Even after the dance, some of the others still talked about that Gigolo song, how it had struck a chord with so many in Europe. Murphy had heard a German version in Berlin; Prim had heard that as well. There was a French version. The song was popular in Barcelona, too, where Prim had first learned of it.

"I think the popularity is influenced by fact that the original lyrics are more clearly the lament of a soldier," Prim said as he passed one of the lamps to Alpha. "It was written just after the end of the war, when our veterans were unsure what work they could get under the Pax, and possibly looking to marry, but...."

"I barely saw combat," Alpha said. He held the light near Thierry where he crouched to take a sample of dark striations on the ramp. "My father was in office by that time, and I didn't want any favors, but they sent me as a liaison to Faisal's camp in Syria."

"I have never served in any war," Thierry said, "I just like the song because a friend taught it to me."

"There's a French version 'C'est Mon Gigolo' from the point-of-view of a lady," Murphy said from his seat on the ramp. "But the version you sang, with the English lyrics, was our anthem. The idea that poverty, loss of youth, and anonymity are the worse crimes!" He laughed.

"Please, do not go on," I said, "I shall write a lament about how I disliked that Green Carnation book and it's endless discussion of how witty and artistic we must be."   

"You must have stitched this flower before you read the book," Murphy said, extending his left arm with the embroidered sleeve.

"It was on the way here from the Impero," I said, "green seemed the color."

"It is because they have caught on to its use as a symbol in certain circles," Thierry said. He stood and stowed his tools and samples in a slim satchel.

"Oh," I said, not quite having realized it before. "Murphy, how is it you like that book?"

"Who said I did?"

"It was on your shelf, and your mother said you learned English by reading it."

Murphy sighed. "It is strange to me you have conversations with my mother. It is not even entirely true. I mean, she's mistaken in forgetting I had picture books in several languages." He paused, turning his head to look at me. "The book is meaningful because I read it with my father, and because I met the author, once."

"I thought it was anonymous."

"It was. A story for another time?"

"We can move on, if David has finished marveling at the masonry," Thierry said.

"Quite," David called, still being within earshot, especially so given the nature of these granite-lined chambers. "It does look like something was chiseled out from that third corbel down, but Howard says that's been noted before."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," Howard said, still holding one of the induction bulbs aloft, "Though the chisel marks suggest something may have been there and removed, without remains of a false ceiling, we have no evidence there was a false ceiling painted with stars was there."

"But a written witness account describing 'chambers had been built in which the stars and heavens were depicted' paired with the marks on the wall implies—"

"Only that there is a pyramid with a chamber containing stars, as there is in Saqqara, and that Egyptians could chisel granite. To me, that is the more important lesson. The very pyramid itself is evidence that a civilization with advanced arts and sciences existed here." 

"I don't argue that," David said plainly.

There was a, perhaps, awkward silence, until Nikola called from the large step at the upper end of the gallery. "This area shows especially detailed work, considering the other chambers," he said. "A system of baffles?"

"Baffles?" Prim asked.

"An arrangement of vertical slabs, some which could be raised or lowered."

"The portcullis system," Howard said.

"What's a portcullis?" I whispered.

"A gate that raises and lowers," Alpha said, "as on a castle."

Nikola ducked through the antechamber into the next room, which I supposed was the King's chamber of which one often heard. I stood up on the ramp to follow, and gave Murphy a hand along the way.

"We sometimes use the ladders to check the so-called relieving chambers," Howard said, "But, we're nearly running into the time when Selim's group is scheduled to enter. The chambers are rather cramped, in any case."

I went after Prim and Nikola through the antechamber and into the chamber beyond. The blue glow of the wireless bulbs and golden light of oil lamps colored the rectangular chamber, but I thought it might be lined in that the reddish  granite common to the Necropolis.  The walls were littered with scratched graffiti.

At the far end, there was rough-edged stone box, and to the right a hole in the floor partially covered by a stone block.

Murphy came into the room, followed by Thierry and Alpha.

"Try hitting the sarcophagus," Murphy said, tipping his head towards the stone box.

Thierry looked to Alpha with brows raised, and then walked across the floor and, holding his umbrella like a golf club, took a swing at the sarcophagus. It rang hollow, like a deep bell.

"What are you doing?" Howard cried as he entered the chamber.

"Guides used to do this all the time," Murphy said.

"Just...." Howard trailed off.

"The acoustics in these stone monuments is fascinating," Prim said, "there was a small chamber in the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, which Alpha and I visited on Malta, in which acoustic resonance allows a low voice to be amplified and heard throughout the adjacent chamber."

"Like a chant?" I said it mostly to myself. I went towards one of the side walls, took a series of meditative breaths, and then began an Om chant.

ॐ

-----

Chapter 78!

I dedicate this chapter to DavidFarland whose work Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing I have been reading.

The Iron Man is entered in the Chosen One Contest at  FANTASCI If you want to support it, it's running against seven other works in Round 1 - Group 7. Even if you don't vote for any of the works, there are good Science Fiction and Fantasy stories to read.

The audio media for this chapter is "Initiation: Psalm 3" from the Paul Horn album Inside the Great Pyramid. I believe this track was recorded in the King's chamber. It's not identified in the track itself, but from listening to the other album tracks which do have some artist introductions, I think it is. This one is a vocal recording, but most of the album is like New Age Jazz Flute. I started to just get sleepy while writing, so at some point I stopped listening to it while writing and listened to the Chelsea Wolfe album Abyss instead.

The in-chapter images are, again, from the collection by John and Morton Edgar. These are all titled: "chambre du roi dans la pyramide de Khéops".

Also, if you caught it, I think Alpha made the first suggestion that he's acquainted with a historical Faisal associated with Syria during the Great War.