The Buried Pyramid (43 page)

The kitten was backing away from something in the sand, spitting and waving one paw. Her tail was bristled and her back arched in a fashion that should have been ridiculous in one so small, but Jenny felt anything but amused. Rising, she saw that the kitten’s foe was a large scorpion.

Scooping Mozelle up in one hand, and ignoring the kitten’s wriggling protests, Jenny brought the butt of her rifle down repeatedly on the arachnid’s shell, watching the tail curve up and over its back as it stabbed ineffectually at the polished wood. Only when it stopped moving completely did she stop and set Mozelle down.

The kitten sniffed once, then contemptuously scratched sand over its foe.

When she woke Stephen for his watch—Uncle Neville had asked for the last watch so he could start packing the camels—she showed him the dead scorpion.

“Ever seen one before?”

“Not that large,” Stephen said, poking the corpse in fascination. “They’re poisonous, aren’t they?”

“Very. Some can kill you; others just make you wish you’d died. They’re one of the myriad creeping and crawling reasons Eddie keeps reminding us to shake out our boots and bedding.”

Stephen continued inspecting the dead scorpion, flipping it over with a twig to get a better look at its pincers and curving tail.

“It looks rather like a crab of some sort,” he observed, “or maybe a spider. I bet the ancient Egyptians didn’t like them any more than we do, yet in their cosmology they made them into wardens of the dead, and associated them with beloved goddesses like Isis and Selket. For all that, the ancient Egyptians are dust while the scorpion flourishes. There’s a moral in that somewhere.”

“Shake out your bedding and check your boots,” Jenny suggested, following words with actions. “See you in a few hours.”

* * *

Neville had been aware of the various conversations that had interrupted the day’s rest, but had refused to take part in any of them. When he woke, it would be time to head for the Hawk Rock. Stubbornly, like a child waiting for Christmas morning, he pretended to sleep.

Sometimes he fooled even himself, but when Stephen woke him, he felt as if he’d already been awake for hours.

“Rest a while,” Neville advised the younger man. “I’m going to need your mind sharp and clear when we reach the Hawk Rock.”

“Why are we even going there?” Stephen asked. “Didn’t you and Alphonse Liebermann already find what we’ll need?”

“There may be something more,” Neville replied. “As you may recall, Alphonse and I left somewhat abruptly. Even if there isn’t, we can refill our water.”

Stephen licked his lips as he settled back.

“Right. I’d like to be wet behind the ears in more ways than one.”

As evening began to bring some relief from the glaring sunlight, Eddie awoke. After tending to his personal needs, he came to help Neville re-pack the camels. By the time the sun was low but the light not yet gone, they were ready.

There was no need to awaken Stephen and Jenny, nor to ask why they were awake before it was necessary. There was very little conversation as they readied themselves to depart, only orders from Eddie on matters of routine, and a few commands to the camels.

To Neville, it seemed the light took longer than usual to fade that night, for his gaze remained so fixed on the looming presence of the Hawk Rock that he felt he could see it even after reason told him it must have faded into the darkness.

Now that they were closer, Eddie struck a match occasionally, checking their course against his compass. After they had been underway some hours in full darkness, Neville was aware of a change in his camel’s bearing.

He commented on this to Eddie, who said laconically, “Scented water or grass, I’d guess. Doesn’t feel like nerves to me.”

It was still night when the bulk of the Hawk Rock began blocking out the stars. Eddie guided them around to the little canyon where the Liebermann expedition had camped a decade before. The opening was there, and Neville’s dread that a landslide or rockfall might have blocked or otherwise altered it vanished.

The canyon itself didn’t seem much changed, at least from what he could tell by lantern light. They didn’t bother erecting the pavilion, just unpacked the bare necessities and settled themselves to wait for dawn.

“Try to sleep,” Eddie advised, and though everyone answered that they would, Neville thought that only Eddie himself would get more than a catnap.

Dawn came at last, a gentle herald to what would be another day of unremitting brilliant light and reflected heat. They welcomed it as if the sun truly were the boat of Ra, bringing the god safely once more from his dangerous journey through the dark reaches of night.

“I suppose,” Eddie said, resignation in every line of his face, “that all of you can’t wait to hurry up and see if the obelisk is still there.”

Neville was too embarrassed to speak. Ever since the first hints of dawn had touched the canyon he’d been looking to see if the trail he and Alphonse had followed was still there. The fact that he knew it couldn’t be clearly seen from this canyon had not kept him from trying.

Stephen looked equally uncomfortable, but Jenny spoke easily.

“I’ll stay here and start setting up camp,” she said. “I can’t read hieroglyphs nearly as well as the rest of you, and we’ll be glad for shelter when the sun is higher.”

Eddie rewarded her good sense with a warm smile before turning to the others.

“I’ll stay with Jenny and set up camp,” he said. “You two can combine searching for the obelisk with seeing if that spring is still active. I seem to recall that water could be lowered from above, and it would be nice to have a wash.”

“And a shave,” Stephen agreed.

His blond beard wasn’t heavy, but several days of golden stubble marred the line of his side-whiskers. Neville rubbed a hand along his own jaw, feeling the rasping roughness with something like surprise. He must be obsessed. He hadn’t even noticed the itchy new growth until this very moment.

