The Seventh Scroll (80 page)

Helm's jaws sprang open as he went into spasm. Nicholas pulled away from him with a flap of loose flesh hanging from his chin, and blood streaming and spurting from the deep ragged wound.

Helm was impaled upon the spike, like a carcass on a butcher's hook. His limbs twitched and the muscles of his face convulsed, his eyelids shivered and jumped like those of an epileptic, and his eyeballs rolled back into his skull so that only the whites showed, flashing grotesquely in the gloom of the chasm.

Nicholas pulled himself up on to the tog beside the Texan's body, and hung there panting and bleeding in gouts down his chin on to his chest. Slowly the log revolved un er the eccentric weight distribution, and Helm began to slide off the spike. His skin tore with a sound like silk parting, and the vertebrae of his spine grated on wood.

Then the corpse, at last quiescent, flopped face down into the water and began to sink.

Nicholas would not let him go so easily. "Let's make sure of you, dear boy," he grated through his swollen, bleeding mouth. He spat out a mouthful of blood and saliva as he stretched out and grabbed the back of Helm's collar, holding him face down in the water under the log. They icked up speed rapidly down the last stretch of the canyon, but Nicholas held on doggedly, drowning any last spark of life from Helm's carcass, until at last it was torn. from his grip by the current and he watched it sink away into the grey, roiling waters.

"I'll give your love to Tessay," Nicholas called after him as he disappeared. Then he gave all his concentration to balancing the log and staying aboard for the ride through the tumbling, racing current. At last he was spewed out -AL

through the pink rock portals into the bottom reach of the DandeTa river. As he was swept beneath the rope suspension bridge he slid off the log and struck out for the western bank, very much aware of the terrible drop into the Nile that lay half a mile downstream.

Sitting on the bank, he tore a strip from the tail of his shirt. Then he bound up his wounded chin as best he could, strapping it around the back of his head. The blood soaked through the thin wet cotton, but he knotted it tighter and it began to staunch the flow.

He stood up unsteadily and pushed his way through the strip of thick river in bush which bounded the river, until at last he struck the trail that led down to the monastery and hobbled down it on his bare feet. He only stopped once, and that was when he heard the sound of the helicopter taking off from the top of the cliff above the chasm far behind him. He looked back. "Sounds as though Tuma Nogo made it out of there, more's the pity. I wonder what happened to von Schiller and the Egyptian," he muttered grimly, fingering his injured face. "At least none of them are going to get into the tomb, not unless they dam the river again." Suddenly a thought occurred to him.

"My God, what if von Schiller was already in there when the river hit!" He began to chuckle, and then shook his head. "Too much to hope for. justice is never that neat." He shook his head again, but the movement started his wound aching brutally. He clutched his bandaged jaw with one hand and started down the trail again, breaking into a trot as he reached the paved causeway that led down to the monastery.

ahoot Guddabi ran full into von Schiller around a corner of the maze, and in a peculiar way the old man's presence, even thoug he was of no conceivable value in this crisis, steadied him and kept at bay the panic that threatened at any moment to boil over and overwhelm him. Without Hansith the maze was a weird and lonely place. Any human company was a blessing. For a moment the two of them clung together like children lost in the forest.

Von Schiller still carried part of the treasure that they had been examining when Hansith had panicked and run.

He had Pharaoh's golden crook in one hand and the ceremonial flail in the other.

"Where is the monk?" he screamed at Guddabi. "Why did you run off and leave me? We have to find the way out of these tunnels, you idiot. Don't you realize the danger?"

"How do you expect me to know the way-' Nahoot began furiously, and then broke off as he noticed the chalk notations on the wall behind von Schiller's shoulder, and for the first time realized their significance.

"That's it!' he exclaimed with relief. "Harper or the Al Simma woman have marked it out for us. Come on!" He started down the tunnel, following the signposting. However, by the time they came out on the central staircase almost an hour had passed since Hansith had left them. As they hurried down the staircase into the long gallery the sound of the river rose to a pervading hiss, like the breathing of a sleeping dragon, Nahoot broke into a run and von Schiller staggered along behind him, his aged legs weakening with fear.

