The Buried Pyramid (57 page)

Candles and lantern bases—the mantles had broken in the fall—were distributed. Rashid made clear that he was able to assist at least to the extent of holding one. Jenny patted his hand.

“Don’t burn yourself,” she warned.

Rashid shook his head—a bit gingerly—to indicate he would take care.

Jenny dropped back to the rear, holstering her revolver, but keeping it ready. Mozelle was twining around her ankles, and she picked the kitten up and set her on her shoulder.

“We’re off then,” Eddie said. “Lead the way, Stephen, and sing out if you see trouble.”

Thumping along on his crutch at the center of the group, assisting Mrs. Syms when she distractedly halted in mid-step to examine some element of her surroundings, Neville struggled with the fact that the achievement of the goal that had occupied him all these years could be so unsatisfactory.

There was no doubt that they had found the tomb of Neferankhotep—or at least some associated part of the mortuary complex. Stephen hazarded that it might be a vast temple, and that they were moving through the public sections, toward a holy of holies. He guessed that eventually their corridor would cross another that led to further public areas. For now the corridor was interrupted only by occasional small side chambers.

The walls surrounding them were covered with frescos depicting the pharaoh going about his daily routine, his figure neatly labeled in hieroglyphs, as if his crowned head might leave some doubt as to which figure was the king’s. The art was typically stylized, the colors bold and unsubtle: brown, blue, green, white, red, black, and yellow unblended, set neatly within the lines, like a tidy child’s coloring.

Yet the scenes themselves were not at all typical of Egyptian tomb paintings. The king was shown crushing his enemies on the battlefield, but he was also shown mourning the many who had died to make his victory possible. He was shown enjoying lavish banquets, but also visiting the farmers in their fields, and the herders amidst their cattle, dispensing among them a share of the bounty their labor had made possible.

Again and again, Neferankhotep was depicted making offerings to the gods, and those same gods looked back at him—this earthly Horus their brother—and their approval of him was evident in their bearing. Yet the pharaoh did not come across as either self-satisfied or falsely humble, but as a genuinely pious man, a man who knew he was a king and recognized the responsibilities as well as the honors attendant upon his position.

Can it be,
Neville thought,
that I have come to believe that what we’re doing is desecration rather than discovery?

No one will force you to carry anything away,
his personal demon told him.
Not one of those you brought with you, that is. I’m not sure you can trust the others.

And Neville knew that this, even more than the chance he had willfully desecrated the tomb of a truly good king, was what was troubling him. Despite numerous warnings, he had chosen to believe in Audrey Cheshire’s honesty. He had been unwise to do so. He had not only put his companions at risk, he had stripped away the millennia-old secret that had protected Neferankhotep’s peace.

And did I somehow transform Audrey into what she is?
he thought.
Is my desire to make a truly distinctive find somehow at fault? Had I been less eager for fame, more in service of historical discovery, might I have accepted her hints that she could be of assistance, and she have remained untempted, unwarped?

Neville didn’t know what answer he wanted—either confirmation that he was at fault, or acceptance that Audrey was nothing more than a scheming fraud. Each brought with it pain. For once the taunting voice of his inner self brought him no insight.

Yet Neville could not remain introspective, surrounded as he was by wonders. The flickering light illuminated not only the elaborate wall frescos, but alcoves holding intricate statues or elegant lamps carved from soapstone or alabaster. Sometimes there were small side-rooms containing caskets of gilded wood, their lids open to reveal scrolls or votive objects. Evenly spaced along the way were vases intricately painted with religious scenes or the texts of prayers, and holding the perfumed dust of flowers.

At intervals along the dark, gently curving corridor through which Neville and his companions made their halting progress were pillars supporting the roof. Some were fashioned to evoke various plants common in the Nile valley, each replete with its own symbolic significance: reed, lotus, palm, papyrus. The shafts of these pillars were heavily carved with hieroglyphs, and Stephen had to be stopped from attempting to translate each text. Other pillars were sculpted in the form of gods and goddesses, serene deific countenances rising above the dim glow of the candlelight so that their features appeared alive and moving in the flickering light.

Neville was concentrating on one of these—the cobra goddess, Wadjet, he thought, in an unusually large depiction—when he realized he was not straining to see as he had before. He drew his gaze down, expecting to find that Eddie, enterprising as usual, had lit more lanterns, and wanting to ask if this was wise. Their supply of oil was, after all, limited, and it might take them a while to find their way to the surface.

Instead Neville discovered that their progress had brought them around a bend, and that the light was coming from ahead of them. It was so clear and brilliant that Neville wondered at its source. Shouldn’t the sun have set? The sheik had not set his men on them until after the noontime siesta, and they’d had a long wait in the antechamber.

“Does anyone else see . . .” he pointed, unwilling to ask a specific question lest it make the others think him mad.

Stephen, intent on the wall text nearest to him, seemed startled at being asked to look more than a few feet ahead. Eddie, however, instantly confirmed Neville’s impression.

“There’s light ahead. Stephen, keep a close eye out for pits or something. That light would make a dandy lure. Anyone trapped down here could be expected to race toward it.”

“But,” came Lady Cheshire’s voice, speaking for the first time since she had attempted to defend retaining the muff pistol, “what could be its source? It must be night by now.”

Jenny said coolly, “Time gets funny when you’re trapped. You wouldn’t believe how slowly it moves. Why, when we were in that chamber up top I thought the sun had stopped moving, time dragged so. It’s the waiting that does it.”

