by Brad Geagley
He lifted his head, gazing again into the sky… There was no moon!
He suddenly knew—the tomb-makers were going to rob another crypt.
THE TOMB-MAKERS EMERGED from one of the village’s alleys, turning north toward the Great Place. Semerket waited for them, concealed behind the temple wall. He was astonished to see that they carried torches, the light spilling brilliantly upon the pathway. The men seemed blithely nonchalant at being so visible in the night-shrouded valley. Even their knapsacks, laden with their copper tools, pealed merrily into the night as they ascended the high trail. They seemed not in the least worried they might attract attention.
In the circles of torchlight, Semerket saw that the scribe Neferhotep led them. Behind him was the master painter, Aaphat, and his two assistants, Kenna and Hori. Only these four remained of the chief work gang, where once there had been seven. The goldsmith Sani, the big foreman Paneb, the lad Rami—all were confined in the Medjays’ jail. Surely four men would not be enough to break open a tomb, Semerket thought, to strip it of its treasures, and then bury it again in a single night…
He became uneasy. Perhaps they were not going to rob a tomb after all. They certainly made no effort to muffle their footsteps. He crept on the trail behind them, at a distance of some fifty cubits, careful to cling to the dark crags. At no time did they turn and look behind to see if he followed them. No doubt they believed he was dead from the poisoned food they had given him.
A trio of Medjays accosted the men, emerging from out of the dark, demanding to know why they traipsed through the Great Place at such an hour.
Neferhotep’s thin, reedy voice rose nasally. “We’re going to Pharaoh’s tomb, where else?” he replied in aggrieved tones. “Now that you’ve taken our best men, we’ve no choice but to labor nights to complete it.”
The Medjays allowed the tomb-makers to pass and returned to their towers across the valley. Semerket heard the tomb-makers’ mordant snickers. Their smugness made him suspect that Neferhotep and his men had deliberately made themselves noticed in order to divert the Medjays from their real purpose. But as he followed them again along the high pathway, he saw that the men indeed descended into the valley where Pharaoh’s unfinished tomb waited.
Though there was no moon, the night was almost silver-hued, star-lit from above and infused with the ambient hues of distant Theban hearths. He saw Neferhotep take a large wooden key and insert it into the cedar door at the tomb’s entrance. Before the scribe closed the door on them, Semerket saw him turn to sharply survey the valley. Semerket pressed himself against the cliff wall, barely breathing—and saw in the light spilling from the doorway that Neferhotep was searching for someone, or something. After a moment, Neferhotep pulled the tomb’s door closed.
Semerket crossed the wadi, taking up a position on a low escarpment, and settled in to wait. An hour passed. Another. His legs were cramped and the desert air was frigid. He grew nervous and uncomfortable, unable to wait quietly. Throwing aside caution, he crept down the side of the cliff and crossed the wadi to the door of the tomb, one silent step at a time.
He fully expected the door to be locked. When he pulled on its handle, however, it swung silently toward him, perfectly balanced in its jamb. Semerket was careful to open it only a tiny fraction.
No one waited there. Summoning his resolve, Semerket took his first step inside the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses III. Torches lit the tomb at various intervals down its long, descending corridor, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the brightness after being so long in the dark. Semerket heard no voices, nor any sounds that indicated the tomb-makers were at work.
They had gone to the far end, he reasoned, into the distant burial chamber itself. He listened, cocking his head in that direction. Again, silence. Fighting down his urge to flee, he forced himself forward.
The tomb’s entryway stood at the top of a long staircase that descended into the mountain. At his left was a large wooden workman’s chest stained with paint and battered from long use. Inside were various tools—saws, axes, picks, chisels, hammers. Out of long habit he quickly ascertained that none of the tools was fashioned from the blue metal that had killed Hetephras. A few torches were stowed deep in the chest as well, and he quietly removed one. It would both provide light, should he need it, and be a dependable weapon for his defense. A nearby jug was filled with the sesame oil and salt that would provide a smokeless light. He filled the torch’s cone, but did not light it.
