The Eleventh Plague cq-2

by Darren Craske

  This was no dream.

  'Oh, I found the Cradle, all right…but that's not all I uncovered,' continued Aloysius, wrenching Destine's thoughts back into the present – or was it the past? 'To hell with making a name for myself, this is too important. Joyce and his friends will never find the Pharaoh's Cradle whilst I draw breath.'

  'But you will die!' blurted Destine uncontrollably, recalling the words from her letters. 'It…is unavoidable.'

  'Maybe so,' said Aloysius, 'but maybe this time your clairvoyance has got things wrong, eh? Maybe I'll live to a ripe old age, watch my children grow up…bounce their own on my knee.' Aloysius smiled, one of a man in acceptance of his fate. 'Or maybe not. I know it will kill me, Destine…but better me than anyone else on account of me – and that includes you! For Christ's sake, woman, take a look around. You need to get away from this place…as far away as possible. Take my journal – it's all in there. Everything! Tell someone, Destine – tell anyone – about what happened here! Tell them…do you swear? Don't let this be forgotten…don't let it be repeated. Swear to me!'

  'I…I swear,' Destine heard herself say.

  'I have to go,' said Aloysius. 'I have to put things right.'

  A sudden wall of flame burst free from the centre of the hellish encampment. Destine spun around, covering her face from the glare. Her ears were numbed by a dull sound, like the sound of many birds overhead. Something made the Frenchwoman look up. The moon was low, almost right above her. Its white light shone like a beacon. And when she looked down…once again the world rearranged itself.

  'Aloysius!' Destine shrieked.

  Gone were the sounds of men's screams, gone was the potent stench of death in the air. In an instant, she was transported back into the clearing – if indeed she had ever left it. She was laid upon the cold sand…clutching Aloysius's journal tight to her chest.

  Ahman leapt awake, rushing to her side in a moment. 'Destine! What is it?'

  The Frenchwoman was pale, her forehead speckled with beads of perspiration.

  'I was there, Ahman,' she whispered. 'In Umkaza.'

  'Yah, Destine, we know that. Twenty years ago,' said Ahman, knuckling his eyes.

  'Not just twenty years ago, Ahman…just now.'

  Ahman's face was a picture of bewilderment; he was convinced that Destine was confused. 'Can we not talk about this in the morning?'

  'It is true, Ahman! I was just in Umkaza…with Aloysius Bedford stood right in front of me…as clearly as I am here right now,' Destine explained.

  Ahman shook his head. 'But, Destine…you have not moved from this spot.'

  'Maybe not my physical form…but my mind most definitely travelled,' whispered Destine. 'At last, my task is growing ever clearer! I know what happened…the massacre at Umkaza…and I know who was responsible!'

  'You do?' asked Ahman. 'But…how?'

  'Aloysius told me,' replied Destine.

  'The Aloysius who is dead?' asked Ahman.

  'Who else?' Destine said. 'Rather than a premonition, I am certain that what I sensed was the opposite…a vision before the now, as opposed to the after. An apres-monition, if you will. I did not see the future, Ahman…but I saw the past – my past…as though my soul was transported from this body to inhabit that of my younger self! Ahman, it was so real – you must believe me!'

  Ahman took hold of her shaking hands. 'I do believe you, Destine, I promise. Look at you…you look shattered, my dear. Try to go back to sleep, ah? We can discuss this newfound knowledge of yours in the morning.'

  'Oui, mon ami,' Destine agreed. 'I do feel somewhat light-headed by all this excitement.'

  'I know just how you feel,' grinned Ahman.

  The morning came far too slowly for Madame Destine. She stretched her arms wide and cast her blanket onto the sand next to her. Rubbing the sleeping dust from her eyes, she looked around the small clearing by the side of the makeshift road through the desert. The clearing was still and Ahman's empty blanket lay discarded next to her. Destine's heart leapt, remembering the vision from the previous night. It had begun just as it was unfolding now, with her waking, searching for Ahman and finding him absent. Was she still trapped within that nightmarish vision?

