Reflections in the Nile (56 page)

Khaku fussed over him for a few more seconds and then left, doing as his master commanded.

“Go, my child.” Imhotep gestured to Chloe. “Take the bowl from that table; do not look into it, but bring it to me.”

Chloe found the bowl. Concentrating on a spot above Imhotep's head, she walked to him, setting it carefully on a small table. Cheftu came in, supported by Khaku. His color was good, and he winked at Chloe. They sat on the couch, and Khaku pulled a stool forward so they all could see the small table. Then he bowed and left.

Imhotep seemed improved. “This morning I thought I would cast your horoscopes,” he said a little breathlessly. “I had some sacred oil from Midian and some of the healing waters from Ptah's temple.” He swallowed, his gaze flitting from Cheftu's still features to Chloe's curious ones, noting the strong-fingered grasp that held them together, a human chain. “I poured them in the divining bowl, and then,
haii
, I cannot describe what happened. It was like a khamsim blew through, not disturbing anything else, but stirring the water.” He leaned over and stared into the bowl. “When at last I could see, this was what I beheld.”

Chloe met Cheftu's gaze, and with a reassuring squeeze he released her hand. She leaned over the bowl and had to steady herself on the edge of the table. It was a map.

Cheftu scooted forward and saw it also. “Egypt,” he murmured in English.

“It is a map of the Sinai and the two Egypts,” Imhotep said. “It is as clear as a scribe's drawing. But look more closely, children.” Chloe angled her head for a better view. From somewhere along the eastern edge of the Inland Sea, a path led across the water and into the desert between the sea and Waset. There it stopped.

“What does it mean?” she whispered, looking up into Cheftu's eyes. She was so close, she could see the circles of bronze that encircled his pupils.

He turned to Imhotep. “Was there anything else?”

The old man paled and sat back. “Aye, son. There was.” He looked from face to face, then spoke in a monotone. “‘You must leave that which you carry in this place, then you must return to your lives.’”

Chloe looked at Cheftu. What did they carry?

Cheftu looked aghast. “Why?”

“Because you share a destiny. A destiny so vital, it will transform people's lives, their thoughts. It will tear your flesh from your bones, because of its demand.”

“Demand?”

“A sacrifice.”

Chloe raised an eyebrow at Imhotep. “How can we carry anything when … Wait a moment.” She turned to Cheftu. “Those scrolls.”

“The scrolls! Alemelek's scrolls!” He struggled to rise, but Imhotep laid a restraining hand on him and called for Khaku.

A few tense moments later, Cheftu pulled the scrolls from the quiver and unrolled them. There were about fifteen, all fine papyrus, covered with drawings of fruits, trees, and flowers, others of villages, and several of a family. And Meneptah.

Chloe choked when she found the one of the village. “I'll be damned,” she said in distinct English. She felt Cheftu's stare, but her gaze was tracing the lines of the figures. She rolled it up and saw the botanical drawings. Her hands were cold and shaking as she slumped forward on the stool, staring at the map.

“‘A dig in the eastern desert,’” she quoted. She opened the basket that Khaku had also brought while Cheftu looked on in surprise. She removed a false bottom and pulled out several notepads and two well-wrapped scrolls. With trembling hands she opened them. Cheftu had on his doctor's face, watching Imhotep. However, the old man's gaze was steady as Chloe unrolled a long scroll.

Cheftu flinched when he saw his own countenance looking back at him as they sat watching the Exodus prepare to go forth. Chloe felt the blood leave her head.

“What is it?” he asked. “What do you see?”

She put a hand to her face. “The future.”

“What!?”

“In 1994, my sister, who studies Egypt, will be part of a dig that discovers these papyri. I did not recognize the one of the Exodus as my own, because I had never before drawn faces.” She looked at Cheftu. “Before you I never knew …” She bit her lip and looked down. “However, this village, and these fruit, I remember them clearly. The discovery was so amazing because it dated from the time of Thutmosis and was not in two-dimensional Egyptian style. Camille said there were about fifty of them, but they had not all been unwrapped.”

Cheftu and Imhotep both looked confused. There were no direct translations for a lot of what she had said, but apparently they got the impression she knew what she was talking about.

“Where were they found?” Imhotep asked.

Chloe looked at the water and oil map. “In the eastern desert outside of Luxor … Waset.”

