Luxor Lost and Found

by Graham Warren

  “Wow, it must be the hottest day yet,” said Alex. “Even under the shade of this tree I’m dripping.”

  “Look, look,” said Cairo excitedly as he sat astride the wall. Kate and Alex peered over as Cairo pointed. It took them a few seconds, and more than a few blinks, before their eyes adjusted to the brightness. Most of the temple area had now become much lighter in colour due to the water evaporating. “See, you see,” said Cairo, and they did see. There was a narrow line of virtually dry sand. It was only narrow, though it was widening second by second before it disappeared altogether.

  “It went from between those three blocks there,” said Alex as he traced a line in the air with his finger.

  “And if it continued, it would run straight under where we are standing.”

  “Yes, it would. We have found the tunnel, Kate, well done Cairo!”

  “Wait, Mr Alex, there second tunnel.”

  Neither Kate nor Alex could make out the line of the second tunnel, though Cairo was convinced he saw it run at a right angle from the tunnel they needed to find.

  “So, it went towards the gaffirs room?”

  “Yes, Mr Alex.”

  “Cairo, what have I told you?”

  “Sorry, yes, Alex.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Well, it did not show us the way for long, but at least it showed us the way. We don’t need to get into the temple to access the tunnel, we can dig down from here.” Kate thought her idea was a good one, however, Alex did not.

  “I think it might be too deep for us to be able to dig down from here.”

  “Why?”

  “We all agreed that the water would disappear first from wherever the tunnel was,” said Alex, in the hope that Kate would stay calm.

  “Yes, because the water would drip through into any tunnel quickly, therefore that area would dry out first. That is exactly what happened, so why can’t we dig down from here?”

  “It narrow this end,” said Cairo.

  “Sorry?”

  “Line in sand narrow this end, so tunnel must be deeper this end.”

  Amazingly, Kate failed to become annoyed. “Yes, I can see that.” She thought for a few seconds. “Next prayer time we need to get in there and dig.”

  Alex and Cairo, even though they had not spoken, both had a different idea. Neither was going to disagree with Kate, as they had no wish to ruin a peaceful moment.

  “We have a few hours before it is time for the next prayer, so shall we split up and see what we can find?” The boys agreed. Kate walked off as though she was on a mission. “Don’t forget to get something you can dig with,” she called back as she waved them goodbye.

  Several hours had passed as Kate watched the gaffirs leave Armant temple for the mosque. After securely chaining together the already closed gates, they took the long walk around the boundary wall. Cursing the fact that there was no sign of the boys, she decided to go it alone. Quickly over the wall, she kept low as she ran to where the tunnel should be. Unfolding her newly purchased spade, she locked it into position before frantically starting to dig. Thinking she heard an echo as she dug, she stopped. The muffled noise continued. Already on her knees, she looked around before placing an ear to the ground. Two hands shot out through the sand, grabbed her around the neck, then pulled her down into the tunnel below. With great presence of mind, she managed to hold onto her spade as she fell. In the pitch-black she spun it wildly, connecting with a wall, which sent shudders through her entire body.

  Aware that somebody or something was coming towards her, she lashed out again. Hearing the satisfying sound of a breaking bone, the screaming that followed gave her something to aim at. With a single blow, silence returned. An arm came around her from behind. She felt hot breath on her neck and objected strongly to the smell of very bad breath. Jabbing the blunt end of the spade behind her, with all the force she could muster, the hand released enough for her to be able to break free. The sound of air being gasped made for easy targeting. It took two blows of her spade before silence returned to the tunnel.

  Kate stood perfectly still. Even with all her senses working overtime, she was unable to make anything out in the pitch-black of the tunnel. She listened. Nothing, absolutely nothing, there was no sound of any kind, except for her racing heart. Shaking slightly, she removed a small torch from her pocket. Turning it on, she fleetingly saw two faces and a fist. Kate hit the floor almost as hard as the punch had hit her, though she refused to stay down.

  Her torch, disappearing off into the distance, lit the walls up as it spun away. She noticed that the tunnel did indeed go much deeper underground, and at a very steep rake. Kate knew she had to follow her torch. All her instincts were telling her that she would not survive if she stayed where she was. Whatever she did, she knew that she had to put distance between her and her attackers, and do so quickly. Now scrambling along the ground, she hoped that the slope would allow her slide away from her attackers. Before she could pick up speed she felt hands grab first one, then both ankles. Being dragged backwards, against the slope, she fought hard to get away, though she was no match for whoever had gotten hold of her.

  Suddenly there was light. She heard a thwack which was instantly followed by a second thwack. The hands released their grip upon her, she scrambled forward. “Stop, Kate,” she heard, though the slope was such that even if she had wanted to, there was no way she was going to be able to stop before she reached the bottom.

  “Fifty metres,” said Alex upon hearing Kate come to an abrupt halt.

  “I say sixty.”

  “You could be right, Cairo. Shall we split the difference and call it fifty-five?” They shook hands in agreement whilst nodding at each other for a job well done. The beams from their torches allowed them to see the unconscious bodies of the four tomb robbers. These most definitely were not ancients. Their bodies looked to be just as broken as some ancients they had encountered, though unlike them, these bodies were well and truly bleeding.

