The Buried Pyramid (58 page)

“Yoo-hoo, boatman!”

The man turned his head and the wide-set bird’s eyes stared fixedly at Mrs. Syms. It was impossible to read his expression, and Jenny, stumbling after, Lady Cheshire still gripping her hand, could only hope the masked figure—it must be a mask, mustn’t it?—would be kind.

“Yes?” he replied, his tones strong but somehow mournful.

“Boatman, this marvelous garden, how did it get here?”

“It has always been here, since the beginning of time. It will remain here until time itself ends, if it ends.”

Mrs. Syms had tilted her head slightly to one side and was studying the man, concern in her every line.

Is she finally seeing all of this?
Jenny thought frantically.
It will destroy her . . . drive her mad. Madder? Perhaps she is the only sane one. Certainly, I can’t be seeing what I’m seeing, hearing what I’m hearing, and still be sane.

The others were also coming down to the riverbank. From the look of them, they were seeing the same things she and Mrs. Syms were. Jenny wondered if she should feel relieved at that. She watched as Eddie sidestepped to avoid a particularly luxuriant clump of papyrus reeds, and Stephen jumped backward when a pair of ducks, startled by his approach, exploded up out of the water. Uncle Neville prudently tested the soft ground with the tip of his crutch, before he put his weight on it. Captain Brentworth and Rashid walked down slowly side by side, man and master no more, but united by the kinship of familiarity in this strange place.

Like me and Audrey Cheshire,
Jenny thought.
I just can’t fear her as much, not in this place—and fear is what I felt. Fear is what made me so angry with her, willing even to kill her. I spoke a lot of hot words about right and wrong, but in the end I know my reaction now for fear pure and simple, wearing fancy clothes maybe, but no less fear for all that.

Mrs. Syms spoke again, “I feel as if I should know you, boatman. Are you He Who Looks Behind? Or are you Charon? I’ve been thinking I was dead. I saw my Nathan, you know, and spoke with him, yet I know he has been dead for many years. Are you Charon, come to carry me to Nathan?”

“I am not He Who Looks Behind, nor the boatman sometimes called Charon. Nor are you dead.” The boatman’s voice grew heavy with sorrow. “However, I fear I shall be. My companions have not arrived, and I must take my boat through the hours of night, or fail to depart upon Mandet when I must.”

“Mandet?” Stephen’s voice sounded very tight, but he was managing to keep some control. “That is the boat on which the god Ra is said to rise into the sky at dawn.”

“That is so,” the hawk-headed being said, looking now at Stephen, “and I am Ra.”

Jenny bit into her lip to keep from screaming, for with those words the boatman had risen to his feet and taken a few steps toward them. With that motion she had seen that the hawk’s head was not some clever mask, but as supple and living as that of a real bird. The man’s brown skin was unseamed and unscarred. It didn’t even bear a line where his collar rested against his skin—and it should have. The ornament was obviously heavy.

Uncle Neville limped forward.

“Ra?” he said. “Why not? That’s no more impossible than the rest of this place. Where are your companions? I seem to recall that gods and goddesses, great with power and magic, voyage with you each night, defending your ship from the serpent, Apophis.”

“I do not know,” Ra said. “All I know is that I must reach the other side of night, for without me day will not come.”

Neville took a deep breath.

“May we sail with you, Ra? We could serve as your crew. We are not as powerful as Isis and Thoth and all the rest, but we’re better than nothing.”

The god studied him, then turned his bright falcon’s gaze to the rest of them in turn.

“You may,” he said, “and I will thank you for your service, but I perceive something of your thoughts. I may not carry you with me into the world of day. Tuat, the underworld, is the realm of my brother god Osiris. However, if you assist me, I will speak well of you to Osiris.”

“We cannot ask more,” Neville said. “Bide a moment, and I will speak to my companions.”

“I cannot wait long,” Ra said. “The sun will not rise without me.”

Jenny stepped to her uncle’s side.

“Are you serious, Uncle Neville?”

“Serious as the grave,” he said. “You see this place. I don’t know whether we’re suffering under a mass hallucination or what, but this is where we are and we need to get out . . . unless you want to stay on this riverbank after Ra leaves. I have a feeling it’s going to get awfully dark.”

Captain Brentworth stared at him.

“You’re mad. We can just turn around and head back the way we came. We missed a turning or a secret door. The Arabs probably fed us hashish or something. It’ll wear off.”

Neville’s lips twisted in an expression that wasn’t quite a grin.

“Have you looked back the way we came?” he said.

Captain Brentworth did. They all did, and Jenny didn’t know whether to be surprised or terrified at this latest revelation.

The corridor was gone. What stretched behind them was more of the verdant Nile countryside. Gazelle frolicked in the distance. A lion coughed, and the gazelle scattered. Heron, ibis, ducks, cranes, and countless other water birds foraged. Frogs peeped from damp hollows. Dragonflies caught Ra’s light and shattered it into rainbows in the prism of their wings.

“We’re here,” Neville said, “and I’m no philosopher to say whether this is real or not. I do know my foot is wet where I stepped in a puddle, and that these flowers have scent. That makes it real enough for me.”

“So,” Jenny interjected, “we can either sit here and hope that we’ve all been drugged and that it will wear off, or we can go with Ra.”

“Ra,” Stephen said, his eyes shining in a delicate balance between terror and excitement. “I don’t think we’ll get a second chance. If Ra fails in his voyage, darkness falls forever.”

“You sound like you believe this,” Lady Audrey said, not mockingly, more as one who collects information.

“It’s odd,” Stephen said, “but it’s the only game in town.”

