Tapping lightly at the door, Ky looked in as Dr. Tareq Hawass looked up and smiled.
A handsome man of middling height and middling years, he had a fine-boned Arabic face, sparkling dark-brown eyes, thick black hair going to gray at the temples and an air of refined elegance.
“Ky, my friend,” he exclaimed, effusively, smiling as he rose to greet them, his hand extended in welcome.”It’s good to see you again! I’ve been reading your reports from the site. Quite remarkable. Small steps but it is progress.”
Smiling in return, Ky went to meet him, took the offered hand for a firm shake.
“Tareq, you remember Ryan Mitchell, my grad student and research assistant?”
With a nod, Hawass said, graciously, “I do, indeed.”
His eyes shifted to Raissa.
“But I don’t remember this lovely young woman,” he said, taking her hand, smiling.
Tareq raised her hand to his lips in a courtly gesture, flirting outrageously as he did with any pretty young woman.
Completely enchanted, Raissa smiled back at him with real warmth.
“She’s far too pretty for you, my friend,” Tareq said, giving her a wink.
Amused, Raissa glanced over her shoulder at Ky.
“You can’t have her, Tareq,” Ky said, “she’s mine. Meet my new translator, Raissa Campion. She’s very good, better even than Geoffrey.”
“Knowing you, she would have to be,” Tareq said, and lifted an eyebrow, impressed. “Better than Geoffrey? Well, then. Will we be making the pilgrimage later?”
Puzzled, Raissa looked from one to the other of them.
In an aside to Raissa, with a sly wink Tareq said, “He always takes new people to see the wall from Narmer’s tomb. If it was indeed Narmer’s tomb from which the wall was stolen. There is some debate about that, of course, since the tomb itself has never been found. We were lucky to recover the wall.”
Ky shrugged, amused, waiting patiently through the explanation.
“So, what can I do for you, my friend Ky,” Tareq asked, smiling. “How are things down at the new site?”
Grimly, Ky said, “That’s what I came to talk to you about, Tareq…”
He explained their predicament.
Tareq nodded, frowning a little as Ky spoke, not in censure but out of concern for the artifacts. “But you managed to get the papyri and such away?”
Nodding, Ky said, “Yes.”
“Good. Let me make a few phone calls, then, I’ll see what I can do to help. Smooth things over. Go. Make your pilgrimage, show the lovely Raissa the Wall, I will join you there or in the Hall.”
Just before they left, as he was dialing his first call, Tareq called to Ky.
“Are you quite sure?”
His dark eyes gleamed with amusement as he glanced at Raissa.
Knowing what he meant, and what he was asking, Ky gave him a look. He took Raissa’s arm.
“Quite sure, Tareq, quite sure.”
The fragile clay lamp, millennia old and carefully pieced together, shattered against the warehouse wall as Zimmer flung it against it and kicked one of the carefully packed crates. Once more he delved into the excelsior and plastic peanuts, thrashing his hands through every nook and cranny.
“They’re not here,” he shouted, “none of them are here.”
Not a shred of papyrus or clay tablet, not a single piece of writing, remained in any of the crates or containers.
He was furious, livid. The bribe to Inspector and that bureaucrat had been completely wasted.
Somehow Farrar and his people had managed to slip it all out from beneath their very noses.
And that girl…
He remembered with a burst of shame and humiliation the threat she’d made, the flat and steady look in her eyes when she’d said it. She’d meant it. There had been no fear in her, just that look of outrage. It shamed him even now to think of how his gut had twisted, how he’d backed down before her. He hated that and he hated her.
The soft voice in the back of his head whispered as it always did now, incessantly, his constant companion. His fingers worried at the amulet.
“They will come back. They must come back. We can help you. Let us help you. We can help you punish her. Punish them. Let us in, we can make you stronger. She won’t look at you that way next time. Next time she will be on her knees…and you will be like a God.”
Alone in the warehouse, Heinrich’s resolve weakened, faltered.