Semerket counted the steps down to the first passageway, twenty-seven in all. On the lintel above were paintings that the master artist, Aaphat, had recently completed—a pristine sun disk flanked by images of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys.
The torches that the tomb-makers had lit were located great distances from each other, illuminating only a few lengths of the corridor at a time. Much of the time Semerket walked in long patches of shadow before he came again into light, able to view only a portion of the tomb’s painted figures. Those he did see were formal and terrifying, as befitting the tomb of a god.
As he crept along, Semerket noticed that the entire angle of the tomb began to diverge very slightly to the right. In all this time he heard no voices—no sounds at all. Ahead, leading to what he supposed would be the burial chamber, the torches stopped. Only primordial black lay beyond. The tomb-makers did not labor in the distant burial chamber, as he had first thought; they had reached this wide gallery and seemed to have vanished.
He took a step forward into the dark, heading toward the burial chamber, but abruptly stumbled over a heavy object at his feet. In the dim light he saw that a series of baskets had been placed in the hallway, at least seven laid out in a line before him. They were filled with what seemed like flat, oblong pieces of metal. He reached for one, to examine it beneath a flame—but at that moment voices came to him from the tomb’s entrance.
Semerket fled into the darkened corridor ahead, hiding behind a large square pillar that supported the curved roof of the long gallery. From the sound made by their feet he surmised that there must be three individuals. The men stopped at the place where the tomb angled, and turned into an anteroom. Semerket peeked around the corner of the pillar.
The unmistakable profile—or lack of one—of Noseless the beggar met Semerket’s gaze. The ragged man scrutinized the floor of the ante-room, then spoke to his two cohorts, pointing. “It’s there,” he said in his pronounced Delta accent. “Lift it up.”
The torchlight eerily projected the beggars’ wavering shadows onto the wall in front of Semerket. They hovered together, straining at something in the floor. Semerket heard the scrape of stone. Then, one after another, he saw them descend into the floor itself.
He waited until he could no longer hear their voices, then stole into the anteroom. In its floor a ragged hole gaped wide, filled with soft torchlight rising from a room below. Crude steps had been hacked into the short shaft that led down. He heard other voices then, recognizing Neferhotep’s distinctive whine.
The tomb-makers were in a room below. He returned to his hiding place in the darkened gallery to wait. Within a few moments he heard noises coming back up the shaft. The four tomb-makers and the beggars emerged from the hole. Noseless and Neferhotep came last, conversing together.
“—how many?” asked the scribe.
“Twenty, at least,” said Noseless.
Neferhotep exclaimed in dismay.
By now the two were in the anteroom. Noseless grabbed a torch from the wall and began walking down the hallway toward Semerket’s hiding place. The light grew brighter and Semerket held his breath, heart thumping.
“Seven in this part of the tomb, and the ones below. What’s really needed is an ox-cart.”
The beggar and Neferhotep passed directly by the large, square pillar that shielded Semerket. The passing light of their torch clearly illuminated him. But the two men were staring at the baskets of metal discs on the other side of the corridor. Had they turned their heads a fraction to
the left they surely would have seen him. Semerket edged around the pillar, facing the northern wall. A painted harpist plucked out a tune on the wall in front of him.
“Just how are we supposed to keep the Medjays away with that many of you in the valley?” he heard Neferhotep demand shrilly.
“Send them to hell with the vizier’s clerk, for all I care.”
“I can’t poison them all.”
“Why not?” snorted Noseless. “By the time anyone figures out what’s happened, it’ll be too late, won’t it? In the meantime, we’ll move these out tonight, and return for the rest tomorrow…”
With many a grunt and curse, the men hoisted the baskets to their shoulders. The tomb-makers and beggars slowly made their way up the sloping corridor to the tomb’s entrance. As they retreated, they extinguished the torches that lined the walls. Semerket peered up the slanting corridor. The men were now at the distant cedar door. Neferhotep doused the last torch, plunging the tomb into darkness, the blackest Semerket had ever known. The scribe pushed open that door and the men silently exited.
Then Semerket heard the most terrible sound of his life—the tomb’s cedar door being locked from the outside. He was sealed inside Pharaoh’s tomb!
