She swung on him, landed in his arms, and they dropped to the sand together, cuddling rather drunkenly in the firelight. He offered her another drink from the chipped spout of the bottle.
“Unlike my brother, sir,” she said rather grandly, “I know when to say no.”
That was something a man in love didn’t like to hear.
“I should be angry with you,” he said, taking a swig.
“Why?”
“Risking your life like that. I told you to stay put.”
She raised her eyebrows and slitted her eyes. “Who’s in charge of this expedition, anyway?”
“Look, I understand why your brother’s here—he’s after riches. Anybody can make sense out of that. But why . . . ?”
“What’s a rotten place like this doing in a nice girl like me?”
“Precisely.”
A faint smile tickled her full lips; her voice became dreamy. “Egypt’s in my blood. Don’t you know who my father was?”
“Who?”
“Show you.” She pulled on the chain around her neck, withdrawing from under the Bedouin gown a locket; she opened it to display the small photos of her handsome father and lovely mother, an Egyptian woman with her daughter’s eyes and mouth. “Howard Carnahan. That is who my father was.”
“I’m sorry . . . don’t know the name. I’m just an ignorant American.”
“But you’re a soldier of fortune in Arabia, aren’t you? Surely you’ve heard of the man who found King Tut’s tomb . . . one of the men, anyway.”
“Good lord . . . are your parents . . . ?”
“Dead,” she said, with a forceful bob of her head. “Plane crash. And I don’t believe it’s a curse. Such tommyrot, such poppycock. Thirteen people have died, yes, but people die every day. Not because of a curse. Not because of fate . . .”
O’Connell was a tad blotto himself, but he wasn’t fooled by the offhand, glib nature of her remarks.
“So you’re continuing your father’s work,” he said. “Spitting in the eye of the King Tut curse.”
“Put it that way if you like. I may not be an explorer, like my father, or adventurer like you, Mr. O’Connell . . . but I’m exceedingly proud of what I am.”
“And what, pray tell, is that?”
She slapped her chest, lifted her chin. “Why, I . . . am . . . a . . . librarian!”
He snorted a laugh. “You mean a drunk librarian.”
She snuggled next to him. “How dare you say such a thing?” she cooed. “When are you going to kiss me again, anyway, Mr. O’Connell?”
“I’m not going to kiss you at all, unless you stop calling me ‘Mr. O’Connell.’ I told you—call me Rick.”
“Why should I?”
“Because it’s my name.”
“Rick. Rick . . . kiss me, Rick.”
And then she kissed him, and passed out in his arms with that same goofy expression her brother had worn. O’Connell looked at her with great fondness, holding her very close, and fell sound asleep wearing a smile almost as silly as hers.
12
Discoveries
With the dawn of a new day, the two expeditions returned to their respective sites underground, in the caverns and chambers of the City of the Dead. Four men, Hassan and three diggers, had died as a result of yesterday’s attempts, not counting the five natives who’d been killed in the attack by Med-jai warriors; but that raid had only convinced the American group that abundant riches awaited them.
Accompanied by a mere trio of diggers now, the Americans returned to the base of the statue of Anubis. Over a breakfast of canned beans, they had decided that the booby trap that had reduced three men to steaming skeletons had (in Henderson’s evocative phrase) “shot its wad”; that its supply of acid was exhausted.
Nonetheless, certain precautions were taken, specifically, the enforcing of the three turbaned natives, at gunpoint, to pry open the lid of the secret compartment.
No spray of death emerged, though when the heavy stone lid thunked to the floor, everybody jumped—except the seemingly unflappable Daniels, his wounded arm in a sling. Beni, who had protested returning to this site, suggesting they seek the pharaoh’s treasure elsewhere in the underground maze, was huddling against a wall, praying in several languages.
Dr. Chamberlin stepped forward and, in their native language, bid the diggers to reach inside the secret compartment. This they did not want to do, but Chamberlin repeated his threat to invoke a withering curse of death upon them and their families, which was underscored by the three fortune hunters cocking their weapons, and the frightened diggers, faces beaded with sweat, reached within the dark, yawning chamber at the feet of the god.