"Wait!" he shouted after Nahoot, who ignored his plea and ducked out through the opening in the plaster-sealed doorway. On the landing the generator was still running smoothly, and Nahoot did not even glance at it as he hurried down the inclined shaft in the bright dazzle of the light bulbs along the roof.

He turned the corner still at a run, and stopped dead 41, as he realized that the tunnel below him was flooded, right back up to the level of the ancient high-water mark on the masonry blocks of the walls. There was no sign of the sinkhole or the pontoon bridge. They were submerged under fifty feet or more of water.

The Dandera river, guardian of the tomb down all the ages, had resumed its duty. Dark and implacable, it sealed the entrance to the tomb as it had done these four thousand years past.

"Allah!" whispered ahoot. "Allah have mercy on us." Von Schiller came around the corner of the tunnel and stopped beside Nahoot. The two of them stared in horror at the flooded shaft. Then slowly von Schiller sagged against the side wall.

"We are trapped," he whispered, and at those words Nahoot whimpered softly and sank to his knees. He began to pray in a high, nasal sing-song. The sound infuriated on Schiller.

"That will not help us. Stop it!" He swung the golden flail in his right hand across Nahoot's bowed back. Nahoot cried out at the pain and crawled away from von Schiller.

"We must find a way out of here." Von Schiller's voice steadied. He was accustomed to command, and now he took charge.

"There must be another way out of here," he decided. (We will search. If there is an opening to the outside then we should feel a draught of air." His voice became firmer and more confident. "Yes! That's what we will do. Switch off that fan, and we will try to detect any movement of air."

Nahoot responded eagerly to his tone and authority, and hurried back to switch off the electric fan.

"You have your cigarette lighter," von Schiller told him. "We will light tapers from these." He pointed at the papers and photographs that Royan had left lying on the trestle table by the doorway. "We will use the smoke to detect any draught."

For the next two hours they moved through all levels of the tomb, holding aloft the burning tapers, watching the movement of the smoke. At no point could they detect even the faintest movement of air in the tunnels, and in the end they came back to the flooded shaft and stared despairingly at the pool of still black water that blocked it.

"That is the only way out," von Schiller whispered. 11 wonder if the monk escaped that way," said Nahoot as he slumped down the wall.

"There is no other way."

They were silent for a while; it -was difficult to judge the passage of time in the tomb. Now that the river had found its own level there was no movement of water in the shaft, and the faint and distant sound of the current running through the sink-hole seemed merely to enhance the silence. In it they could hear their own breathing.

Nahoot spoke at last. "The fuel in the generator. It must be running low. I did not see any reserves-'

They thought about what would happen when the small fuel tank ran dry. They thought about the darkness to come.

Suddenly von Schiller screamed, "You have to go out through the shaft to fetch help. I order you to do it., Nahoot stared at him in disbelief. "It's over a hundred yards back through the tunnel to the outside, and the river is in flood."

Von Schiller sprang to his feet and stood over Nahoot threateningly. "The monk escaped that way. It's the only way. You must swim through the tunnel and reach Helm and Nogo. Helm will know what to do. He will make a plan to get me out of here."

"You are mad." Nahoot backed away from him, but'von Schiller followed him.

"I order you to do id'

"You crazy old man!" Nahoot tried to scramble to his feet, but von Schiller swung the heavy golden flail, a sudden unexpected blow in Nahoot's face that knocked him over backwards, splitting his lips and breaking off two of his front teeth.

"You are rnad!" he wailed. "You can't do this-' but von Schiller swung again and again, lacerating his face and Is of the whip cutting shoulders, the heavy golden tai through the thin cotton of his shirt.

"I will kill you," von Schiller screamed, raining blows on him. "If you don't obey me I will kill you."

"Stop!, Nahoot whined. "No, please, stop. I will do it, only stop." He crawled away from von Schiller, dragging himself along the floor of the tunnel until he sat waist-deep in the water.

AZT',, "Give me time to prepare he pleaded.

"Go now!" Von Schiller menaced him, lifting the whip high. "Very likely you will find air trapped in the tunnel.

You will find your way through. Go!'