Neville looked at his pocket watch, but it was no help. “My watch has stopped,” he said.

“Mine, too,” Stephen said, surprised, “and I know I remembered to wind it.”

“I,” Captain Brentworth said, “have a watch in my coat pocket, if someone would care to check it.”

He was clearly concerned that Jenny might take any motion on his part as an attempt to violate their agreement, and Neville couldn’t blame him.

“It’s time we took a breather anyway,” Neville said. “How are you two doing with the stretcher?”

“Fine,” Captain Brentworth said.

Lady Cheshire only nodded and went to lean against one of the pillars, gently chafing her wrists as if they ached.

Canteens were passed around, and when Jenny went to give some water to Rashid, not only did the Arab youth insist on drinking on his own, he made quite clear he felt he could move under his own power.

Jenny reluctantly agreed to let her patient try. She rolled up the stretcher, in case it should be needed. Captain Brentworth offered to carry it.

“Don’t worry, Miss Benet,” he said very coolly. “I am certain you can shoot me before I cause much harm with it.”

Jenny had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Besides,” the captain went on, “Rashid
is
my servant. It is only fitting I should look to his welfare.”

I wonder if the pictures of Neferankhotep got to him, too?
Neville thought.
Probably not. Probably just wanted to get Jenny to see him in a better light. I would if she were holding a gun on me, and her gaze was so cold and unfriendly.

Curiosity about the light ahead, combined with hope that it would reveal a route to the upper reaches of the valley made them keep their rest stop short. By common consensus, they resumed their burdens, and continued their march.

What they found astonished all of them out of speech.

Jenny came up short when Lady Cheshire suddenly drew to a halt. Her hand dropped to her pistol, then, like a fan opening, the group began moving again, filing into a larger space, and revealing what lay before them.

Jenny forgot her pistol, forgot Lady Cheshire, even forgot the myriad concerns that had dogged her every footstep and blunted her pleasure in the beauty of the surrounding temple. Overwhelmed with shock that melted into wondering awe, she stared.

The area before them was so enormous that it defied categorization. It made any building Jenny had seen in America seem laughably small, made diminutive the cathedrals she had toured in London, even dwarfed the vastness of the Grand Canyon. It was greater than the great outdoors, without horizon, without limit, impossibly, and mind-shatteringly huge.

Jenny felt her foothold on reality trembling, heard Lady Cheshire give a tiny whimper of fear, and felt no scorn, only gratitude for that small, human exclamation. She forced herself to walk a few steps and put a hand on Lady Cheshire’s arm, anchoring herself in something comprehensible, and when Lady Cheshire’s hand rose and grasped her own Jenny felt a wash of relief.

In front of them, Captain Brentworth had sunk to his knees. Rashid stood staring. Mischief clung to his neck, making nervous hooting sounds. Uncle Neville was frozen in place, his mouth agape. Eddie had bent his head in an attitude of prayer, and Stephen stood, color draining from his sunburned features so rapidly that Jenny feared he might faint.

Only two beings seemed to feel no awe. Mrs. Syms looked about in the same attitude of unfocused interest and curiosity she had shown since awakening from their fall. Mozelle trotted forward, then crouched and began stalking something, the tip of her tail twitching with concentration.

Jenny brought her gaze to focus on the tawny feline form, allowing Mozelle’s action to guide her into visual exploration of the vastness that she had shied away from.

What she saw almost forced her into new retreat.

The room was decorated to evoke the banks of the Nile in the lush growth that accompanied the latter stages of inundation. Papyrus reeds grew tall and green, not a single browned or weak stalk among the hardy bunches, their tops bursting into bushy golden-yellow tassels. Lotus and lilies spread round leaves over the water. Their blossoms—white, pale yellow, translucent pink—were open in the sunlight, each petal perfect and distinct. There were buds among the blossoms, elegant in the promise of beauty to come, but not a single withered flower.

Such unwithered beauty was possessed by every flower and grass. It was shared by the birds, insects, and small animals that darted among the verdure, their feathers and wings bright, their fur soft and glistening. The Nile waters shimmered as if stars were submerged in their depth. A perch that leapt out after a darting insect carried flecks of starlight upon its scales.

Jenny heard her own voice, hushed and small, ask, “But dragonflies? Herons? Butterflies? Here? How? I don’t understand . . .”

Only Mrs. Syms, unflustered, trailing after Mozelle as if she was walking in some London garden, responded: “I don’t know, my dear. Why not ask that nice man in the boat? He doesn’t seem to be busy.”

Jenny followed the direction the other woman pointed and saw the boat and the man. If, indeed, he could be called a man . . .

The boat was slim with upturned ends rising to tapering points. The hull had been elaborately decorated with brightly colored geometric designs. The boat boasted a single central mast around which an open-sided cabin had been built. In this cabin’s shelter, in a chair set before the mast, sat the being Mrs. Syms had so blithely referred to as a man.

He possessed the head of a hawk, but the body of a strong and virile man. His only attire was a kilt of fine linen, a broad jeweled collar, and a variety of armbands intricately worked in gold and gemstones. On his head he wore the uraeus crown. The strangest thing about the hawk-headed man was that he glowed. Jenny had the impression that all the diffuse light in this vast chamber somehow emanated from him.

Later, she would learn she was right.

Mrs. Syms was trotting down to the riverbank, waving her hand to get the boatman’s attention.