“Hatshepsut's secret chamber,” Cheftu said.

“What?”

“
Assst!
She had it built so that she and Senmut could be together as man and wife throughout time—an action forbidden to Pharaoh, but not if kept hidden!” His voice rose in sudden comprehension. “That must be where these are found! Hat said the reason she chose that location was because the land was barren. Nothing out there at all!”

Imhotep looked from one to the other. “You are to place them there,” he said, gesturing to the wealth of papyri. “You have about forty scrolls here, if you take all. What do they depict?” he asked. “Are fruit and trees so important in the future?”

Chloe frowned. His point was good; what was their purpose? Cheftu began to flip through them. The plague of blood, several of the different stages of locusts, a street in Avaris during the hail, the hallway with sick servants, a recalled rendition of when Hat and Moses met face-to-face and the sun came out at his God's command. “They are just illustrations from the Bible,” Cheftu said. “Interesting, but hardly worth the complexities of time and space we have experienced.”

Chloe began pacing. “Aye, just illustrations. Everyone knows the stories,” she said, then stopped. “But they do not believe them!”

Cheftu looked up, frowning. “Do not believe the Bible?”

“Nay. Nor did I before”—she paused—“before this. Did you?”

“Aye. Why would the Jews use a fabricated story on which to base their entire existence as a people?” Cheftu asked. “It is humiliating enough for them to admit to being slaves, but then the desert? The many times they disobeyed and God punished? Why would someone falsify that?”

“Aye.” Imhotep chuckled. “You will never read of an Egyptian battle lost or a pharaoh falling short of his duties.”

“That is it!” Chloe cried. “There is no other validation of the existence of Israel, or the Passover, or even who the pharaoh was! Even my sister thinks it was Rameses the Great, if anyone at all. This is proof! Cold, hard facts written on paper from the right period.” She sat down, flipping quickly through the drawings. Several of Alemelek's were Egyptian style—one actually telling the story of Ramoses! With a shaking hand she passed it to Cheftu and Imhotep, who leaned over it, reading quickly.

Chloe sat down. This was bloody unbelievable!

She began to shake. They were responsible for delivering the scrolls to the tomb. Then to go back to their lives? The room was quiet now, the puzzle solved.

Cheftu laughed in amazement. “Alemelek was so afraid he had not been used by God. He felt guilty for marrying and not confessing to a priest. The night he died, I was shocked out of my wits to hear Latin.We hardly spoke he was so ill. He asked me to administer last rites, which I did, but poorly. Then he made me swear on the Host that I would give him a Christian burial.”

“Did you?”

“Aye. The night before we left. Meneptah and I traded his body for another, and I broke an ankh to make a cross.”

“Where did you bury him?”

“In the caves behind the City of the Dead.”

Chloe chuckled. “That is sure going to mess with a lot of Egyptologists’ minds!”

“Children,” Imhotep said with authority, “now that you know your task, your destiny demands it be done. Soon. I have laid false trails, but the voice warns me that they will not gain you the time I had hoped. You need to leave soon.” He glanced at Cheftu's leg. “Is there any way I can aide you?”

“Water, food, clothing,” Cheftu said. “What was the second part of … what you heard? How do we go back, and what is the demand, the sacrifice?”

“I do not know how you got here. Obviously, it was necessary for your world. I regret to say I do not know how to get you back.”

“The man you saw ‘disappear,’ the one who was so pale … where exactly in the temple was he?” Chloe asked.

Imhotep pursed his lips. “I will think on it and draw you a map. I will also”—he shuddered—“cast individual horoscopes for you. Tell me your birth dates.”

“December twenty-third, 1970,” Chloe said unhesitatingly. The old man's hands faltered as he wrote down the date.

Cheftu was pale. “December twenty-third, 1790,” he whispered.

The old man dropped the quill and stared at them. “When?” he breathed. “When during the night?”

“Twenty-three minutes after twenty-three hundred hours,” Chloe said, freezing at the sound of her own words. Realizing she had spoken in English, she translated into Egyptian, but Cheftu had understood.

“That is my birth, exactly,” he said.

“You are both of the house of RaEmhetep,” the old man said. “It is the unluckiest day of all births in our year. The lintel in the room was inscribed with ‘
RaEmhetepet, RaEmHetp-Ra mes-hru mesut Hru Naur, RaEmPhamenoth, Aab-tPtah
.’”

