The Seventh Scroll (42 page)

"You can't carry me up there." She looked up the trail, steep as a ladderway, and was aghast.

"It's the only train leaving from this station," he told her, and offered her his back. She crawled up on to' it.

"Don't you think you should dump the dik-dik skin?" she asked.

"Perish the thought!" he said, and started up.

It was slow and heavy-going. After a while he had nothing left over for talking, and he trudge' upwards in dogged silence. Sweat drenched his shirt, but she found neither the wet warmth of it that permeated her blouse on to her own skin, nor the strong masculine odour of it offensive. Instead, it was comforting and reassuring.

Every half hour he stopped until his breathing became regular and even again. Then he opened his eyes and grinned at her.

"Hi ho, Silver!" He pushed himself to his feet, and bowed his back for her to scramble aboard.

As the day wore on, his jokes became more forced and feeble. By late afternoon the pace was down to an exhausted plod, and at the more difficult places he had to pause and gather himself before stepping up. She tried to help him by climbing down from his back, and supporting herself on his shoulder as they struggled over the more arduous pitches, but even with this respite she knew that he was burning up the very last of his strength.

Neither of them could truly credit their achievement when they reeled around another corner of the track and saw before them the waterfall, spilling down like a white lacy curtain across the trail. Nicholas staggered into the cavern behind the sheet of falling water and lowered her to the floor. Then he collapsed and lay like a dead man.

It was dark when he had at last recovered sufficiently to open his eyes and sit up. While he was resting Royan had gathered'some wood from the monks' stockpile and managed to get a small fire going.

"Good girl," he told her. "If ever you want a job as a housekeeper-"Don't tempt me." She hobbled over to him, and examined the cut in his scalp. "Nice healthy scab," she told him, and then suddenly and impulsively she hugged his head to her bosom and stroked his dusty, sweat-stiff hair off his forehead.

"Oh, Nicky! How can I ever repay you for what you did for me today?" A flippant reply rose to his lips, but even in his weakened state he had the good sense to bite it back. He was in no state to attempt any further intimacy. So he lay in her embrace, enjoying the feel of her body against his, but not taking the risk of scaring her off with a move of his own. At last she released him gently, and sat back. "I very much regret, sir, that the housekeeper cannot offer you smoked salmon and champagne for your dinner. How about a mug of mountain water, pure and nourishing?"

"I think we can do better than that." He took the drycell torch from his burn'bag, and by its beam selected a round, fist-sized stone from the floor of the cavern. With this in his right hand he turned the light upwards, and played it over the cavern roof. Immediately there was a rustling of wings and the alarmed cooing of the rock pigeons that were roosting on the ledges. Nicholas manoeuvred into position below them, dazzling them with the torch beam.

With his first throw he brought down a brace of them, fluttering and squawking to the cavern floor, while the rest of the flock exploded out into the night in a great clattering uproar of frantic wings. Nicholas pounced on the downed birds and with a practised flick of the wrist wrung their necks.

"How do you fancy a juicy slice of roast pigeon?" he asked her. She lay propped on one elbow, and he sat cross-legged facing her, each of them plucking the vinous-maroon and grey feathers from one of the pigeon carcasses. Even when it came to drawing the bird, she was not squeamish, as many other women might have been faced with the same task. This, together with her stoical performance during the day's struggle up the mountain, enhanced his opinion of her. She had repeatedly proved to him how game and plucky she was. His feelings towards her were strengthening and maturing every day.

Concentrating on removing the fine bristles from the puckered breast skin of the bird, she said, "It is beyond all doubt now that the material stolen in the raid on our camp is in Pegasus hands."

"I was thinking the same thing," Nicholas nodded, "and we know from the antennae at their base camp above the falls that they have satellite communications. We can place a pretty certain bet that Jake Helm has already telefaxed it through to the big man, whoever he may be."

"So he has all the details of the stele in Tanus's tomb. We know that he already has the seventh scroll in his possession. If he isn't an expert Egyptologist himself, he must have somebody in his pay who is. Wouldn't you agree with that?"

I would guess that he can read hieroglyphics himself.

