Luxor Lost and Found

by Graham Warren

  “No, Kate, Cairo is right.”

  “What do you think, Henuttawy?”

  “Sorry, Kate, I can only see it as it was in my time. I see a fountain with a broken top and without water.”

  Cairo picked up what was possibly a fruit bowl. Holding it under the water, he filled it before slowly pouring this on the tiled floor by the edge of the fountain. Even Kate watched in amazement as the water disappeared through the smallest of cracks.

  Just minutes later the still working fountain had been pushed to one side, revealing a tunnel.

  “This goes in the direction of the high wall we were walking towards, so is this our escape from the city?” asked Alex.

  “No, it is much better than we could have hoped for,” answered Henuttawy with excitement, “as that wall is the one which surrounds the royal palace. Cairo, you have just found our way in!”

  Alex was unsure if he was happy or not, because if Henuttawy now intended to go ahead with the same plan, then he wished Cairo had not been so clever. His thoughts went back to the Great Escape. He tried to recall what Cairo had noticed in the film, however, he could only remember that it did not end well for the majority who went through the tunnel. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of feet, then the slamming and bolting of the outside door. The inner doors were also closed and bolted in panic by Henuttawy’s two friends.

  “Somehow they know where you are. We only just made it in here before a full company of soldiers. Have any of you got anything on you that you have been given or is not yours?”

  “Just the maps from Gadeem,” said Henuttawy.

  Kate did not even have her backpack with her, and somewhere in the chaos of earlier she had lost a little fruit knife she had borrowed from the breakfast table. The shorter of the two patted her down, confirming with a nod that she was indeed clear.

  The soldiers started to attack the outside door as Cairo was being checked. It was upon checking Alex that the taller of the two found what they were looking for. A large metal button with the head of Cleopatra on it was removed from his pocket. “Go onto the roof quickly, then throw this as far away from us as possible. If you think you can get it beyond the palace walls, then that is where you must throw it. As there is no gate at this end, the soldiers will have to march all the way back to the main entrance, so, we will have much more time to get out of here if you can do that.”

  “I’m not going to throw this anywhere, as it is from Aryamani.”

  “Can’t you hear that banging? They will get in here. You have two options, either get rid of that thing, or die screaming after two or three days of torture.”

  “Which way to the stairs?” asked Alex. He was back in what seemed to be a lifetime to those who waited. “It went well beyond the walls, are we safe now?”

  “Definitely safer than you were. I’m David and this is Emmy,” he said as he pointed, though when he looked she was no longer standing beside him.

  The banging on the door had stopped. Emmy announced, from her new position of standing on the back of a large marble statue of a lion, as she stretched to see through a ventilation slit, that the soldiers were leaving. She jumped down and joined David.

  “As I was saying, this is Emmy.”

  Alex had already dejectedly flopped onto an oversized sofa, as he wondered whom he could trust. Aryamani, his ancient relative, had given him that button. “No,” he thought, “I took the button,” and his spirit improved.

  “Are you listening, Alex, as this involves you?” asked David very firmly.

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “As I said, there is no entrance at this end of the palace walls, so we have some breathing space. Once the button is located, they will be back, as this was the last place where they knew you were all at. Though you don’t know this, Alex, you threw your button into the royal zoo. Hopefully it will have landed in the crocodile pool or somewhere equally difficult to search. Wherever it landed, there are many feed huts, sleeping quarters and animal compounds where you could be hiding. The search should take some time, so we will be more than safe here for a while.”

  “Did that button have the warlock’s magic on it?”

  “Yes, Alex, it must have for the soldiers to know you were here,” said David.

  “That’s how the warlock knew how to hurt us. He did not have a spy watching dad and me up by the tomb of Ay, he could see us, as I had the button in my hand on the table. He knew where we were all the flipping time. That accounts for the Awamya and Television Street attacks.”

  “Magic can be very powerful,” Henuttawy said. “It was extremely fortuitous that you did not take it into the tomb of Ay when we hid in the gold room, or that would have been fatal.”