It took only that, his will like paper that shredded before a strong wind.
He felt a great rushing within him, felt as if his body, soul and mind swelled to bursting within his skin, as if it was too tight to contain everything that filled him. Crying out as pain exploded through him he found he could not even fall to his knees. Instead his back bowed as every muscle went rigid. Thoughts not his own invaded his mind and a strength he’d never known, never felt, poured into him, filled him with febrile energy, overwhelmed him. The hate and impotent fury he’d felt swelled to seemingly impossible proportions as if he contained the rage of thousands. The agony of it rendered him speechless, brought him finally to his knees. He could not have screamed if his life had depended on it. Not that it would have mattered. Life for him now was on a different plane altogether as his character and will were drowned and amalgamated with what now lived within him.
Standing, what had once been Heinrich Zimmer shook himself the way a man would shrug into a new jacket. He smiled.
Chapter Thirteen
The wall of Narmer had gone out of fashion over the years, hieroglyphics losing their magic compared to the great statues and the jewelry in the halls below. Tucked away now in a remote corner of the Early Centuries section of the Museum it was a indeed a whole wall made of smoothed stone, and beautifully covered in hieroglyphics. An inner wall of the tomb probably, it had been meticulously pieced back together from broken parts and was now protected by yet another wall, this one of glass. The lighting had been specially designed to keep the hieroglyphs from fading. The glass had a shimmer of iridescence to it that it gave the whole area a slightly ethereal, soft and romantic look.
Oddly beautiful, the wall itself was a magnificent piece of art.
Breathless, Raissa could only stare at it, at the hieroglyphics precisely lettered on it as her fingers floated over the glass.
“This is how it began,” Ky said, quietly, looking at it. “The first time I saw it I was twelve or so and my father brought me here for the opening. It was just after they recovered it. Thieves had torn it down to sell piecemeal. They were caught before they could but since the wall had been damaged, it was decided it would be brought here for restoration and safekeeping. They never found the tomb it had been taken from.”
He paused as he remembered, leaning a shoulder against one of the display cases. At the moment, they were the only ones here. Most of the tourists preferred the glory and drama of the towering statues in the rooms below.
“It was very impressive, very dramatic,” he said, “They darkened the room, lighting only a portion of the wall as a deep voice read the hieroglyphics, telling the ancient story. It had quite an effect on an impressionable twelve year old boy.”
His gaze traveled over the expanse of wall and he felt the familiar tug.
It still did.
Raissa’s eyes, too, traced the lines, the figures the hieroglyphs depicted and the story they told. Her eyes burned and her heart ached for what had been.
This was one of the stories he’d talked about that day in the desert, the people and the times, the one that had made him want to know more… more about them… more about their time.
“Raissa?” Ky said, although he’d had a similar reaction.
Her blue eyes turned to his and she took a shaky breath as she looked at him. “It’s sad, so terribly heartbreaking, to give up the one you love.”
Those blue eyes were very bright.
With a sigh, he nodded, understanding.
“It tells
the story of the life of the Pharaoh,” he began. “As they did back then, they called in the High Priests and Priestesses on the day he was named to be heir to bless the man who would be King. They consulted the stars and a prophecy was made…”
Her voice soft yet still echoing in the mostly empty room, Raissa raised her hand to the glass over the hieroglyphics…
“…and the Priest said, A darkness rises, oh Pharaoh, to be unleashed on the world. It comes as a shadow rising from the desert to lay waste to all of Egypt, scouring the earth as it passes. Death and destruction follow in its wake and the cries of the people of the world are terrible. From the north comes a warrior, a crowned and golden servant of the Gods with eyes like the sky, bearing swords in hand to rise up and drive the darkness out of the world and to stand against it for all time.”
“Yes,” he said, the memory echoing. He wasn’t certain now that he didn’t prefer the sound of her soft reverent voice to the deep stentorian one. There was a sense of awe in her words. “Can you read the rest?”
