The.Sunbird by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I was on my knees below the sun image when Louren arrived.

‘Lo, come over here. I want to show you something.’

‘Hey, Ben!’ Louren laughed, and it seemed to me that his expression was one of relieved pleasure. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you really smile in two weeks. God, I was worried about you.’ He slapped my shoulder, still laughing. ‘This is more like the old Ben again.’

‘Lo, look at this.’ And he knelt beside me.

Ten minutes later he was no longer smiling, his face was cold and intent. He was staring at the wall with those pale blue eyes as though he were seeing through the solid rock.

‘Lo,’ I began, but he waved me to silence with a peremptory gesture. He never took his eyes from the wall and now it seemed to me that he was listening to a voice I could not hear, I watched that cold god-like face with a sudden feeling of almost superstitious awe. I had a premonition of something unnatural about to happen.

Slowly, step by step, Louren approached the sun image. His hand went out and lay against the centre of the great disc. His fingers were spread, seeming to echo the shape of the image. He began to press against the wall, I saw the tips of his fingers flatten against the rock, changing shape beneath the pressure of his hand.

For a few long seconds nothing happened, then suddenly the wall began to move. There was no sound, no grating or squeal of protesting hinge, but the whole wall began to revolve upon a concealed axis. A ponderous, deliberate movement that revealed the square dark opening to a farther passageway concealed beyond the image of Baal.

Staring into that dark prehistoric opening I whispered without glancing at Louren, ‘How did you do that, Lo? How did you guess?’

His tone as he replied was puzzled. ‘I knew - I just knew, that’s all.’ We were both silent again, staring into the opening. I was seized by a sudden unaccountable dread of what we would find in there.

‘Get the light, Ben,’ Louren ordered without taking his eyes from the doorway. I fetched the portable arc-light, and Louren took it from my hand. I followed him as he walked through the doorway.

Before us a passageway slanted down into the earth at an angle of forty-five degrees. The passage was seven foot six inches high, and nine feet wide. There was a flight of stone steps cut into the floor. Each step was worn, with edges smoothed and rounded. The walls and roof of the tunnel were of unadorned stone, and the depths of the tunnel were hidden from us by shadow and darkness.

‘What’s this?’ Louren pointed at two large circular objects which lay at the head of the staircase, I saw the gleam of bronze rosettes upon them.

‘Shields,’ I told him. ‘War shields.’

‘Someone dropped them in a hurry.’

We stepped over them carefully and started down the stair case. There were 106 steps, each six inches high.

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