  The apres-monition had shed a little more light on the task laid at her feet, but in true mystifying fashion, it had also conjured up yet more questions. She gripped Aloysius's journal so tightly that her knuckles threatened to burst through her skin. It had become a buoy for her to cling to – a lifeline to the ghosts of the past. Somehow, with Aloysius's journal close to her, she felt a connection to all the memories that she had lost. No matter how painful they might be. The link to Aloysius – his face now given form, given life – was clearing the fog from her head. What she had seen in Umkaza was so real. Similar to a memory, yet not one where it is viewed with hindsight – one in which she retained her own mind, her own fear. With Aloysius's words still resounding amidst her thoughts, Destine's hunger for the truth was even more intense.

  Arranging her long, silver-white hair into a loose bun, she stepped barefoot onto the cold sand. She leaned against a tree and pulled on her ankle boots. With one last yawn, she searched around for clues as to Ahman's direction. She soon spotted his footprints. The wind had dragged the sand to obscure them, but not completely, and so Destine followed them. Slowly at first, but then something told her to make haste. Without her clairvoyance, she was learning to pay heed to her instincts.

  Ahman was not far away. His horse was drinking thirstily from the lake near the tiny patch of trees, and the little man was sitting cross-legged on the sand.

  'Good morning, Madame,' he said. 'How did you sleep?'

  'Bonjour, mon cher.' Destine leaned down and kissed him on his soft-bristled cheek. 'I slept surprisingly well…apart from my disturbance. I am sorry for waking you.'

  'Ah, think nothing of it, Destine,' said Ahman. 'I am just pleased that you came to no harm. That…what did you call it? That apres-monition…it was startling in the extreme from what you say. I must admit that I am at a loss to explain it.'

  'As am I,' said Destine, forcing a smile to ease the carpet trader's frown. 'You must excuse me, Ahman, for as a fortune-teller I am so used to being in time with my time. I know of my yesterdays, my todays and my tomorrows. They are all arranged in a neat and tidy collection in my mind. Having my yesterdays jumbled up with my todays is a most disconcerting thought.'

  'I can well imagine, my dear. I only wish that I could be of more assistance, but those sorts of things are unknown to me.' Ahman held his hand to his brow, looking at the slow climbing sun in the sky above. 'So, where do we go from here?'

  Destine smiled. 'Onward to the past, Ahman – where else?'

  Ahman chuckled. 'That sleep did you good, ah?'

  'I feel like a new woman, Ahman, one who is energised to carry on with our search. Yet I do not think it was the sleep – rather what I learned whilst I slept. I have ploughed the past and revealed the first seeds of what happened that night, and now I must learn it all. Aloysius said that I should warn people. But warn them of what exactly? It is still only a part of what I need to know. Where can I go to find the rest of it? The encampment that I was transported to last night…Umkaza…I am being drawn to that place. I wish to see it for myself…again.'

  'But why, Destine? Surely you do not believe that any evidence of that night still remains?' asked Ahman. 'It was so long ago.'

  'Not physical evidence perhaps,' replied Destine. 'But I am feeling a resonance from Aloysius's journal, giving my mind nuances of the truth. If what I am picking up from the book is giving me these tantalising snippets of the past, imagine what knowledge standing in Aloysius's footsteps might bring. I am sensitive to human emotions, remember? Even emotions buried within rocks and sand, two decades old. Some emotions leave a stain. Negative emotions most of all. Fear, pain, death…there seemed to be much of that in Umkaza, if my apres-monition was any judge.'

  Ahman scratched his bearded cheeks noisily. 'But t
o Umkaza? Destine, there is nothing there. It is a barren landscape! Surely whatever may have occurred all those years ago has long since faded away, swallowed by the desert winds, forgotten by time.'

  'And not just by time, monsieur…by me!' declared Destine. 'When I was clairvoyant, I experienced many visions that mean nothing to me…just shards of the future. They were not real, not yet anyway. But in time they would occur, I knew this for a fact, and so I had time to take heed of my warnings. But with this mystery laid at my feet, I am blind. I know facts, dates, aspects…similar to my premonitions, but I feel none of it, Ahman! Not in here.' Destine tapped her forehead. 'Or in here,' she said, clamping her hands to her heart. 'Umkaza may hold the key to unlocking the spaces in between the truth. I can feel it drawing me there…and I cannot resist its pull.'

  She was not of a mind to be swayed, Ahman could see that. 'Very well, Destine,' he sighed. 'To Umkaza it is, and may the heavens illuminate us once we get there.'

