Mr Impossible (10 page)

“
You’ve
measured it, then?” he said.

“
I quote Mr.
Belzoni’s calculations,” she said. “At the end of
this passage, he encountered the portcullis. You can imagine the
labor in this constricted space of raising a granite block nearly as
tall as you are, five feet wide and fifteen inches thick.”

Though Rupert could
work out how it might be done, he let her explain how Belzoni had
analyzed and solved the problem, using a fulcrum and levers, and
stuffing stones in the grooves to support the block as they raised it
by slow, slow inches.

When they came to
the portcullis, Rupert didn’t have to feign admiration. Raising
it in this small space was no negligible feat. He paused and ran his
hands over the sides of the opening and the bottom of the stone.

Then he huddled
under and continued for a few more feet until she stopped to turn
toward him.

“
We must
descend the shaft next,” she said. “Belzoni used a rope
and later piled some stones to one side, but someone brought a ladder
recently, and left it.”

“
Much more
civilized,” Rupert said. He noted a hole overhead while
watching how gracefully she turned, though she was obliged to move in
the same hunched-over style as he.

They descended the
shaft in the civilized way, continued down another passage, then up,
then straight on. The way grew easier. It was high enough to allow
Mrs. Pembroke to walk upright, though Rupert still had to keep his
head down.

At last they
entered the great central chamber, where he could easily stand
straight. The tall room’s ceiling tapered to a point, the angle
mimicking the pyramid’s.

The guides stood by
the door, holding their torches aloft. On the south wall, large
letters—proper Roman letters, not the curls and squiggles of
Arabic nor yet the curious little hieroglyphic figures—proclaimed,
“
Scoperta da S. Belzoni
2 Mar. 1818.”

“ ‘
Opened
by Signore Belzoni,’” Mrs. Pembroke translated, though
even Rupert could deduce the meaning.

“
The
sarcophagus in Cheops’s pyramid stands on the floor,” she
said, walking toward the west wall of the chamber. “But here,
as you see, it is sunk into the ground.”

It was not so easy
to see. The darkness was so thick one could practically feel it. The
torches made little headway against it.

Rupert gazed about
the room. “So many secrets,” he said.

He knew little more
of ancientEgyptthan what he recalled from the works of Greeks and
Romans. There was the ancient Greek traveler Herodotus, for instance,
whose
Histories
comprised a hodgepodge of facts, figures, and
myths.

“
This tomb
may keep its secrets for all eternity,” she said. “No
hieroglyphs. Do you see why Miles’s reasons for coming are so
puzzling? Besides, the papyrus allegedly came fromThebes—hundreds
of miles away in more mountainous terrain.”

Rupert studied the
gap between the granite stones surrounding the sarcophagus. What went
there? he wondered. An effigy? Treasure chest? Or simply another
stone?

“
Allegedly,”
he repeated. “Is there anything about the papyrus we can be
sure of?”

“
It’s
truly old,” she said. “It took several days to unroll.
You can’t be impatient with such things or you end up with a
lot of charred crumbs—and sick from the fumes of the chlorine
gas.”

She spoke quickly,
her voice a note or two above the usual pitch.

But she’d
talked that way since they entered the pyramid, Rupert realized.
She’d been exceedingly talkative.

He looked up from
the puzzling sarcophagus. She seemed to be looking down into it. He
couldn’t be sure. It was hard to read her expression in the
dim, wavering light.

“
Are you all
right?” he said.

“
Yes, of
course,” she said.

“
Not everyone
would be,” he said. “Some people have a morbid aversion
to closed spaces.”

“
It is an
irrational reaction one must overcome if one hopes to learn
anything,” she said. “We shall be exploring tombs
inThebes. They do have writing inside. That was the main point of
coming toEgypt: to study the hieroglyphs in the temples and royal
tombs. To compare names. We know what hieroglyphs form the name
Cleopatra. We’ve deduced some other royal names. With enough
pharaohs to compare, we should be able to deduce the alphabet.”

We. Rupert noted
the choice of pronoun. Not
he
or
Miles
.

“
Meanwhile,
you’d rather not be here,” he said.

“
I wouldn’t
mind so much, but we’ve wasted our time,” she said.
“There’s nothing. This was a stupid mistake. I should
have listened to Lord Noxley. I could have been questioning others
inCairo. What did I think I’d learn from a heap of stones?”

The edgy tone of
her voice had softened into despair.

Rupert rose and
started toward her, while trying to think of some stupid thing to say
to irritate her and rouse her spirits.

From somewhere in
the bowels of the pyramid came a bone-chilling scream.

“
NO!”
Rupert roared, turning toward the door.

Too late.

He had one last,
faint glimpse of swiftly retreating light as the guides fled. Then
there was nothing. The darkness swallowed them utterly.

Chapter 5

“
DON’T
FAINT,” RUPERT SAID IN AN UNDERTONE. “I can’t see
you to catch you, and a concussion would be a problem.”

“
Don’t
be absurd,” she said. “I never faint.”

If her voice hadn’t
risen a notch above her normal pitch, he might have believed she was
perfectly composed. But he was learning the changes in her voice, and
he’d noticed her propensity for hiding things. Her body, for
instance. That wasn’t all.