Slowly, she nodded, passing her hand once more over the hieroglyphics.
“So it came to pass,” she said, “or words to that effect…that in the seventeenth year of our Lord Pharaoh’s reign…a darkness rose in Egypt.”
In the empty chamber her voice echoed eerily.
“It was a time that would be called the time of the Djinn. And so they went to war with the Djinn. And the Lord Khai, general of Pharaoh’s army…”
She glanced back over her shoulder at Ky.
He nodded. “I think I always felt an affinity with him because of the name. It’s not common, the name is a traditional name in my family, passed down through the family, although no one remembers the reason why any more. His statue is on the lowest floor.”
Raissa looked at him.
“Is it?” she said, softly. “I’d like to see it.”
He nodded. It was remarkable, too, in its own way.
“Don’t stop,” he said, softly. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Raissa smiled. “No, it’s good to know.”
Turning back to the wall of hieroglyphics, faded with time but still legible, she continued.
“They set out to defeat the Djinn but could not, even with all the armies of Egypt. But the Gods had sent the one who had been prophesied, the foreigner, the Golden One, Nubiti, the Priestess Irisi…”
Ky said, softly, “There’s some debate about that passage and about the hieroglyphic for her…see here…some say it’s a only a representation, because no non-Egyptian would be named High Priestess…or they think the scribe made a mistake…Some think they are two different women, Nubiti and Irisi…”
Shaking her head, Raissa said, “No, scribes didn’t make mistakes on something this important. Look at the hieroglyph…it had gold flake hair…”
He knew as he’d studied it closely. “Gold was the symbol of Ra. They think she had a wig made of gold…with lice a problem many in later times wore wigs instead of their own hair. It might have begun then.”
“She was a High Priestess of Isis, a goddess of the moon, a daughter of Ra,” Raissa said, “not Ra himself. It says she was a foreigner…”
He smiled. “And so the debate rages on...”
Curious, she looked at him and smiled. “Which do you think?”
His dark eyes were shadowed as he turned to the hieroglyphics on the wall.
“I think I wish I’d known them.”
Instead he’d dreamed of them, of the General on his horse―although most Egyptians of that era didn’t ride, Khai had been a foreigner and Ky liked the mental image―Irisi with him, her hair flowing. Most of the time he dreamed that it had been golden, soft and beautiful.
Raissa sighed and nodded, continuing.
“They rode down the Djinn, Khai and his beloved…,” her voice shook a little on the word, “and bottled them…um…prisoned them in the Tomb of the Djinn, with the Heart of the Gods to seal it. And the one who called the Djinn down on Egypt―the one who shall be forever nameless―was prisoned with them and the Horn he’d made to call the Djinn with him. So the Darkness was banished from the earth and Nubiti set to guard them as the prophecy had foretold, to stand against them for all time, lest Darkness be set loose upon the earth once again. The Guardian is the Key and the Lock, the Light and the Dark. And she guards it still…”
There was a pause as Raissa stood with her fingers lightly brushing the glass over those words.
Deliberately, she took a breath. “So, it’s the Tomb of the Djinn you’re seeking, then?”
She turned to look at him.
Ky shook his head.
“No, not completely, not by itself,” he said, quietly. This was something he’d never admitted to anyone. “It’s her. Irisi. Does she still guard the Tomb after all this time? What happened to her? Khai, we know. He died in battle. What happened to her?”
He let out a breath, staring at the wall.
“For all that, though, they always refer to her as his beloved. Why didn’t they marry? Marriage was an important sacrament among the ancient Egyptians. Or was she just a myth, a story like Isis and Osiris? Keep going. Finish it.”
“There’s only a little left.” Moved more than she dared show, Raissa’s fingers shook as she traced the lines of hieroglyphics. “Pharaoh was delivered of a son of that same name in that same year but he would reign for another twenty in peace before his son would wear the crown of Egypt.’”
