The Macedonian Covenant

This is the journal of Major Charles Fordix, and to god I thank for sparing my life through the wars under the Emperor Napoleon. So that I may live in peace with my family for they are the greatest treasures of all.

The journal begins in 1798...

We arrived in Alexandria and there we were ordered to march to Cairo to engage the Mameluke army. After the march, we defeated the Mameluke army with only the loss of three hundred men in battle.          It was magnificent! They were utterly wiped out except for factions who fled down through Lower Egypt. Our main force was then split in two, one army was sent in the direction of Jaffa and the other was sent on a ‘moping up’ operation after the Mameluke renegades. I was a lieutenant with the infantry and was going through the Nile valley after them. Our unit got lost but we continued on. It was when we were fired on from a cave instead of out flanking them that I decided to use our small canon from close range with grape shot, the mamelukes inside were blown to pieces. Poor sods! When we got inside I looked around, a lot of damage had been done to the cave, as I cleared away the rubble I discovered part of a man made shaft cut into the back of the cave, cleverly hidden by the false cover chiselled out to look like the cave wall. As I looked down into the abyss of the shaft, the vapours and steam like substance slowly drifted into my nostrils, it smelled like nothing I have ever smelt before, almost ancient. A frightening shiver ran down my back, I have heard of tomb's having poisonous gas sealed in the entrance to kill tomb robbers, but as I sat up I knew I was all right. After some time we decided that myself and two others would investigate further, the second was an engineer called Jean, a good friend, and Jason my second in command. Jean was a very careful man he did not believe in unnecessary risks, ‘I will go first, watch your footing and for traps’ I said. As we descended, Jason at the rear, we dropped to the bottom, lighting two torches and all of a sudden, the scale of what we had found was apparent. I studied art in Paris before enlisting in the army, and what I did know was that this was neither Egyptian architecture nor design. I told myself it has to be Greek, there were two massive pillars made out of granite, beautifully carved into two curious figure's that I had never seen A young man and a young woman facing each other with a resemblance of affection for each other sealed in time. We went on down what seemed to be a gallery with beautiful carvings, thinking to myself, ‘my god it must have taken ages to build this place’ As I walked around, Jean abruptly stopped me, ’My god man, watch where you’re going.’ As he pulled me out of the way he pointed to a small piece of marble coming out of the side of the stone floor. ‘It seems as if they have rigged this place for visitors, observe,’ he then pointed to a hole in the wall. What caught my attention was the fact that they were adjacent to each other, reaching for a plank of wood he had taken with him Jean carefully placed it on the marble probe and then pushed down. We heard a mechanical sound almost a second later as a glass projectile sunk into the plank.

With a humorous grin Jean softly said ‘careful dear boy, careful.’ With that in mind I proceeded slowly down the gallery until we came to a circular anti-chamber, with marble pillars stretching around the chamber. In the centre there seemed to be a dark hole around it and there were steps leading into it.

As we went to see what was in the centre of the chamber, torch in hand, we carefully moved towards it, we saw an antique horror of a scale never seen. There were hundreds of skeletons heaped into the bottom of the massive hole and at closer inspection I saw hundreds of arrow heads. They must have been the slaves who built this tomb or possibly ‘gateway to hell’.

Once built, then, to ensure their silence they were all put to death. What a way to die!

Jean said ‘with what I have seen, I can deduct that these people were slain in open ground, look at the way they were thrown into this pit. Think about it they dug their own grave