Secret of the Sphinx by Richard Paolinelli & Gibson Buffa

Author:Richard Paolinelli & Gibson Buffa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Richard Paolinelli
Published: 2021-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Alexandria, Egypt, Earth, Sol System, 48 B.C.

Galactic Coordinates: X/001 x Y/0006 x Z/02

THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA was in chaos. Caesar’s army, the small portion with him, was engaged in a pitched battle with the forces of Ptolemy XIII for control of Egypt itself. This war between the two forces had come as a surprise to Ptolemy. The Pharaoh had been certain that assassinating an enemy of Caesar would have brought great favor, not a great fury.

But now the battle was joined, and it was creeping its way into the city itself. Skirmishes seemed to spring to life out of nothingness and left death and destruction in its wake. Occasionally, a fire would blossom in the middle of battle. Sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.

Moran found herself in the Great Library of Alexandria, using the cover of a moonless night to make her way inside the building. A flicker of firelight danced on the walls at random intervals, providing her enough light to make her way through the shelves of scrolls.

She found it difficult to ignore the other treasures. Paintings, sculptures or clay, plaster and rare metals encrusted with even rarer jewels. She could literally buy every world in the known universe with what lay within these walls. She’d have to come back for them later. Tonight, she sought one specific scroll.

The library had long practiced collecting any manuscript it could lay its hands upon. And all were the originals. Scribes quickly produced a copy for the protesting owner of the original as compensation. A copy was not needed when the owner protested himself to his grave. The librarians claimed that the number of scrolls inside were in the hundreds of thousands. It would take days for someone to go through each one unless they had access to a catalog of where each scroll was and what it contained.

It had taken her all of ten minutes to charm the Master Librarian into telling her where to find it. He would wake up with a nasty headache in the morning, no memory of their conversation and swearing off partaking of beer ever again.

Something slammed into the side of the building just as she reached the shelf that contained the scroll she sought. There followed a clattering of swords, the shouts of men engaged in deadly combat and the screams of those who lost their fight. After a few minutes, all became quiet, and she resumed her search for the scroll.

Moran lit a small oil lamp on a nearby table. She quickly flipped through a stack of scrolls. Her target was one wrapped in a strip of pure white linen bearing the seal of a gold cartouche of Imhotep. She had just started on the fourth stack when she found it.

Unsheathing a small blade from her bodice, she carefully broke the seal and opened the scroll. She allowed herself a quiet squeal of satisfaction as she confirmed this was the scroll she’d sought.

“Excuse me, lass, but unless ye hav’ a library card I dinna think ye can check that book out.

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