by Paul Sussman
'How far are we?'
'Not that far. About a hundred and twenty kilometres to the nearest settlement. But we have no idea of the precise direction. Half a degree out and we could end up walking all the way to the Sudan.'
'Dymmachus made it.'
'Only in Dr Lacage's imagination.'
'Of course.' She smiled. 'I forgot.'
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes, proffering the pack to Tara.
'You haven't got any ice cubes, have you?' she asked.
'Ice cubes?'
'I'm trying to give up smoking, you see, and whenever I get the urge I suck an ice cube instead.'
'Ah, I see. No, I'm afraid I don't have any ice cubes.'
'Then I guess I'll just have to have the cigarette.'
She reached out, pulled one from the pack and put it between her lips. Khalifa leaned forward and lit it for her.
'That's a hundred pounds I owe my best friend,' she said, closing her eyes and drawing deeply on the filter. 'We had a bet I couldn't last a year without smoking. I did eleven months and two weeks.'
'I am impressed,' said Khalifa. 'I have smoked a pack a day since I was fifteen.'
'Jesus, you'll kill yourself!'
They looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
'I guess it doesn't really matter how many cigarettes I smoke from now on,' said Khalifa.
'You don't think we've got any chance then?'
'No, I don't.'
'I thought you said something about never despairing?'
'I did. In this case, however, I see no other option.'
They laughed again, genuine laughter, not forced. Tara took another deep pull on her cigarette. She didn't think she'd ever tasted anything so delicious.
'You know it's funny,' she said, 'but I actually feel happy. I'm going to die of thirst in the middle of a desert and all I want to do is laugh. It's like . . .'
'A weight has been lifted,' said Khalifa.
'Exactly. I feel clean. Free. Like I own my life again.'
'I understand. I am the same. The past has been settled and forgotten. We can look forward.'
'Although not very far.'
'No,' he agreed. 'Not very far. But forward at least.' He took another long draw on his cigarette. 'I shall miss my wife and children.'
They gazed out across the desert, smoking, silent. The sun heaved itself slowly upwards and the air began to shimmer. All around dunes rippled away to the horizon. It was curious to think that only a while ago the world had been turning itself inside out. Everything now seemed so serene and ordered. It was beautiful, thought Tara, the land's curvaceous symmetry, the shifting colours of the sand. Before she'd looked on the desert as her prison. Now, even though she was going to die out here, she felt curiously at one with it.
She finished her cigarette and flicked it aside. The tobacco had made her head swim, so that as she looked down it seemed as if the sand below was trembling. Or at least a small patch of it was, close to the base of the great rock. She took a couple of deep breaths, closed her eyes and looked again. The tremble was still there, a sort of bulging, as though the desert was gasping for breath. She nudged Khalifa and nodded towards it. He frowned and came to his feet. She did the same.
'What is it?' she asked.
'I don't know. It's strange. Like water boiling.'
'Is it the heat?'
'Doesn't look like it.'
'Sinking sand?'
'I don't think so.'
He gazed for a moment longer and then started cautiously down the side of the dune, Tara following. The bulging was growing more violent now, the sand swirling and throbbing as if a giant foot was being ground into the valley floor. It stopped suddenly, started again, stopped, and then, with a loud, bugle-like bellow, the desert's surface sheered open and a large ungainly figure heaved itself upwards into the daylight, sand showering all around it. Khalifa cried out in amazement and began running down the side of the dune.
'Jamal!' he laughed. 'Praise be to Allah! Jamal! Camel!'
He reached the bottom of the slope and slowed, anxious not to frighten the creature. It seemed unfazed by his presence, and allowed him to come up and take its harness.
'Welcome, my friend,' he said, stroking its velvety muzzle. 'We are happy you could join us.'
He turned towards Tara.
'It seems my pessimism was premature, Miss Mullray. My friend here can smell water five hundred miles away. Whichever is the nearest oasis, he will lead us to it.'
He came up on tiptoe and whispered something into the camel's ear. It sneezed and then slowly lowered itself onto its knees, front legs breaking first, then the rear ones. Khalifa began unstrapping the crates on its back.
'I used to work with camels,' he said over his shoulder, 'when I was young. Some skills you never forget.'
He pulled the crates off and rolled them aside, adjusting various straps and harnesses. The camel nibbled his ear.
'They are wonderful animals. Tireless, loyal and so beautiful. The one drawback is that their breath is not nice. But then we all have our faults, don't we? Aha!'