For a moment, silence reigned in the room.
Ky said softly, “There’s some sign Khai served either or both Pharaoh, or just the one, if the names are simply confused, or the father and son. When Khai died, it’s said he erected a tomb for himself outside the walls of the Tomb of the Djinn so Irisi wouldn’t stand alone.”
Raissa laid her hand on the glass again, the mere thought of it wrenching her heart.
“Come, I’ll show you Khai’s statue,” Ky said.
They went down to the Hall of Statues and stopped before a great stone statue of a seated man with strong aristocratic features, high cheekbones, an aquiline nose and tawny skin, his hair dark and uncharacteristically wavy, his eyes dark as well.
There was an empty chair beside him, a crown of Isis carved on the back of the empty seat, something the statues they sold of him didn’t show.
It was heartbreaking in its uniqueness, that empty chair while all the others were paired or sat alone.
“They really loved each other by all accounts,” Ky said. He envied them that. “He certainly loved her to make a statement like this. Imagine what it would be like to love someone with that much intensity and to have them love you as deeply…”
He let out a breath.
“Love doesn’t change, Ky, no matter the centuries, it’s still here,” Raissa said, gently, reaching to tap his chest with a finger. “Only how much you’re willing to give changes.”
For a long moment their eyes met.
An elegant voice, lightly accented, shattered the moment.
“There you are, Ky.”
Tareq.
They both turned, smiling, exchanging a quick look as the man hurried across the room toward them with his usual brisk enthusiasm.
“All right,” he said, “I’ve spoken to the authorities down there. Your finds from the dig are on their way but they suspect you have the papyri, although no one said anything overtly. They’ve agreed to let you come back on two conditions. One, that you wait a week to return to allow the hard feelings to settle and two, that you stay out at the dig site and not in the village.”
Ky let out a breath.
A week.
It was enough time for Zimmer to find the refuse site and plunder it of everything useful, but perhaps not―Ky had been careful.
All he could do now, though, was hope.
Staying out by the dig site wouldn’t be a problem, he’d done it on many, and the others had been on other digs.
Raissa, though? He glanced at her.
; “Do you think I’ve never slept rough?” she asked, amused, lifting an eyebrow. “I’ve never been to a dig but I haven’t always slept in beds. I’ve spent plenty of nights under the stars. Unless you don’t need me anymore?”
There was a flash of something in her eyes, concern, dismay, although her pride allowed nothing to show on her face.
Whatever it was, his heart twisted a little to see it.
“No, Raissa,” he said, to reassure her, “We still need you.”
She relaxed a little.
A week.
It was something, anyway, and better than not being able to return at all. There was always the chance they could find something, another piece to the puzzle to give them more of a direction.
“Why don’t you bring me the papyri back tomorrow,” Tareq said. “We’ll work to get them translated and we have received some others you might want to see.”
Ky said, “We can give them to you now, Tareq. They’d be safer with you anyway.”
If there was one person he trusted implicitly, it was Tareq. He hadn’t betrayed Ky yet.
Ky nodded to Raissa, who reached below her loose shirt and peeled off the tape holding the packet to her skin with a little wince and a grin.
“Is that how you did it?” Tareq said, admiringly and happily. “All I can say is I am grateful Zimmer didn’t get them. I’m not entirely comfortable with the people who fund him. Very well, then, we’ll see you tomorrow. You’ve had a long day and a long journey, you must be tired and hungry, and I’m required elsewhere.”
As they went out Raissa looked back once more at the solitary statue with the empty chair beside it.
It was the only one like it in the room.
Ky looked back, too, as he did every time he visited.
“Good night, General.”
Chapter Fourteen
Dinner relaxed everyone. As always Raissa was voracious and Ky wondered once again how long she’d gone without regular meals. When she thought he wasn’t looking her fingers darted across to his plate to try to steal his bread. With a warning look, restraining a smile of his won, he smacked at them lightly and she snatched them back with a grin.
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