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  The Council of Elders

  CORNELIUS QUAINT YAWNED like a foghorn, wincing as he nursed his bruised ribs. The night had not been restful. Partly due to his sleeping arrangements (a wooden bench in Bara Mephista), partly due to his sleeping companion (Polly had complained virtually the entire night about one thing or another), but mostly due to the many pairs of eyes that glared at him from every corner of the charred tavern.

  'I hardly got a wink's sleep last night – I didn't dare close my eyes,' snapped Polly, wide awake and as vocal as ever. 'And this didn't help much either!' A thick coil of rope bound her and Quaint's wrists together – and like a marionette, the conjuror had no choice but to lift his own arm when Polly wrenched hers. 'I'd rather be tied to one of those Scarabs!'

  'I'll have a word with Faroud, if you like…providing that he can find one of his men brave enough to volunteer,' said Quaint, ruffling his other hand through his curls.

  'Sleep hasn't improved your sense of humour I see,' swiped Polly. 'I suppose I can't blame the Scarabs for not trusting you. After all, you nearly torched this place to the ground, and you left two of them with nasty burns. You certainly like to live dangerously, don't you?'

  'Is there any other way?' Quaint replied.

  'For you, I suspect not,' said Polly. 'Look at the way these uncivilised dogs are staring at us. They're itching for us to attempt an escape, so they can kill us where we stand!' She glared at the conjuror accusingly. 'And you want them as your allies?'

  'It's not as if I have any choice, is it?' said Quaint. 'A lot is riding on the Council of Elders' decision.'

  'Yes,' replied Polly, '…both our lives, for example.'

  In a crowded room at the far end of the tavern, Aksak Faroud was in congress with the other senior clan leaders. The topic of discussion was Cornelius Quaint, and so far the wind was not blowing in his direction.

  'Ally ourselves with an Englishman? Faroud, are you insane?' snapped a white-bearded old Egyptian, with straggles of hair matted down against his head by a golden headband. 'Or perhaps you have developed a yellow streak since Rakmun was captured?'

  This was Nastasi, one of the Scarab Elders, and Faroud's predecessor as Aksak of Bara Mephista's clan. Nastasi had still to accept that his time as leader was done and, consequently, every one of his words was tainted with derision. Faroud did not rise to the old man's words, but his silence only served to fuel Nastasi's aggravation further.

  'Lost your tongue, Aksak Faroud?' Nastasi asked, his rough old skin as dry as the desert itself. 'Surely you are not seriously proposing to the esteemed Elders present that you wish to assist this Englishman against the Hades Consortium?'

  'And do not forget the woman, Elder Nastasi,' chipped in a gaunt Scarab at Nastasi's side, hunched on the table almost upon the older man's shoulder.

  'Thank you for reminding me, Ellich,' said Nastasi with a nod. 'And a woman too! What on earth has addled your senses, Faroud?'

  Faroud folded his arms stubbornly across his chest.

  'I believe their cause to be just, Elder Nastasi,' he said firmly and confidently. 'The Hades Consortium seeks nothing less than total devastation of our country…we must stand against them!'

  Elder Nastasi made a gargle of disgust in the back of his throat. 'And threaten our alliance with them? That would almost certainly spell extinction for our kind!'

  'Have you not heard a word I have said, Elder? If we do nothing, our extinction will only be a matter of time anyway,' responded Faroud.

  'On whose word, Faroud?' snapped Nastasi. 'Yours? This man Quaint's?'

  Faroud leaned back in his chair and measured the council members' faces. What he was asking them to do was trust him with the sanctity of their clans, and that was not a small thing to ask he knew only too well. So far, Nastasi was the only Elder speaking – and it was a shame that it was against him.

  'It is not as if the Hades Consortium is a benevolent caretaker of our clans! An alliance is not a stable one when it is so one-sided.' Faroud rose swiftly from his seat. His tattered linen robes swept past the other occupants of the room as he strode around the large, wooden table in its centre. 'Nastasi, I know it has been a long time since you were Aksak, but surely you have not forgotten that we Scarabs are supposed to be shapers of our own destiny, rather than allow others to dictate it for us?'

  'I have forgotten nothing, Faroud,' replied Nastasi curtly.