He held up a small water canteen he'd found beneath a flap of the saddle.
'Not much left by the sound of it, but enough, I think, to stop us dying of thirst. Please.'
He stepped back and held out his arm, indicating that she should mount. She came forward, laughing, and clambered onto the saddle. Khalifa climbed up behind her.
'My friend warned me to stay away from camels,' she said. 'The handlers are all perverts, apparently.'
'I am a married man, Miss Mullray.'
'I was just teasing.'
'Ah, I see.' He chuckled. 'Yes. English humour. It is, how do you say, an acquired taste. Although Benny Hill – he was very funny.'
He raised his hand and slapped it against the camel's rump, letting out a loud shout. The creature levered itself upwards, pitching Tara first forwards and then back. Khalifa took the reins around her waist.
'If we keep going we should make it in two days,' he said, 'three at the outside. The camel might be the ship of the desert, but I'm afraid this isn't going to be a luxury cruise.'
'I can handle it.'
'Yes, Miss Mullray, I have no doubt that you can. You seem a remarkable woman. I should very much like you to meet my wife and children.'
He slapped the camel on the flank again and it started to lope forwards.
'Yalla besara!' he cried. 'Yalta nimsheh! Hurry up! Let's go!'
They came to the pyramid rock, towering dark and monstrous above them, a vast black monolith erupting from the deep places of the desert, impossibly ancient, inestimably powerful, Time's sentinel. It seemed to throb slightly in the heat and to give off a sound, a sort of deep brooding growl, as though telling them they could pass, but warning them never to return. And then they were past and moving away down the valley.
'I am building a fountain, you know,' said Khalifa after a while. 'I want my home to be full of the sound of running water.'
'It sounds wonderful,' said Tara, smiling.
'There will be blue and green tiles, and shells from the seashore, and plants around the edge. And at night there will be lights to make the water sparkle as though it is full of diamonds. It will be very beautiful.'
'Yes,' she said, closing her eyes. 'I think it will.'
Khalifa flicked the reins and they broke into a trot, the pyramid rock slowly dropping away behind them, as if receding in time. All around the desert shimmered and swelled with the morning heat.
'Besara, besara!' he cried. 'Yalla nimsheh, yalla nimsheh!'
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The Lost Army of Cambyses was written and edited well before the appalling events of 11 September 2001. Although the issue of Middle Eastern terrorism is central to the narrative, the book is nonetheless a work of imaginative fiction and should only be read as such. It is in no way intended to reflect real events.
GLOSSARY
Abu el-Hagg
ag Patron sheikh of Luxor (born Damascus c. 1150). A moulid in his honour is held annually in Luxor, two weeks before Ramadan.
Abu Sir Group of pyramids to the south of Giza, dating to Fifth Dynasty (c. 2465–2323 BC).
Afterlife Books Series of ancient Egyptian texts describing the afterlife. Most date from the New Kingdom, although they can ultimately be traced back to the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom. Their names – Book of the Dead, Book of Gates, Book of Caverns etc. – are modern.
Akhenaten Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh. Ruled c. 1353–1335 BC. Father of Tutankhamun. Akhet One of three seasons into which the ancient Egyptian year was divided (the others were Peret and Shemu). Akhet was the season of the Nile flood, covering roughly June to September.
Akhetaten City built by the pharaoh Akhenaten on the banks of the Nile, roughly midway between modern Cairo and Luxor. Name means 'Horizon of the Aten'.
Al-Ahram Popular Egyptian newspaper. Title means 'The Pyramids'.
Al-Jihad A militant Egyptian fundamentalist group.
Al-Mukhabarat al-'amma Egyptian general intelligence and security service.
Amarna Modern name for the ruins of Akhetaten.
Amenhotep I Early Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh. Ruled c. 1525–1504 BC.
Amenhotep III Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh. Ruled c. 1391–1353 BC. Father of Akhenaten, grandfather of Tutankhamun.
Ammonians Ancient name for the inhabitants of the oasis of Siwa. Name derives from the ancient Egyptian god Amun, who had an oracle at Siwa.
Anubis Ancient Egyptian god, depicted as a jackal or a man with the head of a jackal. God of the necropolis and mummification.
Basbousa Sweet pastry made with semolina, nuts and honey.
Beit House, home.
Belzoni, Giovanni Battista (1778–1823). Explorer. Discovered the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.
Bes Dwarf-god. Protector of pregnant women.