They removed a wooden chest of exquisitely ornate workmanship, alive with lovely, colorful hieroglyphs, gold and black and blue and red. As the diggers carefully, fearfully, deposited the chest on the sandy floor, Chamberlin’s eyes greedily drank in the vivid symbols: winged sun disks, griffins, squatting gods, falcon-headed Horus, jackal-headed Anubis . . .
. . . but as he knelt beside the chest, interpreting the symbols, reading the deadly story they told, the Egyptologist could feel the back of his neck tingling with dread, his heart racing, his throat, his mouth, turning dust dry.
“What is it?” Daniels demanded, punctuating his words with gestures of gun-in-hand. “Spill!”
His voice soft, somber, even ominous, Chamberlin spoke as his eyes stayed affixed to the hieroglyphs. “There appears to be a curse on this chest . . . a most monstrous curse.”
“Curse my hairy ass,” Daniels growled dismissively. “Does it say anything about the pharaoh’s treasure?”
Chamberlin, still kneeling, looked up sharply at the three rough-hewn adventurers gathered around him, torches in one hand, guns in the other (but for the wounded Daniels, who settled for a gun). “Gentlemen . . . please. We must proceed with caution.”
“Look, Doc,” Henderson said, “I understand these ancient savages were pretty savvy joes—with their fancy booby traps and all. So we’ll be careful. But spare us the mumbo jumbo.”
“These were not savages,” the Egyptologist said, touching the lid of the chest as if protecting it. “This was a civilization of great glory and accomplishment, existing thousands of years before Christ.”
“Write a book about it,” Daniels said. “What’s it say about the loot?”
“These are hallowed grounds, gentlemen . . . Who are we to say that the beliefs of these people were any less valid than our own?”
Burns laughed. “I believe in gold and silver, Doc.”
“That which was set forth in ancient times,” the Egyptologist said, “could well be as strong today, as then.”
Beni stepped forward, a tiny step, bowed his head, and folded his hands as he addressed Henderson. “Listen to him, barat’m. Beni is all for plunder, but we must be swift, cautious, clever . . .”
“Yeah, yeah,” Henderson said. “We’re all shakin’ in our shoes, and genuflectin’ before this dog-headed god, all right? Now—what’s the box say?”
Chamberlin did not have to look at the chest to remember the exact phrase, which he now repeated for his impulsive partners: “ ‘Death will come on swift wings to whomever defiles this chest.’ ”
A ghostly gust of wind came howling through the chamber, and the torches in the hands of Henderson and Burns nearly flickered out. The three diggers had finally had enough, guns or no guns: They threw their hands in the air, screamed bloody murder, and went scurrying away, disappearing into the labyrinth, babbling in their native tongues.
“Superstitious riffraff,” Burns said.
“Really?” the Egyptologist asked. “You don’t find it unusual, a gust of wind, underground?”
The three fortune hunters did seem shaken, even Daniels, which relieved Chamberlin; perhaps they’d come to their senses.
“I would advise we move on,” Chamberlin said. “There is no reason to borrow trouble. As our guide indicates, we should investigate
this underground city more thoroughly. We could round a corner, gentlemen, and enter a chamber littered with gold and jewels and precious objects.”
“Open the box,” Daniels snarled.
“The inscription on that ‘box’ goes on to say that there is a mummy here . . .”
“We oughta find a lot of mummies, here, Doc,” Henderson said.
“But this is an unusual mummy, my friends. He is described as ‘the undead,’ who—should he be brought to life—would be bound by sacred law to consummate the most appalling of all curses.”
“Yeah, well,” Henderson said, “we’ll just be real careful not to bring any mummies back to life.”
“Open the box, Doc,” Daniels repeated.
“The undead mummy would kill all of those who participated in the opening of this chest,” Chamberlin warned them. “He would assimilate our organs and fluids.”
“You mean eat us?” Daniels asked, almost smiling, but not quite.
“Jeez,” Henderson said, “sounds like he’s worked up a real appetite, this mummy, bein’ undead a couple thousand years.”