I would think that he must be an avid collector. I know the type. It is an obsession with them."

"I know the type as well." She smiled at him. "There is one sitting not a thousand miles away from me at this very moment."

"ToucV' he laughed, and held up his hands in surrender. "But I have only been lightly bitten by the bug, compared to others I could name. Those other two on Duraid's list, for instance."

"Peter Walsh and Gotthold von Schiller," she reeled off the names.

"Those two are homicidal collectors,," he confirmed. "I -am sure neither of them would hesitate to kill for the chance of having Pharaoh Mamose's treasure to themselves."

"But from what I know about them, both of them are billionaires, at least in dollar terms."

"Money has nothing to do with it, don't you see. If they laid hands upon it, they would never ever dream of selling a single artefact from the hoard. They would lock it all away in some deep vault, and not let another living soul la eyes upon it. They would gloat on it in private - it's a bizarre, masturbatory passion."

"What an odd word to describe it," she protested.

"But accurate, I assure you. It's a sexual thing a compulsion, like that of a serial killer."

"I love all things Egyptian, but I don't think I can even imagine a craving that intense."

"You must remember that these are not ordinary men whom we are considering. Their wealth allows'them to pander to any appetite'. All the normal, natural human appetites soon become jaded and satiated. They can have anything they want. Any man or any woman. Any thing, any perversion, whether legal or not. In the end they have to find something that no one else can ever have. It's the only thing that can still give them the old thrill."

"So in whoever is behind Pegasus we are dealing with a madman?" she asked softly.

"Much more than that," he corrected her. "We are enormously wealthy and powerful dealing with an maniac, who in his disease will stop at nothing." They picked the cold carcasses of the roasted pigeons for their breakfast. Then, while the other one tactfully went to the back of the cavern an averted his or her gaze, they took turns to strip naked and bathe under the waterfall.

After the heat of the gorge the water was icy cold. It battered them with the force of a fire hose. Royan hopped on her good leg, gasping and whimpering under the torrent, and emerged covered in goose-pimples and shuddering blue with cold. However, it refreshed her, and even in her filthy, sweat-stinking clothes it gave her heart to start out on the last bitter climb to the summit.

Before leaving the cavern they examined each other's injuries again. Nicholas's scalp wound was heating cleanly, but Royan's knee was no better than the previous day. The bruises were starting to turn a virulent puce, the colour of decomposing liver, and the swelling was unabated. There was very little he could do for it, other than strapping it again with the bandana.

At last Nicholas admitted defeat, and abandoned his burn-bag and the roll of dik'dik skin. He knew that he was reaching the limit of his physical reserves, and he realized that, light as these items were, every extra pound that he carried today might mean the difference between reaching the summit or breaking down on the trail. He retained only the three rolls of undeveloped film, each in its plastic capsule. These were their only record of the hieroglyphics' on the stele in Tanus's tomb. He dared not risk losing them, so he buttoned them into the breast pocket of his khaki shirt. He tucked both the bag and the skin into a crack in the wall at the back of the cavern, determined to retrieve them at some later date.

And so they started out on the last but most onerous leg of the trail. To begin with Royan was on her own two feet, but leaning heavily on his shoulder. However, before the first hour was over her knee could no longer take the strain, and she subsided on to a rock on the edge of the pathway.

"I am being an awful nuisance, aren't I?

"Come on board, lady. Always room for a small one." With Royan perched on Nicholas's back, her injured leg sticking out stiffly in front of her, they toiled upwards, but their progress was even slower than it had been the day before. Nicholas was forced to pause and rest at shorter and shorter intervals. On the easier pitches she dismounted and hopped along on one leg beside him, steadying herself with one hand on his shoulder. Then she would collapse, and he had to lift her to her feet and pull her up on to his back once again.

The journey descended into nightmare, and both of them lost all sense of the passage of time. Hours blended with hours into a single unremitting agony. At one stage they lay beside each other on the path, sick and nauseated with thirst and exhaustion and pain. They had emptied the water bottle an hour ago, and there was no more on this section of the path - nothing to drink until they reached the summit and were reunited with the Dandera river.