  “Yes, you are right. I lost it when the table flipped.”

  “How did you get it back?” asked David.

  Alex thought for a while before answering. “Come to think of it, I didn’t get it back. What an idiot I am. I really never gave it any thought until now. I just came across it in my pocket, as if I had never lost it.”

  “Check your pockets, now,” demanded David, who was no longer as calm as he had been.

  Alex pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding up the button between his thumb and index finger for all to see.

  Kate shouted at Alex, going on about him putting them all in jeopardy by not throwing his precious button away. Her choice of vocabulary was far from ladylike.

  Emmy stopped Kate dead as she said very strongly, “Think before you rant, he must have thrown it away, or the soldiers would never have left.”

  “Homing spell,” said Henuttawy in the silence that followed.

  “We don’t have as long as I thought.” David’s eyes spoke volumes ... fear. “Alex, to break the spell, you need to break the button into at least two pieces and you need to do it quickly. Hit it with anything you can, but you must do it. Nobody can help you if the spell is to be broken.”

  “Why did it have to be a metal button?” asked Alex who lifted with some difficulty a large marble vase. Smashing it down with all his might, the button broke into at least two pieces which shot off across the room.

  From her position on the back of the marble lion, Emmy called out. “I cannot see them yet, but women are picking up their children and running indoors. The soldiers must be approaching.”

  “Then we must go,” said David as he went to open an inner door.

  “No, we do not leave that way,” said Alex with renewed authority. “Open both the inner and outer doors just enough to make it look as though we have left, then get down here with us.” He was pointing to the tunnel.

  Kate, Cairo and Henuttawy were in the tunnel almost before anyone had time to blink. Alex and Emmy helped David with the doors before they also descended into the tunnel. Alex attempted to push the fountain back into place, using the metal bar which dropped vertically from it. The assistance of both David and Emmy was greatly appreciated. It took a couple of attempts before, looking up into darkness, Alex proclaimed the fountain to be back exactly where it should be.

  “Well, do look at the three of you,” said Emmy as they reached a point where the tunnel turned into a room. Torches had been lit, whilst Kate, Cairo and Henuttawy were making the most of yet more oversized sofas. These were genuinely ancient sofas in amazingly good condition. Henuttawy was in heaven. Emmy joined them, whilst Alex and David took a torch each from the wall and walked on. They returned shortly to confirm that the tunnel did indeed lead into the royal palace, though they were not willing to see where it came out until after dark, for fear of being seen.

  The sounds of the soldiers searching the room above echoed down the tunnel. They sat in total silence, until the soldiers had satisfied themselves that the house was empty. Upon hearing the order to return to barracks given, outwardly nobody said anything, though an inaudible sigh of relief passed between them.

  “Well, as it looks as though we are all forced to be on the same adventure,” said Emmy, “perhaps this
is the right time to get to know each other a little better.”

  “No, it is not.”

  “I think it is, David.” Emmy took off her headscarf and there, sitting before them, were two Henuttawys. Apart from what they were wearing, they were identical.

  “Yes,” said Henuttawy with pride, “this is my grand, grand, grand, and many more grands, daughter.”

  “I cannot deny it, and would never want to deny it. Now it’s your turn, David.”

  He somewhat reluctantly pulled his headscarf down over his face until it ended up around his neck. Upon seeing his face, Kate fainted, though only after mumbling an almost incoherent word … “Dad!”

  Chapter 26

  -

  No Way Back

  After much hugging and many tears, it was generally agreed that the person sitting in front of them was not a young Nakhtifi, but Kate’s real father. He was just as forgettable, though he spoke with much more authority.