Cambyses Son of Persian emperor Cyrus the Great. Born c. 560 BC. Succeeded father as King of Persia 529 BC. Conquered Egypt in 525 BC, becoming the first pharaoh of Twenty-seventh Dynasty. Died c. 522 BC at Ecbatane, Syria, possibly by assassination or suicide. Portrayed by contemporary chroniclers as a mad despot.
Canopic jars Four jars holding the viscera of a mummified body.
Caria A region of the ancient Near East, in the south-west of modern Turkey, colonized by the Greeks. Famed for its mercenaries.
Carnarvon George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923). Collector and amateur Egyptologist. Patron of Howard Carter.
Carter, Howard (1874–1939). Egyptologist. Discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun (1922).
Cartouche An oval with a horizontal line at the bottom in which a pharaoh's name was written in hieroglyphs.
Colossi of Memnon A pair of colossal seated statues on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. Formerly part of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III.
Cromer Evelyn Baring, first Earl of Cromer (1841–1917). English Consul-General and de facto ruler of Egypt from 1883 to 1907.
Cuneiform Ancient Mesopotamian wedge-shaped script.
Dahshur Pyramid field south of Saqqara. Site of the famous 'bent' pyramid of Snofru.
Danishaway Village in the Delta region of northern Egypt. Scene of an infamous incident in 1906 in which four innocent Egyptians were executed following an altercation with British soldiers.
Djed pillar An ancient Egyptian symbol of stability depicted as a pillar surmounted by four horizontal branches. Considered to represent the backbone of the god Osiris.
Davies, Nina MacPherson (1881–1965). Artist. Published several volumes on ancient Egyptian tomb paintings.
Djellaba Traditional robe worn by Egyptian men and women.
Eighteenth Dynasty First of the three dynasties of the New Kingdom, c. 1550–1307 BC.
Faience A material made of fired quartz, with a glazed outer layer. Used extensively in ancient Egypt for jewellery, small vessels, shabtis, etc.
Fellaha (pl. fellahin) Peasant. Gates of the DeadAncient Egyptian name for the Valley of the Kings.
Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the 'five pillars' of the Moslem faith. The other four are the sha- hada (declaration of faith), salah (prayer, recited five times a day), zakah (the giving of alms) and the observance of the fast at Ramadan.
Hatshepsut Eighteenth Dynasty queen, wife of Tuthmosis II, who ruled Egypt c. 1473–1458 BC as joint pharaoh with her stepson Tuthmosis III. Her mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor is one of Egypt's most spectacular monuments.
Herodotus (c. 485–425 BC). Greek historian, known as 'the father of history'. Famous for his Histories outlining the causes and events of the wars between the Greeks and the Persians.
Horemheb Last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty (although for some Egyptologists he is regarded as the first pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty). Formerly commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army under Tutankhamun.
Imam Leader of congregational prayer in the mosque.
Imhotep Ancient Egyptian architect and physician. Designed Egypt's first true pyramid – the Step Pyramid of the Third Dynasty pharaoh Djoser (ruled c. 2630–2611 BC). Worshipped as a god after his death. His tomb has never been found.
'Imma Turban.
Isis Ancient Egyptian goddess. Wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. Protector of the dead.
Iteru Ancient Egyptian name for the Nile. Also an ancient unit of measurement, equivalent to approximately 2 km.
John Soane Museum Small museum in central London in the house of architect Sir John Soane (1753–1837). Diverse collection of objects including the coffin of Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh Seti I.
Ka'ba A cube-shaped shrine in Mecca, the holiest site in the Moslem world. It contains a stone believed to have been given by the angel Gabriel to Abraham. All Moslems turn towards it when praying. Karkaday An infusion of hibiscus flowers, popular throughout Egypt.
Karnak A vast temple complex just to the north of Luxor, with buildings spanning almost 2000 years of Egyptian history.
Khamsin A strong desert wind.
Khan-al-Khalili A large bazaar in Cairo, selling everything from jewellery to shisha pipes.
Khutbar Sermon. Kufr Name given to those who do not follow Islam. Unbelievers.
KV39 Tomb just outside the Valley of the Kings. Considered by some Egyptologists to be the tomb of early Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep I (ruled c. 1525–1504 BC).
KV55 Mysterious tomb in the Valley of the Kings, discovered in 1907. Considerable controversy over who was actually buried there, with some scholars suggesting Akhenaten, others Smenkhkare.
Late Period Period of ancient Egyptian history lasting from 712 BC to 332 BC, when the country was conquered by Alexander the Great.