  'Cornelius Quaint risked his life to shine light upon the Consortium's plot! Need I remind you that he walked right into this very camp and requested an audience with me? That takes courage. A man who is prepared to gamble his own life to protect our country is someone we should hold in high regard!'

  'If you believe that, then you are more easily fooled than I thought,' seethed Elder Nastasi, the lines on his face twisting into a cobweb of wrinkles.

  'The world is not as it once was, Nastasi. It continues to spin regardless of how much you dig your heels in!' Faroud spread his arms wide to appeal to his fellow clan leaders. 'Elders…as Nastasi has rightly said: I wish to request the council's permission to aid Quaint in defeating the Hades Consortium and clearing them from Egypt for ever. We no longer have the luxury of time on our side. If this poison is as deadly as Quaint claims, our entire country could be decimated!'

  'That is a very big "if", Faroud,' sneered Nastasi, much to the cackling delight of Ellich, shifting excitedly in his seat.

  'Maybe so…but we have no choice,' said Faroud sternly. 'We Scarabs are not men of privilege; we are men of purpose! We cannot let this Englishman fight on our country's behalf whilst we sit around and do nothing.' He recommenced his pacing, ensuring his eyes met the eyes of the other council members in the room. He did not need their blessing for this venture – but he craved it nonetheless. 'The Hades Consortium has been holding our leash for far too long, giving us just enough freedom to make us believe that we truly are free…but we are only as free as they wish us to be.' Faroud gave an elongated pause to reinforce his words. 'That is not true freedom, my brothers – that is enslavement. Now I beg you this morning to make the right decision. We must band together as one united clan and stop this wholesale slaughter!'

  Elder Nastasi chewed the inside of his mouth. 'You speak a very convincing argument, Aksak Faroud…but I am forced to ask how this outlander has managed to sway you so completely. I find my self questioning your judgement…your ability to lead,' the old man said.

  'Neither of which is on trial here today, Elder,' snapped Faroud.

  'What is to be this Englishman's first step on the path against the Consortium, Aksak?' asked a portly stomached Elder at the opposite end of the table to Nastasi.

  'He believes that Godfrey Joyce's acquisition of the female is connected to something within her excavation site,' replied Faroud. 'Umkaza is to be our first stop.'

  Elder Nastasi's hooded eyes flared. 'Umkaza? There is nothing there but sand and dust,' he said. 'He will find nothing of consequence in a wasteland such as that.'

  'Maybe so,
Elder, but Cornelius Quaint will uncover the intricacies of this plot, and I believe that he will defeat the Hades Consortium,' said Faroud. 'I only ask that each of you share a little bit of my faith.'

  Nastasi made a slow sweep of the table, ensuring that he made eye contact with every Elder before he spoke. 'Well, my fellow Elders?' he asked. 'Do we give our consent?'

  Time had crawled slowly for Cornelius Quaint and his eyes lit up as Aksak Faroud strolled in from the room at the end of the tavern. His face was expressionless, his eyes giving nothing away.

  'Well?' Quaint asked.

  Faroud said nothing. He reached for the scabbard at his waist and pulled out his dagger. Quaint's heart skipped a beat as Faroud advanced, his dagger raised.

  'We need to talk,' he said, as he sliced the ropes binding Quaint's wrist to Polly's.

  Quaint breathed an audible sigh of relief – mostly because it meant that Faroud had not been ordered to kill him, but also because it meant he was free of the Professor.

  'Outside. Professor, you stay here.' Faroud glared at her. 'No arguments this time.'

  'Perish the thought,' she said.

  Faroud led Quaint out of the tavern and into the morning sunshine in the valley. Only the day before, they had been enemies. A lot had changed in the Aksak's mind since he had learned of his own part in the arming of the Hades Consortium. Today was a new day – a day for unification against their common enemy, and previous conflicts would have to be put aside if there was to be any hope of success. Not quite friends, not yet allies, there was a fragile sense of trust between them nonetheless.

  'I want you to know that I believe in your cause, Cornelius…or else I would not have risked my standing within the council in such a reckless fashion,' Faroud began. 'I fought with all my voice, all my strength and all my authority for their understanding. I pleaded your case with the Elders until I was hoarse.'