Nahoot scooped a double handful of water and dashed it into his own face, washing away the blood that poured from one of the deep cuts in his cheek.

"I have to take off my clothes, my shoes," he whimpered, pleading for time, but von Schiller would not allow him to leave the water.

Do it where you are standing, he ordered, brandishing the heavy whip. In his other hand he held the heavy golden crook. Nahoot realized that a blow from that weapon cou Id crack his skull.

Standing knee-deep "at the water's edge, Nahoot hopped on one foot as he pulled off his shoes. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he stripped to his underpants. His shoulders were deeply scored by the lash of the flail, fresh blood welling up and slithering like scarlet serpents down his back.

"He knew that he had to placate this crazy old madman.

He would duck under the surface and swim a short way down the tunnel, hold on to the side wall down there for as long as his breath lasted, and then swim back again.

"Go!" von Schiller shouted at him. "You are wasting time. Don't think that I will let you get out of this,, Nah6ot waded deeper into the shaft until the water covered his chest. He paused there for a few minutes as he drew a series of deep breaths. Then at last he held his breath and ducked below the surfAce. Von Schiller stood waiting at the edge of the pool, staring down into it but unable to see anything beneath the black and ominous surface. In the lamplight Nahoot's blood stained the surface. A minute passed slowly, and then suddenly there was a heavy swirl beneath the waters, and a human arm rose through the dark surface, hand and fingers extended as though in supplication. Then slowly it sank out of sight again.

Von Schiller craned forward, "GuddabW he called

"I -. "What are you playing at?" angrily There was another swirl below the water, and something flashed like a mirror in the depths.

"Guddabi !'von Schiller's voice rose petulantly.

Almost as if in response to the summons, Nahoot's head broke out through the surface. His skin was.waxen yellow, drained of all blood, and his mouth gaped open in a dreadful, silent scream. The water around him boiled as though a shoal of great fish were feeding below. As von Schiller stared in incomprehension, a dark tide rose up around Nahoot's head and stained the surface a rose-petal red. For a moment von Schiller did not realize that it was Nahoot's blood.

T

Then he saw the long, sinuous shapes darting and twisting beneath the surface, surrounding Nahoot, feeding upon his flesh. Nahoot lifted his hand again and extended it towards von Schiller, pleadingly. The arm was halfdevoured, mutilated by deep half-moon wounds where the flesh had been bitten away in chunks.

Von Schiller screamed in horror, backing away from the pool. Nahoot's eyes were huge and dark and accusing.

He stared at von Schiller and a wild cawing sound that was not human issued from his straining throat.

Even as von Schiller watched, one of the giant tropical ee Is thrust its head through the surface and its teeth gleamed like broken glass as it gaped wide, and then locked its jaws on to Nahoot's throat. Nahoot made no effort to tear the creature away. He was too far gone. He stated at von Schiller all the while that the eel, twisting and rolling into a gleaming ball of slimy coils, still hung from his throat.

Slowly Nahoot's head sank below the surface again.

For long minutes the pool was agitated by the movements in its depth and the occasional gleam of one of the serpentine fish. Then gradually the surface settled as still and serene as a sheet of black glass. Von Schiller turned and ran, back up the incline shaft, past the landing on which the generator still puttered quietly, blindly trying to get as far away as he could from that dreadful pool. He did not know where he was going, but followed any passageway that opened in front of him.

At the foot of the central stairway he ran into the corner Of the wall and stunned himself, falling to the agate tiles and lying there blubbering as a large purple lump rose on his forehead.

After a while he dragged himself to his feet and lurched up the stairs. He was confused and disorientated, his mind starting to break up -in delirium, driven over the edge of

652 it's sanity by horror and fear. He fell again, and crawled along the tunnel on his hands and knees to the next corner of . Only the was he able to regain his feet to the maz stagger onwards.

The steep shaft leading down into Taita's gas trap opened under his feet without him seeing it. He fell down the steps, jarring and bruising his legs and chest. Then he was on his feet again, reeling across the store room past the ranks of amphorae, up the far staircase and into the painted arcade that led to the torrib of Pharaoh Mamose.