  As it turned out he had ‘seen’ at about the same age as Kate, though all he was willing to say about his adventure was that it was disastrous. Many had died, and it had almost killed him. He mentioned his very personal debt to Dr Margretti at the British Museum, because without his help he would have probably ended up either sleeping under a bridge or jumping off one. After many years he had thought he was safe to marry and have a family, though the warlock had a long memory and an even longer reach. “The only way anyone close to me would ever be safe, was if I moved to Egypt, away from everyone I knew, so that is what I did.” David spoke with tears welling in his eyes. “Even now, after all these years, I have terrible periods of depression. That is why I prefer to work on my own and have withdrawn as much as is practicable from the real world.”

  Alex now realised why his father had not been able to remember the second archaeologist’s name, it was because there was only the one. David Wool’s real name was obviously David Black.

  “The warlock knows where I am, but we have, or should I say, had, an uneasy truce. If I posed him no danger, he would leave my family alone. Only recently Dr Margretti asked me to help Emmy. At first I was reluctant, though the Doctor has a way of getting what he wants. He thought I may be able to help her because of where I was working and what I was working on, as in England she had failed to ‘see’.”

  “It worked,” said Emmy, “as just a day or so ago I ‘saw’, and only a few hours ago I met Henuttawy for the first time, so this has all been a rather steep learning curve for me.”

  “Well, your mum and dad should have helped you to ‘see’,” said Kate with attitude. An underlying jealousy came to the fore as Emmy had already spent time with David, so in Kate’s mind Emmy had no right to interrupt him.

  “What mum and dad, Kate? I wish I had a mum and dad!”

  “Oh!”

  “Don’t be angry with Emmy, Kate. The idea of Dr Margretti to send her over was to also help me through a bad time. I had only just found out you were living with Aggie,” continued David, “so I knew something terrible must have happened to your mum. Warlock or natural causes, I did not know. I was really struggling, as I felt so useless, so helpless. Why couldn’t I have died like my friends? It would have been fairer for us all.”

  “No,” shouted Kate, “I have a father, my father, and I’m not going to lose you again.” She slung her arms around him, and he reciprocated.

  The following hour or so passed as a blur. It consisted of hugging, crying, laughing and everyone talking over everybody else. Alex was amazed to find out that there had been a Dr Margretti at the British Museum ever since it opened on the fifteenth of January seventeen fifty-nine. He was even more amazed to find out that it was the same Dr Margretti during all that time. Alex had said less than the others as he had been thinking. Now that the conversation had returned to how they could get the ten grains of sand of the Sun, he put his plan forward.

  Kate and David agreed to it immediately. So did Henuttawy and Emmy. Cairo, who had been so excited over the last hour or so that he had been bouncing up and down whilst clapping his hands most of the time, agreed, though he just had to add that he would have liked to have heard the mention of food at some point. Everyone laughed. Cairo was Cairo and he would never change, not that anyone wanted him to.

  Alex thought through his plan for just a few more minutes. In his head it had worked well. Now, having spoken it out loud, he heard a plan which sounded just as suicidal as Henuttawy’s. It relied on superstition, the help of someone they had never met, and sheer luck. Six of them attempting to make their way through a heavily guarded royal palace without being discovered was really pushing it, though who could he leave behind … nobody. They each offered different elements to his plan.

  Under the cover of darkness, Alex opened the door at the end of the tunnel very slightly. The room ahead was unlit, though enough flickering light shone in, from either flaming torches or candles elsewhere in the palace, for him to make out an unused bed along with some very large wardrobes. He slipped through the door and across the room. After checking every section of the massive wardrobes, he intentionally left one door ajar. Glancing out from the balcony, the palace appeared to be far bigger as well as much more complex than he had expected. The sound of voices in the darkness, coming from the garden below, caused him to dart back into the room. Carefully and quietly he opened the main door from the bedroom. He was relieved to find the corridor ahead was free of guards, though he was just as equally dismayed to find it so well-lit when it was open to the dark gardens below.

  Alex reported back. “There are people in the garden, which is in darkness, so I have no idea who they are. A long corridor runs from this room with no guards, however, it is well-lit and far too easily seen from the gardens. Henuttawy and Emmy, good news, I have left one wardrobe door ajar. There are at least three, if not four or five, of the same of everything in there.”