Terror claimed him.
Semerket plunged rashly into the darkness, swiftly ascending the causeway to the door. He reached the steps, counting them as he went up. At the twenty-seventh riser he stopped. Edging forward by inches, he placed his hands on the heavy door and pushed. There was not a fraction of movement.
Fighting his hysteria, muttering to himself to remain calm, Semerket moved his hands along the door’s face, searching for any kind of bolt or mechanism that he could release from inside. But the wood was as smooth as polished stone. Semerket slid to the ground, panting.
Locked in a tomb… ! Sternly, he told himself that reason and logic would see him through the crisis. His mind raced. Surely the work gang would return in the morning to continue their tasks. Yes. They would be coming back. Upon that comforting thought his heart calmed a bit. Of course he would not be imprisoned in the tomb forever. He would merely wait until the workers came in for the day, and then sneak out when their backs were turned.
Light was what he needed, he told himself. It would cheer him, and he could put his imprisonment to good use by exploring whatever was beneath Pharaoh’s tomb. He reached into his belt, praying to the gods that he had not forgotten his flint.
The flint was there. He struck it, holding it close to the torch. The flame caught on the first strike. With light again flooding the tomb, his panic began to ebb.
Semerket retraced his steps down the twenty-seven stairs, then went from gallery to gallery. He located the point where the tomb angled to the right, and turned into the anteroom. Holding the torch close to the floor, he looked for any sign of a door or passage, brushing away the limestone dust that carpeted the area. His fingers suddenly detected a slight crevice. A limestone wedge, shaped to cover a hole about a cubit in diameter, was clearly discernible. He pried it open to reveal the shaft that connected the two areas.
He dropped the torch to the floor below, a distance of some six or so cubits. Swallowing his fear, Semerket lowered his legs into the pit. The shallow footholds allowed him to slowly, if precipitously, climb down. Step by step, clinging with toe and finger, he at last reached a level surface. Semerket breathed raggedly, glad to be on even ground again. He seized his still-burning torch from the floor of the room and held it high above his head.
And then he saw.
The glint of gold was everywhere. Hammered masks of the gods, vases, cups and goblets, inlaid chests, necklaces, pectorals, ear loops— riches piled higher than his head, in a space as big as Hetephras’s entire home. Semerket’s mouth gaped open. He became dizzy with the spectacle, and had to sit.
Semerket remembered the conversation he had had with Qar, the day they had found Hetephras’s blue wig not more than a couple hundred cubits from this very room. He had surmised that Pharaoh’s tomb would be the perfect place to hide the treasure. But the tomb-makers had gone one better, secreting it in this hidden room beneath the tomb. They could come and go as they wished, innocent to all eyes, observed by the Medjays, the inspectors, even Pharaoh himself and never be noticed. He had to compliment them on their devious cleverness.
Semerket’s wits returned, and he walked about the room, gazing at the piles of treasure. As a child he’d read the fables of peasants who stumbled on the cache of gods and wizards, but his paltry imagination had never conceived anything on the scale of what he saw at that moment.
Wicker baskets were heaped in the room, each brimming with oddly shaped metal discs like those he had seen above in Pharaoh’s tomb. Semerket fished out one of the haphazard, oozing shapes. He ran his tongue over it, on the off chance that it could be brass, but there was no sharp acid reaction. The disc was surely gold.
Somehow the precious metal had pooled like water, then solidified. From the remote edges of his mind he remembered Qar’s story of how robbers sometimes found it more convenient to burn a tomb’s contents entirely, and then collect the melted blobs of congealed gold and silver from beneath the ashes. The unbidden memory of the boy in the Great Place astride the donkey came to him, and he heard again his words—“god-skin is made there.”
Semerket gazed at the baskets, realizing that the disc he held in his hand was perhaps a cup that had once touched the lips of a pharaoh or a queen, or a sacred vessel that had held sweetmeats offered up to a god. Semerket looked at the rows upon rows of baskets that lined the walls of the room, filled to overflowing with the melted globules—and only then did he perceive the true extent of the theft, the waste, and the wantonness of the destruction that had accompanied it.