“I’ll go,” Brentworth said, “but I must have a rifle. I’ve read the myths. I know that monsters come after this boat. If the boat’s real, well, the monsters might be, too.”

Jenny knew the others were waiting on her decision. “All right,” she said. “We have a spare or two. Lady Cheshire, do you want your muff pistol or a bigger gun?”

“I’ll take the pistol,” the lady replied. “But the monsters were kept away by spells, not weapons.”

“If you know any spells,” Jenny said, realizing that what she had meant as a joke was coming out far too sincerely, “then brush up on them fast.”

“And Mrs. Syms?”

Lady Cheshire started to reply, but Sarah Syms turned and gave a beatific smile.

“I think sailing on the river would be lovely, dear. We can talk to that nice man, Ray. He seems to know so much.”

Rashid tugged on Captain Brentworth’s sleeve, gesturing frantically toward the boat. When they turned to look, Ra was bending to untie the line from the shore.

“I can wait no longer,” Ra said almost apologetically. “Already Apophis will have had time to ready his minions. Do you sail with me or remain?”

Jenny looked at her uncle.

“I’ll go,” she said.

The others nodded. Jenny bent and scooped up Mozelle, who was busily stalking another butterfly. The kitten never seemed to get disheartened at her failure to catch one, and Jenny grinned.

“Come along, little Persistence. We’re going for a ride.”

21

Magic

Ra let them put their gear aboard, and Neville was grateful. However real or unreal this was, it seemed wise to keep the water, weapons, and food near at hand.

Once they were aboard, the boat seemed quite a bit larger than it had from the shore. Its slenderness was deceptive. Toward the middle it was wide enough for two ranks of rowers, one on either side, with ample room for someone to walk between the rower’s seats and the central cabin.

A steering platform dominated the stern. The rudder was attached to a long pole that angled out of the water to rest on a high frame. The entire structure made a triangle whose base was the platform itself. The steersman stood within that triangle to operate the rudder by means of a pole that extended in front of him. A second platform, this one with high sides, dominated the front of the vessel.

Ra said, “My place is in the center. If I am pulled over the side and so destroyed by my enemies, there is no cause for the voyage to continue, for in that moment all will be lost. Do any of you know how to steer such a vessel?”

Captain Brentworth surprised Neville by promptly volunteering.

“I do. I’ve sailed the Nile and the Thames both. Will we be using the sail or the oars?”

“The sail,” Ra replied, “unless Apophis’s magic steals the wind.”

“Right,” Captain Brentworth said. “I’ll just go back and have a look at that rudder.”

Ra nodded. “I will direct the sail from the center of the boat, but I could use an assistant. We will also need someone on the front platform to watch for obstacles and probe for the best channels.”

Neville wanted to volunteer, but he knew his bad ankle would make his balance chancy. Eddie’s arm disqualified him as well, and Rashid could not call out warning. Neville glanced over at Jenny, who looked as if she had reached the same conclusion he had.

“I’ll do it,” she said, “though I may need a bit of coaching.”

“It shall be yours,” Ra promised.

Mozelle seemed to approve of this, for she gave a chirping meow and leapt into the god’s lap, ignoring the threat implied in the curved beak.

Trust a cat to find the warmest seat in the house,
Neville thought.

Rashid grinned at the kitten, and mimed to Ra his own willingness to help with the sails. Mischief leapt from his perch around the youth’s neck and climbed the mast.

“The rest of you,” Ra said, “must stand ready and alert to repel Apophis and his minions. There will be danger. They are determined, and losing this battle night after night has not made them less assured, only more certain that this time the victory will be theirs.”

“I’m willing,” Neville said with more confidence than he felt, “and I’m sure the others are, too. Stephen and Eddie, how about you taking the starboard? Lady Cheshire and I shall man port.”

“Starboard,” Ra commented with a slight, thoughtful smile. “What a lovely word. Now, Rashid, be ready to loose that line and angle the sail to catch the wind. Eddie, Stephen, push us away from the bank.”

The wind caught the sails almost instantly, and with unimaginable smoothness, the Boat of Millions of Years was gliding up the sparkling waters of this impossible Nile.

Jenny stood up on the bow platform, holding the long, slender pole with which she was supposed to fend them off obstacles and probe for the channel. What she wanted to be holding was her rifle, but Ra had so thoroughly disapproved of her failure to follow custom that she’d had to settle for propping her weapon against the ornately painted and carved rails that bounded the platform.

After bending over them a couple of times to check the water level, Jenny began to understand that these railings were as functional as her boots. They braced her neatly, keeping her from pitching over the side when the wind-driven boat made one of the many unexpected jerks that left her splashed with spray.

Jenny suspected she was going to be black and blue from bumping into the rails before she got a feel for the boat’s motion. She quickly learned to listen for Ra’s commands to loosen or tighten the sail, and guess what they would mean to her.

The beautiful shore where they had boarded the boat quickly gave way to a less inviting landscape. Towering cliffs loomed over the boat, making Jenny shrink into herself at the thought that someone up there might drop rocks on them. However, they passed through the cliffs without incident, and found themselves in the midst of a broad, wide stretch of desert. This changed without warning to a swampy canyon.

Jenny had to cry out warnings about a few shoals, shove the boat off a clump of reeds, but so far she had seen nothing sinister or malicious—unless you counted the random and erratic shifts in the surrounding terrain. She was beginning to wonder if Apophis and his minions had gone wherever Ra’s usual crew had vanished off to—and was wondering where that might be—when she was jerked back to full attention by a strange sight.