  They were across to the wardrobe, changing quickly into identical dresses. Being royal dresses, they stopped at their ankles, though they also finished below their breasts. Emmy found an elaborate necklace. It was made of a multitude of small linked together rectangles of gold, in all its shades, then edged with lapis lazuli. Once on, it had the desired effect, her breasts were covered. She looked in vain to try and find one for Henuttawy, when Cairo suggested they use the one which was on a stand beside the bed. It was not one hundred percent the same, though definitely close enough in the light of flaming torches. Anyone more than a couple of paces away would never be able to see the difference.

  Kate had been eavesdropping on the people talking in the garden. She reported back good news. They were palace gardeners moaning about having to change all the torches, because when lit, the new batch of oil gave off a dreadful smell. They were just about finished so the garden would be lit any moment. Just as Kate stopped speaking, the room brightened, as the garden did indeed light up.

  “Wow,” said Alex as he looked from Henuttawy to Emmy. They did not only look identical, they were a vision of beauty. “This is going to work,” he thought, just as he heard the door to the tunnel click shut.

  “Sorry,” said Cairo, “I forgot.”

  After a full five minutes of twisting and pulling everything in the room, the door to the tunnel still steadfastly failed to open. It was clear to all that their way out had been denied to them. All Cairo had to do, as the last one to leave the tunnel, was to slide the bolt across which would have stopped the door from being able to fully close. The sight of Henuttawy and Emmy in the half-light, after they had changed though before they had found the necklaces, had obviously distracted him.

  Now the garden below was well-lit, getting along the corridor, then through the dark red curtain at the far end, proved to be no problem at all. They moved one at a time, just after the patrolling guards had passed. Emerging into an almost empty room of palatial proportions, they saw that the heavy dark red curtains ran along the full width, as well as height, of the end wall. Directly opposite this, at the very far e
nd of the room, they could make out two royal guards standing beside massive wooden doors. The guards would not see them, at least not before they moved further into the incredibly plain room, as their view was blocked by a row of columns. Floor, walls and even the square columns which supported the roof, were covered in white marble. There was no ornamentation of any kind. Only the heavy floor to ceiling curtain, where they stood, added any colour.

  Henuttawy asked Emmy if she minded swopping sides. She did not, so it was Henuttawy who made her way behind the curtain to the far side of the room. She stepped out and stood directly behind the first column. Emmy took the few paces needed to stand behind the opposite column. Both were invisible to the guards. Now it was time for Cairo’s big moment. This would show just how much he had matured in the past few weeks. He was the only one of them who could speak the ancient soldier’s language. Yes, it would be a different soldier’s language in Amarna, but Alex hoped it would be close enough for the message to get through, letting ancient superstition, their fear of magic, do the rest.

  “So, you know what you must do, Cairo,” said Alex.

  “Yes, I walk down middle and tell guards I am the warlock.”

  “Magician, Cairo. We call him the warlock, ancients call him the magician.”

  “That what I mean. Can I go now?”

  Nerves were obviously getting the better of him, so Alex said, “Of course,” and wished him luck. Kate gave Cairo a hug and kissed him on the cheek. David said with confidence, or as much confidence as he could muster, “See you inside the Queen’s chamber.”

  Cairo took several deep breaths before he stepped out to start his walk down the centre of the room, directly towards the large wooden doors. With the guards’ eyes fixed on him, Henuttawy and Emmy kept to the edge of the room as they followed Cairo down, from column to column. Kate and David took this as their cue to move along behind the curtain. He stopped in the middle, whilst she walked on to the far side.

  From where Alex stood, he watched Cairo walk with enough confidence. The guards challenged him as expected. Cairo started to talk loudly. The only problem was that as he talked, he moved around. Alex wished Cairo had not spent so much time watching bad American police series, as he was now watching Colombo in action, even down to the invisible cigar.