“By eating the flesh of the ‘defilers,’ ” Chamberlin continued, desperation coloring his voice now, “he will regenerate. And no longer will he be the undead, rather a plague upon this earth.”
Wind rustled down the tunnels, whistling an eerie tune, torches again flickering.
Henderson said, “We didn’t come all this way for nothin’ . . . Beni! Get your skinny ass up here.”
Beni, who’d been doing his best to climb inside the chamber wall, smiled nervously, bowing, and saying, “The view is fine from this vantage point, thank you, barat’m.”
“Get over here!”
Beni obeyed.
Henderson nodded toward the crowbars on the floor, dropped by the diggers. “Pick one up, and pry that baby open.”
“No, barat’m!”
Henderson touched the nose of the revolver to Beni’s. “Fine—I’m getting sick of canned food, anyway. It’d be a nice change to have some Hungarian goulash for lunch.”
And then Beni was prying at the lid of the wooden chest, the Americans looking on—guns and torches in hand, keeping a safe distance, the Egyptologist cowering behind them.
The seal seemed about to break when Beni cried, “No . . . the curse . . . the curse!”
And Beni shoved Henderson into Daniels, who bowling-pinned into Burns, and the skinny little guide bolted away, disappearing from the chamber into the tunnels, his voice, echoing, “The curse! The curse!”
“Stupid superstitious little bastard,” Daniels said, picking himself up.
Henderson, on his feet again, said to Chamberlin, “Is that chest likely to be booby-trapped? The truth!”
Chamberlin shook his head. “That would be a defilement of the object’s sacredness. The ‘booby trap,’ as you put it, is the curse! My advice is not to . . .”
But Henderson had already jammed the crowbar’s tip in the seam and began prying the chest open, the seal snapping, the lid popping open—and an explosion of dust was discharged into the air!
An impossible filthy cloud of it, a nasty vapor that enveloped the room and the men, left them coughing and disoriented and frightened, bumping into each other . . .
But within a few terrifying minutes, the dust had settled, the foul ancient vapor dissipating, and Chamberlin was almost amused at the sight of the three Americans training their weapons on the opened chest—as if their brute force and firepower could have an effect on antiquity.
Still, they had survived, and Chamberlin’s thirst for knowledge, and (truth be told) his own greed, overwhelmed his better instincts, and he had to see what was within that chest.
Slowly, even reverently, Chamberlin approached the beautiful box, and reached inside to lift out a large burlap bag, within which—obviously—was some big square object. Trembling with anticipation, slipping the protective burlap covering away, the Egyptologist withdrew a heavy brass-hinged book, exquisitely decorated with hieroglyphs carved by some ancient artisan from pure obsidian.
“I have read of this,” Chamberlin said breathlessly. “I have heard of this—but no man of the modern age has, until this day, this moment, been sure that The Book of the Dead truly existed!”
“A book?” Daniels said, kicking at the sandy floor. “A goddamn book? That’s what this fuss was about?”
“Ah, but gentlemen,” Chamberlin said, running his fingers delicately across the carved surface of the volume’s cover, “this is a most priceless treasure . . .”
“I wouldn’t give you a brass spittoon for the damn thing,” Henderson growled, and kicked the chest with savage anger and frustration.
“Please, no!” the Egyptologist cried, but the damage was done.
If indeed it was damage: Through the splintered wood, a lower compartment had been revealed. Within were four jewel-encrusted canopic jars and a fifth, shattered mate.
Chamberlin shuddered, experiencing the giddy jolt of a cocktail of dread and elation: precious objects, these jars . . . but also the coda to the curse, the preserved entrails of a mummy.
Burns, eyes glittering behind his glasses, was grinning. “Jewels! Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”
Just as the raid last night had only fed the American contingent’s lust for bounty, Evelyn Carnahan’s thirst for knowledge, for discovery, for scholarship, had only surged.