He’d work on
the other secrets once they got out of the present difficulty.

“
Stay put and
keep talking, but softly,” he said. He was listening. The
guides’ footsteps had faded. Outside the chamber silence
reigned. He didn’t trust it. Someone was there, he was certain.

Meanwhile he needed
to get his bearings. The dark was prodigious. He’d never
experienced anything quite like it.

“
I shall not
faint,” she said. “I freely admit, however, that our
present situation is not conducive to an easy frame of mind.”

Cautiously Rupert
inched toward her. He did not want to stumble over one of the stones
ancient tomb robbers had pried loose from the floor, or into any of
the holes where the stones had been. Broken limbs or a cracked skull
would not only slow their progress but hamper his ability to break
villains’ heads.

“
The
circumstances are far from propitious,” she went on in the same
high-pitched, pedantic tone. “We hear an unearthly scream. The
guides instantly decamp with the only source of light. This leaves us
to the tender mercies of whoever caused the screaming.”

Her voice was very
near now. Rupert put out his hand, and it slid over a fabric-covered
curve.

With a sharp gasp,
she stiffened. Then her cold ringers curled about his and lifted his
hand away.

“
I cannot see
my hand when I hold it an inch from my face,” she said, “yet
you had no difficulty locating my breast.”

“
Was that the
part I found?” he said. “What amazing luck.”
What
a splendid bosom
!

“
When we get
out of this,” she said, “
if
we get out of this, I
shall box your ears.”

“
We’ll
get out of it,” he said.

“
My mind
reverts, repeatedly, to the portcullis,” she said. “If
they remove the stones holding it up, we’ll be trapped here.”

“
That’s
too much work,” he said. “It would be easier to wait in
the dark and stab or shoot us as soon as we come close enough.”

“
I had not
thought of that,” she said. “I was preoccupied with the
prospect of being buried alive. With you. I could not imagine what we
would find to talk about while we died slowly of starvation and
thirst.”

‘
Talk?“
he said. ”Is that what you’d want to do during your last
hours? How curious. Come, take my hand. So far, no one appears to be
hurrying to cut our throats. I think we might risk setting out.“

“
Where is
your hand?” she said.

There was some
fumbling, during which he found the other breast, eliciting another
sharp gasp and uncompli-mentary muttering under her breath. But at
last he had her slim hand in his. It fit perfectly. His spirits rose
another few degrees while his heart went faster than before.

“
Your hand is
warm,” she said accusingly. “Does nothing alarm you?”

He was starting
toward where he estimated the doorway was. “Not this,” he
said. “I am armed, you know, and it’s simple enough to
find the way out.”

“
It is simple
enough if you can see where you’re going,” she said.

Searching with his
free hand, he found the edge of the doorway. “And if you
can’t?” he said.

“
I can think
of half a dozen different ways we could die,” she said. “With
or without villains’ assistance.”

DAPHNE KNEW SHE was
jabbering, but talking helped keep emotion at bay.

Until this moment,
she’d allowed herself to cherish a small hope that her alarms
about her brother were as silly as the men inCairopainted them to be.
She’d let herself hope, though logic rebelled against it, that
Miles was not in trouble, and Akmed had either lied about or
misunderstood what had happened in Old Cairo.

The scream and the
guides’ abrupt departure did not strike her as simple
coincidence, and the small, silly hope was breathing its last.

And so she babbled
facts.

“
The way we
came is one of two ways into the pyramid,” she said. “Parallel
to and below the passage we first entered is another, which leads to
a descending passage. This meets the upper one at the shaft. The
lower entrance is still blocked, however.”

“
So there’s
only one way out,” he said.

“
Yes, but it
is easy to go astray,” she said. “We could end up in the
wrong passageway. The lower passage has a shaft, too, and a side
chamber, if I remember correctly.” She wasn’t sure. The
panic she tried to crush was making a muddle of her mind. She could
not clearly picture Bel-zoni’s diagram.

She was not about
to let Mr. Carsington know the state she was in, however.

Coolly she went on,
“I trust yours is an unerring sense of direction?”

“
Yes,
actually,” he said, the supremely confident male.

“
I am glad to
hear it,” she said, “because it is all too easy, in
absolute darkness like this, to become disoriented and wander the few
simple passageways endlessly. Or tumble into a shaft.”

“
If you don’t
want to become disoriented, I recommend you keep close to me,”
Mr. Carsington said.

“
I ought to
remind you as well,” she went on testily, “that even if
none of these mishaps befall us, it is possible for villainous
persons to close the single way out. They’ve only a small space
to block, after all: four feet high, three and a half feet wide. They
might roll a few large stones down the passageway without great
difficulty.”

“
I should
think the guides would notice if anybody started hauling large stones
up to the pyramid entrance,” he said. “And I expect
they’d strongly object to anyone’s trying to block the
passage. Taking people into and out of the pyramid is their
livelihood, recollect.”

Yes, yes, of
course. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

Because she was
living one of her worst nightmares, trapped in a closed space in
utter darkness. Panic had suffocated logic and reason.

She was lost,
following blindly, clinging to his large hand as they proceeded
slowly but unhindered through the taller horizontal passageway and
thence into the inclined smaller one. There she had to let go of his
hand and grope along behind.