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Aziraphale pondered the role of coincidences in archaeology. Plenty of discoveries started with laypeople digging wells, randomly stumbling upon things, or searching for lost animals. This time, a wayward goat disappeared in front of its owner’s eyes; when the man followed, he discovered a hole leading into an underground chamber, part of a large burial complex hitherto unknown to modern science.
Aziraphale had met the goat and the owner after he had been summoned from The Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The duo had stayed for the excavation itself; somehow nobody objected. The cantankerous black beast named Bentley was unscarred by the experience, and had already been caught exploring the catacombs. The owner, Crowley…
“You really need to keep her away from the excavation site,” Aziraphale told him sternly, not for the first time. “Who knows what sort of viruses and bacteria lie dormant only to revive in the moisture of her lungs! And,” he continued, handing over the stray goat, “it’s definitely not healthy for her to chew on the mummy wrappings.”
Crowley chuckled as he accepted Bentley, planted a kiss between her stubby horns, and immediately set her loose. “You ever tried to keep a goat out of somewhere she was determined to be?” he asked. “How did that work out for you? I’m not personally up for it.”
Aziraphale chose not to reply—they both knew the answer—and Crowley moved on. “Found anything interesting today?”
The archaeologist was still unsure what Crowley’s occupation was—an artist? a goatherd? a professional nuisance?—and why he was interested in the excavation, but in the past weeks he had grown to cherish every moment he spent in his company. Surely there was no harm in sharing his latest discovery, especially if this prolonged their encounter?
“You already know this was a burial place for middle-class Egyptians, so to speak, not the elite?” he started, handing Crowley a safety helmet and a lightweight mask and motioning for him to follow underground. Crowley nodded. “It gives us a much wider cross-section of life than a royal necropolis. And this morning I found the most fascinating tomb… Ah, here it is. After you!”
They entered a small rock-cut chamber. Crowley took in the wall paintings, two coffins in the middle, and the items lining the walls.
“We tentatively dated this necropolis to the Eighteenth Dynasty, and this tomb’s contents match this period. The anthropoid coffins and the funerary goods point to the deceased being somewhat wealthy.” Aziraphale pointed as he spoke. “The inscriptions identify the man in the white coffin as a minor priest at the Temple of Amun-Ra. The man in the black coffin is a mystery; the inscriptions claim that he wielded the serpent’s power—presumably that of Apophis, the deity of chaos, the enemy of Ra. These men should be hereditary enemies in life; why are they buried together?”
Crowley glanced at him sideways, incredulous.
“Ah, and the wall paintings! We see the white and black-clad men together in several of them. This sequence is particularly intriguing. It starts with the black figure imprisoned, possibly on trial? Next, the white figure faces a ruler—unusually, the inscription suggests a female pharaoh, possibly Nefertiti—holding three cowrie shells and some sort of a seed. And finally, the black and white figures embrace. I wonder what’s the story here…”
“Archaeology must be like Dixit,” Crowley teased, “you look at pictures and try to imagine the story behind them.”
Aziraphale gave him a look, and Crowley fell quiet, chastised. Not for long, though.
“For my money, they got over their differences in the end. Probably retired to the countryside hereabouts—a priest of Amun-Ra can’t shag a servant of Apophis, after all. And they lived happily ever after,” he concluded, ignoring Aziraphale’s indignant gasp.
On their way back to the land of living, Aziraphale contemplated coincidences again. He had a feeling that meeting this man was going to upend his whole life. He very much hoped it was true.