There was no way.
Just keep talking.
“This really was his tomb, then? Or one of them. Is Alexander in here or not?” An iron fist squeezed around her heart as she said the name. The wrong Alexander.
Abdullah shook his head once. “He was moved again, hundreds of years ago.”
“So,” Leila said slowly, “if he’s not here, what’s the big deal about this place now?”
He turned, his gaze roving over the doors. “In the twelfth century, the Byzantine emperor, Alexios Ducas, possessed the secret formula for a powerful weapon. But it wasn’t enough for Ducas. He hired an alchemist, Lysias of Alexandria, to develop something more powerful, more lethal, to defeat the Crusaders that threatened his reign.
“Lysias needed a place to do his work, somewhere isolated to be able to conduct experiments, yet with resources close by. He left Constantinople and traveled to Saint Catherine. He did his work here in the mountains, until the weapon became more powerful than he could handle. That city, El-Misbah, was not built in a hole from a meteorite. That was the result of one of Lysias’s tests.
“Realizing the potential, Lysias got greedy. He put his formula up for sale to the highest bidder. The Medjay got to it first. Probably in fear for his life, he took their gold and went into hiding.”
“Why did the Medjay want it?”
“I wonder.” Abdullah’s features darkened. “Why would someone want a deadly weapon?”
“But, the Medjay never used it. They hid it.” Leila chewed her lip. “They protected it. Through the centuries. Through the rise and fall of empires. Through conquests and world wars.” She glanced up at his shadowed face. “And that’s what’s in here?”
He nodded, then shone his flashlight to the right, over a large area of the wall. “Not every artifact belongs in a museum.”
Instead of columns and columns of hieroglyphics, it had been covered with paintings. Leila stepped closer. Ships pointing cannons at each other, fire shooting from the barrels. The flames burned the water, the vessels, and the people in them. Smoked swirled above their heads.
Frowning, she stepped to the side, the next scene not one of a battle, but a building. Fire licked up its sides, people enveloped in the flames. They ran and jumped from the building as it burned. She noticed the scrolls in one corner, on fire, and it clicked.
The world will burn.
Her mind raced to put the images together. A weapon of fire. Burning on water. Destroying everything in sight. It had to be Greek fire. Nothing could put it out. Water only made it burn stronger. At the end of the Fourth Crusade, it vanished from history. The recipe had yet to be found.
Her gaze stopped on another painting—a man in brown robes, presumably Lysias, holding a scroll. A group of knights dressed in silver helmets and chainmaille over a red tunic stood before him. The Varangian Guard, the Byzantine emperor’s personal mercenaries, coming to retrieve his commission. The soldier in front impaled the robed man with a spear.
She came to a spot on the wall where the plaster had flaked off from age, and the violent scene ended. Her gaze drifted back to the golden doors and a sigh of frustration lifted her shoulders.
She turned to Abdullah. “If it’s so dangerous, why did you bring me here?”
“I have my reasons.”
Leila’s eyes darted to Abdullah’s fingertips, which brushed the handle of his knife. Whether by habit or as a warning, she wasn’t sure.
Despite the warmth of the tomb, a cold flutter swept down her back. It didn’t matter anymore if she saw the tomb. Father Marcus knew about it. He might have already told others.
She swallowed hard and returned her focus to the wall paintings. The only way to make sure no one found this would be to move it, which she suspected was impossible. Move it. Or destroy it. A rock formed in her stomach.
Abdullah reached around his neck, untied the string and grasped his pendant, the one he’d used to seal the doors of Amina’s tomb. He faced the wall and placed his hand on an embossed painting of the Eye of Horus.
A grinding noise screeched from somewhere behind the wall, like metal clashing against metal. A large section of brick sank into the wall, and slid to the side. Leila stepped back as a doorway appeared where the wall had been seconds ago.
With his gaze locked straight ahead, Abdullah stepped through the doorway and out of sight. The rope tugged Leila after him.
“No way,” she whispered, approaching the black rectangle. She paused in the entrance and peered into the dark chamber.
Abdullah stood a few yards ahead, straight as a spear. From what she could tell in the dim light, the room was round and empty, except for Abdullah and a waist-high altar in the center. He reached for the knife in his belt. A reflection glinted off the blade, which he brought to his palm, and slid the edge across, enough for a small bead of blood to form. He held his hand over a bowl sitting on the altar, and the blood dropped. The top of the bowl burst into flames. A second later, fire raced around the circumference of the room, illuminating the chamber in an orange glow.