Her thirst the evening before, however, was causing certain problems this morning, as work got under way at the granite sarcophagus that had fallen at their feet yesterday, like a gift from the gods. Evelyn—and, judging by their dark-circled eyes and sluggish demeanor, Jonathan and O’Connell, as well—was suffering from that most ignoble of maladies: a hangover.
At the moment, she was unfolding the puzzle box with a little difficulty, though she’d opened it before, numerous times, easy as pie. “I can’t believe I let my defenses drop to such a sorry state that you two reprobates could get me tipsy.”
“Don’t blame me, Sis,” Jonathan said. “I’d already passed out, like a true and proper drunkard.”
“ ‘Tipsy’ doesn’t quite cover it,” O’Connell said. His eyes were bloodshot and his flesh a sickly gray. “You were drunk as a lord.”
“Well!” Evelyn huffed, and glared at her brother.
Jonathan raised his hands in surrender; he looked even worse than O’Connell. “Don’t ask me for vindication. I don’t even remember being there.”
“Neither do I,” she said, “thank you very much.”
“That’s a shame,” O’Connell said, with a hurt look that was obviously feigned. “Last night you said you’d remember it forever.”
“I never!”
“Until last night.” And he grinned at her.
Horrified, flushed with embarrassment, she fumbled with the box, and O’Connell reached out, took the box, and opened up its metal petals.
“Nothing happened,” he said softly. “Except that you agreed to start calling me Rick.”
Relieved, she smiled; then she was irritated by his teasing and said, “This couldn’t be more serious. Now I want you two schoolboys to behave yourselves.”
“Stand back,” O’Connell said, and he inserted the box-turned-into-key into the large lock, which mirrored the box’s unfolded shape, ducking down, keeping his back to the sarcophagus.
“Mr. O’Connell,” Evelyn said, “I appreciate your concern, but there’s no record of any sarcophagus itself being booby-trapped.”
And Evelyn strode up and turned the key to the right, initiating a series of strange grinding noises, as the mechanism responded; and then a loud hiss indicated the breaking of an airtight seal.
All three of them backed away, glancing at each other with excitement and perhaps some anxiety—finding themselves facing no splashing acid bath, no thrusting steel spikes, no nasty surprises at all.
Soon, they were exercising their aching, morning-after muscles by doing their best to slide the heavy granite lid off the s
arcophagus, pushing, shoving, groaning; at first, they seemed not to be getting anywhere at all. But finally, the lid began to budge, only grudgingly, inch by inch.
“It’ll be too heavy for us to lift off,” she said, as they took a break, panting, passing a canteen around. “I’m afraid we’ll have to shove it to the floor, and risk breaking it.”
“It’s that or our backs,” Jonathan pointed out.
And their backs were what they put into their next joint effort, and suddenly the lid slid off its perch and went pitching off the sarcophagus onto the chamber floor with a loud, resounding slam that echoed through the chamber, as well as Evelyn’s poor, hungover head. Beside her, O’Connell and Jonathan had reacted similarly—Jonathan covering his mouth, O’Connell his eyes, and with Evelyn covering her ears, the sound had made monkeys of them all.
Within the sarcophagus was a considerably less grand wooden coffin. She bid her two assistants to lift it out, which they did, and she could not have stared down at the ancient object, adorned only with cobwebs and dust, with more avid anticipation and tingling ecstasy if it were fashioned of solid gold.
“I’ve dreamed of this since I was a little girl,” she said.
“You must have been a weird kid,” O’Connell said, still kneeling by the coffin.
“Oh, indeed she was,” Jonathan said, crouching at the other end of the thing, like a reluctant pallbearer.
She flashed them disgusted looks, and asked O’Connell for a rag, which he proffered, and she began brushing away the webs and dirt, clearing the coffin lid, looking for hieroglyphs. What she saw—or rather, what she didn’t see—sent a chill up her spine.
“All the usual, sacred spells have been chiseled off!” she said, pointing this out to the two men.
“What’s the significance of that?” O’Connell wondered.
“The hieroglyphs that would have protected the deceased within this coffin, accompanying him into the afterlife, have been systematically removed.”
“So he was ‘naughty,’ ” Jonathan said.
The Mummy Page 13