  Half standing, half sitting, the boys slid down to join Kate. Apart from what was going to be a very black eye, she appeared to be none the worse for her ordeal. Her torch, however, was beyond repair. It had probably survived the slope down, though it had definitely not survived Kate landing on it.

  She thought she had been attacked by ancients. The boys explained that she had encountered tomb robbers. Alex then went on to explain that he and Cairo had both had the same unplanned idea which caused them to meet up in the gaffirs hut. Though they had searched it thoroughly, neither could find any sign of an entrance to a tunnel, though they had found a couple of decent sized spades. “By the time we had arrived to where we should be digging, we heard the commotion below. It was just brilliant how you dealt with the first two. The noise allowed Cairo and me to drop down without being heard, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “For once I am glad you were both late, or they might have got us all. You did tie them up, didn’t you?”

  “No, and for three very good reasons,” said Alex.

  “They had better be very good reasons,” replied Kate.

  “Don’t worry, they are. One, they will still be unconscious long after we are out of here. Two, that slope is so steep we will never be able to get back up it, so we will not have to go past them to get out of here. And three, we had nothing at all that we could use to tie them up with.”

  Cairo shrugged his shoulders, Alex smiled his crazy smile, and Kate agreed that they were good enough reasons.

  Chapter 20

  -

  Tunnels, Tombs and Marble

  “That was an awfully long tunnel for it to end up at a dead end,” said Alex, as he turned, sending the beam of his torch back to where they had come from. He doubted that even the most powerful searchlight would have been able to illuminate as far as the slope they had first slid down.

  None of them could see how they could get out of here, with no way ahead, no way back up that dreadful slope, and having passed no o
ther passages on their way. Cairo went to speak, though it was Kate who spoke.

  “If you say ‘I too young to die’, I will probably kill you with my own hands!”

  “Don’t worry, she’s only joking,” said Alex in an attempt at reassurance.

  “I am now, but I might not be later!”

  “Kate!” was all Alex could bring himself to say.

  There were picks and shovels along with several piles of rock. This was where the tomb robbers had been working. It was obvious to anyone who came down here that if ancients had made a tunnel such as this, it must lead somewhere. The three young adventurers were thinking of a Bucheum, the tomb robbers obviously had their sights set on finding ancient gold.

  Cairo used the light from his torch to look down a recently made hole in the middle of the end wall, only to find that even though it was deep, it lead nowhere. “This wall very thick.”

  “Hold on … that’s it. We need to think out of the box here.” Alex felt adrenalin surge through this body. “If we are at a Bucheum, and I for one think that we are, the ancients had to enter it every time a Buchis bull died. We have walked straight up to a dead end, a very solid dead end, yet we still expect the entrance to the Bucheum to be directly ahead of us. That is exactly what the builders of this tunnel wanted any tomb robber to think.” He did not have to say any more. Using the tools left by the robbers, they hit them against the walls, floor and even the ceiling.

  “Here,” shouted Kate some fifteen to twenty metres back. She tapped the wall as they watched and listened. The hollow sound most certainly covered an area which they all considered would be large enough for a mummified bull to be taken through.

  “Hold on,” said Alex again, as Kate took a firm grip on her pick so that she could hit the wall with all her might. She turned to look at Alex as if to say ‘what now’, and he was happy to tell her what now! “This must be a door. There is likely to be a concealed handle somewhere around here.”

  Alex had been correct so far with his assumptions, so Kate was willing to go along with looking for a handle.

  His logic had told him that access to the Bucheum would not be at the end of the tunnel, he had been proved to be correct. His logic was now telling him that if small temples were associated with the tomb of every mummified Buchis bull, then access to them would be required. Otherwise there would have been no point in building any temple, however small. Priests from Armant temple, perhaps even the handmaidens of the Buchis bulls, would need to be able to bring offerings on special days. Neither could have been expected to knock through a wall and then rebuild it after every visit.

  It did not take long for Cairo to get the door unlocked, even though he could not work out how he had managed it. Hinged top and bottom, towards the left-hand side, Kate was able to push it fully open with a single hand. Alex stood with Cairo, spades in hand, ready to fight for their lives. The tension in the air was palpable, though as the door swung inwards, it revealed nothing more than another tunnel.

  “What now?” asked Cairo.

  “We go and meet some Buchis bulls,” said Alex as he barely contained a smirk, “where Kate will ask the meanest and fiercest, in her usual dulcet tones, for his nose ring. I reckon it will be job done in minutes. We will all be home in no time, enjoying tea along with some of Rose’s scones.” Alex had expected a smack from Kate. It did not come, not until he was not expecting it. And oh boy, did it hurt, though, all things considered, he was okay with it. He rubbed his arm and smiled at the same time, as they walked ever further.

  The walls either side of them changed from being totally plain to showing a small side-on image of a bull every metre or so. Each was in bas-relief, and each was painted with a black head and white body. As the three young adventurers walked on without uttering a word, the paintings on the walls became ever larger, as well as far more detailed. The detail was in each of the bull’s facial features. Apart from a common theme of black head and white body, each was very different.