Semerket suddenly hurled the thin paten of gold across the room. It smashed into glinting bits against the wall. How could they have done it? These things had been made by their grandfathers, uncles, and fathers. Now they were gone, and forever. Were the tomb-makers so immune to their own artistry that they no longer saw it, melting it down because it was easier to carry away? But then he remembered Paneb, so proud of a jar crafted by his grandfather. Undoubtedly, it too had been part of the spoils, claimed by the big, angry foreman in a fit of sentimentality. Semerket felt his heart soften toward Paneb—at least one of the tomb-makers wanted a treasure for more than its mere value in the marketplace.
Semerket tipped his torch to inspect the rest of the room, and the light revealed a doorway at the room’s rear. Curious, Semerket crossed to it, and emerged into another hallway. He stared in shock.
This was no hidden cellar—but an entirely different tomb! It stretched into the dark in both directions, for what length Semerket could not imagine. Qar had told him that Ramses’ tomb above had been pierced thirty years before by the fathers and grandfathers of the present tomb-makers. Seeing how this tomb thrust forward, he could tell that the two tombs had collided, the roof of this forgotten tomb intersecting with the floor of Pharaoh’s newer one, forcing the builders to re-angle it. That explained why it diverged to the right.
Semerket raised his torch to the walls to see if he could determine who was the tomb’s original owner. Though he could clearly see the shapes of the figures that had once graced the walls, they had been carefully hacked away, leaving only their ragged outlines.
Semerket slowly walked the length of the corridor. Everything had been deliberately stripped from the walls. At the very end of the tomb, however, he discovered a bit of mural that still survived. On it was the small head of a pharaoh, recognizable by the uraeus of asps the king wore on his brow. Whoever the pharaoh had been, he was an immoderately handsome man, if the portrait was at all lifelike. Seeing the king’s strong, even features reminded Semerket of someone he had met recently… who? Perhaps it was only a trick of his memory; he shrugged away the thought. Fortunately, a cartouche had been overlooked by the desecrators. The hackles on his neck rose when he painfully deciphered the faded glyphs w
ithin it—“Amen-meses,” he breathed.
He was in the tomb of the accursed usurper, the father of Twos-re, the queen whose name had come up more than once in Semerket’s investigation. Semerket suddenly realized how despised Amen-meses must have been to warrant such terrible desecration. The obliteration of his name from even his tomb ensured that the rogue pharaoh’s immortal life was forfeit. No doubt his daughter’s tomb, wherever it lay, had been identically stripped.
The oil in the torch was almost spent. Semerket retraced his steps through the room of gold and climbed the incised, rugged ladder to Pharaoh’s unfinished tomb above. He once again took his place behind one of the large pillars in the grand gallery. Soon the torch sputtered and died, and he settled down to wait for the reappearance of the work gang. He knew that on the next night the beggars would return—the moon would still be dark—to remove the remainder of the treasure. But where were they taking it? And why?
The answers to these questions were immaterial. Because as soon as he could slip away in the morning, he planned to go directly to Vizier Toh. The thieves would be stopped in their tracks.
THE SEERESS OF SEKHMET
AS SEMERKET HAD KNOWN THEY WOULD,THE tomb-makers returned at dawn. They strode past him, unaware of his presence, going down into the burial chamber to continue their work. When he was satisfied they were not coming back, he slipped up the main corridor and out the entrance—the door now thrown open to the rising sun—and climbed the cliff to the trail above the tomb.
Within an hour he was snaking his way through Djamet’s makeshift bazaar. Hundreds of stalls had sprung up outside its walls since Pharaoh had returned. A flash of his vizier’s badge to the guards at the Great Pylons, and he was admitted at once into the temple.
It was not so crowded within the gardens. Nevertheless a horde of nobles, priests, and craftsmen swirled around him, intent on their morning duties. Though acrid smoke from the morning sacrifices hung over the temple compound, the paved walkways in the garden were perfumed with the scents of nearby citrus trees and jasmine vines.