Chloe gasped, hardly able to choke out the words. “What did you say? Repeat it!”

“‘
RaEmhetepet, RaEmHetp-Ra, mes-hru mesut Hru Naur, RaEmPhamenoth, Aab-tPtah
.’”

“Add on the phrase …” She concentrated, trying to remember the symbols that had haunted her for days in their incomprehensibility. “‘
Tehen erta-pa-her Reat RaEmhetep EmRaHetep
.’ ‘Prayer in the twenty-third doorway at twenty-three of RaEm.’”

The old man frowned. “Prayer in the twenty-third doorway? Are you certain?”

“I think I am,” she said.

“The other part is easy,” Cheftu said. “The twenty-third of the month of Phamenoth, which more or less corresponds to December.”

Imhotep shook his head. “I do not know what this other could refer to. I will look through my library.”

They all froze then at the words drifting in from the front room: “We demand shelter in the name of Thutmosis the Third, Pharaoh of Egypt, living forever!”

They wasted no time.

“Head west to the shore. Caravans pass there. Join as brother and sister,” Imhotep hissed as they stripped and dressed, accepting packets of food and rewrapping the papyri, while Khaku stalled the soldiers.

“Take the donkey outside. Be careful—there have been mountain cat tracks in the last week.”

Chloe chuckled. Cheftu stared hard at the map, imprinting it on his flawless memory.

Imhotep pressed an ink palette into her hands. “For more,” he said. “There are only forty scrolls. Search your memory for the rest.”

In minutes they were equipped, and Imhotep slashed the back of the tent for an escape route. With luck there would be too few soldiers to surround the tent. Tears streaming down his face, Imhotep said, “May your God lead you and protect you,” he said.

Then they were gone, ducking from shadow to shadow, weaving through to the other side of the oasis. They traveled through the heat of the day, though the wind through the wadi kept them cool. Imhotep had warned it was flood season, so they walked on the wadi's edge. Any sound could foretell a rush of water that could submerge them instantly.

“Why do we have to travel as brother and sister?” Chloe asked at
atmu
.

Cheftu sighed; though he rode the donkey to ease his leg, he was still weak. “It's protection. As your brother, if someone harms you, I have recourse. Either they have hurt my family's standing and future, or they have insulted my forefathers.” He groaned, shifting on the gray animal. “Unfortunately, as your husband, they have simply hurt my feelings. I have no greater, claim on you.”

“So it is better to be my brother than my husband?”

“
Absolument
.”

“That makes no sense to me.”

“Why not?” Cheftu asked. “Doesn't your brother carry the responsibility for your family name? Makab does.”

“Since my only brother is a black sheep and hasn't been mentioned by name in many years, it is up to Cammy and me to ‘carry on’ our names. Cammy is, was, so much like Mom with her love of archaeology, it was obvious she would follow in her footsteps,” Chloe said. “That is why I joined the military, like Father. There's a long-standing tradition of Bennets and Kingsleys serving—from every generation. Someone had to maintain our heritage— it was not going to be Caius—so it was me.”

“You have a brother named Caius?”

“My mother is
really
into history. At least it's not Caligula.”

He chuckled weakly. “So you are a woman of the future. It makes sense now.”

Chloe wiped sweat out of her eyes. “A strange form of rebellion?”

“There is so much about you that I do not know,” he muttered. “I do not even know what to ask.”

It was dark. After the business of setting up camp, eating, and feeding the donkey, they leaned against each other, with Cheftu's leg stretched out.

The braying of the little gray animal woke him, and Cheftu jerked awake, his knife close to his body. Growling, an animal pounced from the rushes, landing beside Chloe. Poised to stab the attacker with his knife, Cheftu recognized Thief just in time. He hobbled over to the donkey, who was straining at her ties, her eyes rolling in fear, and tried to calm her. By that time Chloe had convinced the cub to get off her, and he was sniffing the bones from dinner.

Cheftu rubbed his face, sore with mosquito bites. He could see the tint of dawn sneaking up on them. They had made such a noise that any moment he expected arrows to rain down on them. Thief butted his leg, and he groaned from the pain shooting through it Multicolored spots rose before his eyes, and he realized in surprise that he was sitting again; Thief, who had been soundly admonished, was his cushion. Chloe handed Cheftu water and dates. The Perfuming, he supposed.