"Go on and leave me here, she whispered hoarsely.

He sat up immediately and stared at her. "Don't be silly. I need you for ballast."

"It can't be much further to the top," she insisted. "You can come back with some of Boris's men to help carry me."

"If they are still there, and if Pegasus doesn't find you first." He stood up a little unsteadily. "Forget it. You are coming along on this ride, all the way."And he hoisted her to her feet.

He made her count aloud every step he took, and at every hundredth he paused and rested. Then he started the next hundred, with her counting softly in his ear, clinging with both arms around his neck. The whole universe seemed to shrink in upon them to the ground directly at his feet. They no longer saw the rock cliff on one side nor the deep void of space on the other. When he lurched or jolted her and the pain shot through her knee, she closed her eyes and tried not to let her voice betray it to him as she kept counting.

When he rested, he had to lean against the cliff face, not trusting his legs to get him up again if he lay down. He dared not lower her to the ground. The effort of lifting her again would be too much. He no longer had the strength for it.

"It's almost dark," she whispered in his ear. "You must stop here for the night. It's enough for one day. You are killing yourself, Nicky."

"Another hundred, he mumbled.

"No, Nicky. Put me down!'

For answer he pushed off from the rock wall with his shoulder and staggered on upwards.

"Cound' he ordered.

"Fifty-one, fifty-two," she obeyed. Suddenly the gradient altered so sharply under his feet that he almost fell.

The path had levelled out, and like a drunkard he reached up for a step that wasn't there.

He staggered and then caught his balance. He stood teetering on the brink of the precipice and peered into the dusk ahead of him, at first unable to credit what he was seeing. There were lights in the gloom, and he thought that he had begun to hallucinate. Then he heard men's voices, and he shook his head to clear it and bring himself back to reality.

"Oh, dear God. You have made it. We are at the top$ Nicky. There are the vehicles. You did it, Nicky. You did it.

He tried to speak, but his throat had closed up and no words came. He reeled forward towards the lights, and Royan cried out weakly on his back.

"Help us here. Please help us." First in English and then in Arabic. "Please help us."

There were startled cries and the sounds of running men. Nicholas sank down slowly into the fine highland grass and let Royan slide off his back. Dark figures gathered around them, chattering in Amharic, and friendly hands seized them and half-carried, half-dragged them towards the lights. Then a torch was shone into Nicholas's face and a very English voice said,

"Hello, Nicky. Nice surprise. I came down from Addis to look for your corpse. Heard you were dead. Bit premature, what?"

"Hello, Geoffrey. Good of you to take the trouble."

"I dare say you could use a cup of tea. You look a bit done in," said Geoffrey Tennant. "Never realized that your beard had ginger and grey bits in it. Designer stubble.

Fashionable. Suits you actually."

Nicholas realized what a picture he must present, ragged and unshaven, filthy and haggard with exhaustion.

"You remember Dr Al Simma? She has a bit of a dicky knee. Wonder if you would mind taking care of her?"

Then his legs gave way under him, and Geoffrey Tennant caught him before he fell.

"Steady on, old boy." He led him to a canvas-backed camp chair, and seated him solicitously. Another chair was brought for Royan.

"Letta chai hqPa!" Geoffrey gave the universal call of an Englishman in Africa, and minutes later thrust mugs of steaming over-sweetened tea into their hands.

Nicholas saluted Royan with his mug. "Here's to us.

There's none like us!'

They both drank deeply, scalding their tongues, but the caffeine and sugar hit their bloodstreams like a charge of electricity.

"Now I know I am going to live,'Nicholas sighed.

"Don't want to be pushy, Nicky, but do you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?" Geoffrey asked.

"Why don't you tell me?" Nicholas countered. He needed time to evaluate the situation. What did Geoffrey know and who had told him? Geoffrey obliged immediately.

"First thing we heard was that white hunter chappie of yours, Boris, had been fished out of the river near the Sudanese border, absolutely riddled with bullet holes. The crocs and catfish had snacked on his face, so the border police identified him by the documents in his money belt." Nicholas glanced across at Royan and cautioned her with a frown.