Gathering several collapsible buckets, a hunting rifle, and some lengths of rope, Neville led his similarly burdened assistant toward where the base of the trail had been. Like the canyon, it remained little changed. Some rocks had shifted. There were shrubs where there had been none, and none where he recalled some, but otherwise it was as it had been: a steep, pebble-strewn trail, unfit for camels and hardly fit for goats.

Neville took the lead and soon became glad for the rope. Stephen proved as clumsy of foot as he was agile with his tongue. He was game, though, grasping the line Neville strung from the base of a sturdy shrub and using it to help himself over the worst sections of the trail.

“Good thing,” Stephen gasped when at last they reached a more level section, “that Eddie insisted on bringing extra pairs of heavy gloves. This pair is going to need some mending.”

Neville nodded, hardly hearing him.

The meadow or vale seemed rather more overgrown than he recalled, but was recognizably the same place. He cast around, and spotted the telltale lushness that marked the location of the spring.

It, at least, had changed. When he had last seen it, it had been little more than a drip, but now someone had opened the flow to a trickle. Flat rocks had been set to direct the channel into a tiny basin that held a double handful of water. Neville drank, and found it cool and sweet.

“This is different,” he said, explaining the changes to Stephen.

“Different,” the other agreed, bending to inspect the basin, “but I don’t think recent. The stone has had time to discolor where the water habitually pools, and along the edge where it runs over.”

Neville nodded. “Even so, it is evidence that someone has been here, has stayed here, sometime in these last ten years.”

Stephen didn’t seem much impressed. He hardly attended even to the water, his gaze darting around the overgrown vale. His eagerness to locate the obelisk was obvious, as was his awareness that, unlike Alphonse Liebermann that first time, he was not the patron of the expedition and couldn’t rush off without leave.

“Remember,” Neville said, balancing one of the buckets beneath the point where the basin overflowed, “that water will have attracted all sorts of creatures. There will be snakes here, as well as scorpions and spiders.”

“Yes, sir.”

Neville rose, certain his knees hadn’t creaked this much ten years ago.

“The obelisk was over there,” he said. “Follow me.”

Cutting away the thorny growth, they located the obelisk easily enough, but what they found was not what they sought.

The tapering stone column had been broken into numerous jagged-edged pieces, the stone from which it had been carved pounded until only fragments of the hieroglyphic writing remained.

Stephen bent and picked up one of the larger chunks of stone.

“New Kingdom,” he said, his voice struggling to remain matter-of-fact, “as I believe you deduced last time.”

Neville stared at the wreckage, toeing over a few pieces as if expecting to find the intact monument beneath.

“This is recent,” he stated.

“But not too recent,” Stephen countered. “We had to cut through the thorn bushes to get to it, and I believe desert plants grow slowly, even where there is some water.”

Neville nodded.

“Was this done immediately after Alphonse and I were here?” he asked. “The obelisk had been left fallen but undamaged since the New Kingdom . . .”

“Or at least since the time of a scribe who wrote in that fashion,” Stephen said pedantically.

“Why destroy it now?”

Stephen tossed his broken piece of stone to the ground, looking far more mature than he usually did, “Because whoever did this hoped that you had not had time to copy the inscription. Without it, you would have no idea how to reach the Valley of Dust. Even with it, we’re taking a gamble.”

Neville nodded.

“So it could have been done soon after we were chased away,” he said, “and the spring modified at the same time.”

Stephen pulled back a few bits of shrub, inspecting the rock wall for other writing.

“It does make Miriam’s story about the Protectors all the more believable,” he said. “I wonder if it was her grandfather’s tribe who drove you away then. Did she seem to recognize anyone?”

“No,” Neville said, “but her brother or father may have done so.”

“Makes you wonder,” Stephen went on, “who exactly was the mysterious woman who delivered Chad Spice’s journal to Alphonse Liebermann that long time ago. Could it have been another disaffected female of that tribe, someone else who didn’t like their children being taken away as Miriam’s father didn’t like it?”

“It is possible,” Neville admitted. “That bucket should be about filled. Let me change it for an empty one. Then I’ll check if the place we lowered water from before is still there. You can look for any inscriptions we might have missed. Be careful . . .”

“I know,” Stephen said. “there are ghoulies and ghosties and, especially, long-legged beasties.”

“I just hope,” Neville added with a faint attempt at wit, “that those are all that will go bump in the night.”

By eve-ning, Stephen found no other inscriptions. After setting up camp, Eddie scouted the area, hunting and killing several dorcas gazelle from a small herd obviously drawn to the relative fecundity of the Hawk Rock. The water bags were refilled, and even the camels had drunk their fill.

“There’s no real reason for us to remain,” Eddie said, wiping his lips on the back of his hand after finishing a liberal portion of gazelle steak. “We have replenished our provisions, and it seems the only thing we will find here is trouble—especially if someone else comes to use the spring.”

“Isn’t that unlikely?” Stephen asked. “I mean, this isn’t exactly on the beaten track.”

“Maybe not by your standards,” Eddie replied, “but the Bedouin are sure to know every watering hole for miles, and a spring of fresh water, no matter how difficult to reach, won’t have passed notice. The Protectors of the Pharaoh aren’t the only ones we have to watch out for. The Bedouin are as different from the city Arabs as you can get. About the only thing they have in common is Islam.”

Neville puffed his pipe, remembering. “They’re proud of their ability to live in the desert, and consider it their territory. Banditry and stealing aren’t immoral, not really, no matter what the Koran says. As the Bedouin see it, if they could take it, the other person didn’t care enough to safeguard it.”