  Kate put a finger to her lips as the tunnel ahead of them opened out into a very wide room, though why she had felt the need to do so baffled the boys. They were extremely unlikely to burst into song or shout out ‘anyone at home?’!

  Cairo had an inbuilt sense of survival, so he was nearly always the first one to look back. He needed to ensure he had a clear exit when he ran away, or as he would call it, go for help. Today he could neither run away, nor go for help. The last thirty or so bulls had been carved into the walls in bas-relief, just as the earlier ones had been, though these he had thought, were shown larger than life-size. He now knew he was wrong. They were life-size, it was just that they were amazingly large bulls. Both from the left and the right they were appearing from bas-relief after bas-relief, standing in line, in pairs.

  “There doesn’t appear to be any bulls in here,” said Kate in a whisper, as she watched the beam of Alex’s torch move from one side of the room to the other.

  ‘Because they are all behind us’, Cairo wanted to say. He even moved his lips to say this, though no sound came out.

  Alex swept the room again with his torch. This time he raised the beam to avoid the glare of the white marble floor. The wall immediately to his right followed straight on from the tunnel. About half way into the room ahead there was access to a lower floor. Steps or slope, he could not make out, though he expected it to be a slope. The left-hand side of the room went back quite some way, where he looked upon a row of brightly coloured small stone buildings. These stood in line, away from any wall. Each had a single door, there were no windows. Had they been made from wood, they could have easily been mistaken for beach huts. It suddenly dawned on him, “There are no bulls here, because those are the small temples above where each bull is buried. We need to go down there, down that slope, if we are to find any bulls.” He spoke in excited, though hushed tones.

  “No, Mr Alex, we do not need to go down there to find bulls, they behind us,” Cairo wanted to say, he tried to say, but the fear which had gripped him continued to do so. It stopped him from being able to say anything.

  Alex took a step forward. As his foot touched the marble floor, flaming torches lit up around the room. He turned to Kate and shrugged.

  She signalled for him to walk on, to have a look down the slope. She then pointed two fingers at her own eyes, before pointing them towards the far side of the room. Alex took this to mean she was going to see what, if anything, was behind the small temples.

  Cairo watched Alex move ahead, whilst Kate disappeared to his left, out of view. He managed to turn around on legs which were like jelly. There, in front of him, were wall to wall bulls, whose bodies were so wide that when standing in pairs, they not only touched each other, they blocked the full width of the tunnel. Their faces looked menacing, just from their immense size. Their bodies were absolutely massive, though they stood on legs which were not only unnaturally straight, they were also thinner and taller than Cairo would have expected them to be. This left a lot of room for him to crawl through, and one thing Cairo could do well, as well as do quickly, was crawl. Seeing his chance to escape, he grasped it. He was through the legs of the first two bulls, then the following two bulls, in a flash. He was a further two bulls along before he crashed into a lowered face. This close they were even larger and more terrifying than he had initially thought. Should he attempt to get around this head and go on, or should he turn back? His thoughts, as it turned out, were quite academic. With a simple toss of its head Cairo was airborne. He flew back over the bulls he had just managed to get past, as he headed for the open expanse of the room. He landed with a thud. Alex turned to see what the noise was, just as Cairo took his legs out from underneath him. His momentum, when combined with the shiny marble floor, took them both down the slope to the floor below.

  “Are you okay, Cairo?”

  “Bulls!” he managed to say.

  “Yes, I noticed, just as you crashed into me. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I too
young to die. I go for help.”

  “It’s a good job Kate didn’t hear you say that, or you would be dead by now!”

  “Hear Cairo say what?” asked Kate, who had just slid down to join the boys.

  “Nothing,” replied Alex. “Did you see the bulls?”

  “Why do you think I’m here? They look seriously scary.”

  “They do, yet I cannot hear any movement. They do not appear to be coming after us.”

  “Idiot, they do not have to, they are blocking our way out. We could starve to death before they move.”

  “How nice you are when you speak to your friends, Kate.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, that is just it, I know exactly what you mean. I used to really like your edginess, the way you never suffered fools gladly.” Cairo was begging to say something. Alex beckoned for him to do so.

  “We not starve to death, we die of thirst.”

  “Shut up, Cairo,” snapped Kate.

  “That is exactly what I mean. You treat everyone appallingly. I am so relieved you are not singling me out for special treatment.”

  Kate had wanted to say sorry; she had once before, but today the word stuck in her throat. She did not know why she was being as she was. She had experienced so many traumas for such a young person, yet now that she had been taken under the wing of Quentin and Babs, her frustration, her anger and her lack of patience with the people around her appeared to be on the increase, when it should have been on the decline. She felt powerless to do anything to stop it. At least today she did not feel like crying, which she took as a change for the better.

  “We have ancient bulls up there. I for one cannot see any other way out of here, so you had both better get your thinking caps on.” This was said as only Kate could say it. The boys both heard her words and they both read the same into them. ‘Don’t mess with me or you die’ was her subliminal message, a message which they took seriously.