Luxor Lost and Found

by Graham Warren

  Henuttawy was not far behind Alex. The speed she was running she would have been well ahead, if she could have run in a straight line. She had to avoid those mausoleums which were no longer intact in her time. Alex ran in a straight line. His momentum was such that the jumps between mausoleums appeared to be nothing more than elongated steps. Henuttawy was weaving to the left, the right, all over the place. Sometimes she had to suddenly change direction, or make an emergency stop, because a roof which had appeared at a distance to be strong enough to jump onto, did not give her the same confidence when seen at close quarters.

  Alex became ever more aware of shouting voices. These came from a long way behind. He considered that the soldiers were no longer in disarray, they were following him across the roofs. He was travelling too fast to be able to look back though there was no way he was going to stop to see what was happening behind him. As each mausoleum was individual in its design, every roof varied in height, width and texture. He had nearly slid off one. Only as he landed did he realise it was covered in mud-brick coloured marble.

  He felt something was going to happen, he had a feeling to which he had no time to react to. To drop down between the mausoleums meant he had to come to a stop, a dead halt, then he would be an easy target. There was no way he could jump down at speed, or he would suffer broken bones. He managed to shout out “Warlock” as a warning to Henuttawy, just as a freezing sensation hit his left shoulder causing his arm to drop lifeless to his side. This threw him off balance, making the jumps harder. Noticing Henuttawy get ahead of him, despite all her twisting and turning, made him realise that his running was becoming more and more of an effort. Whatever the spell was that had hit him, it was slowing him down, taking him over. He had felt the presence of magic, so it had to be the warlock, though he had been powerless to take evasive action.

  Henuttawy stopped, turned back, then ran towards Alex, whose legs were now becoming visibly wobbly. She crashed into him head on, taking him down onto the roof as another fireball of magic flew past, quite harmlessly for them, though a passing Iraqi Stork was not quite so lucky. It froze in mid-flight. Neck extended, wings outstretched and legs straight back, it fell to the ground as mini lightning bolts of red and blue travelled around its body.

  Thankfully, magic did not work like a machine-gun. There was always a delay between attacks. It might only be a few seconds, but there was always a delay. Henuttawy helped Alex down from the roof. He was becoming less and less mobile. Try as she may, she could not hold on to him. She did not want to let him drop to the ground, but he was now as lifeless as a sack of potatoes, though much, much heavier.

  “I coming, I coming,” shouted a panting Cairo, who had just come into view. “I got him,” he said, as he came to a halt right below Alex. He slipped from Henuttawy’s hands, and who had got whom became a matter for debate. Henuttawy dropped down. She pulled the lifeless Alex off Cairo, before she helped him up. “I watch which way you run, so I come to you.”

  “So glad you did. Now grab a shoulder and we will go that way,” she said, abandoning their northwards direction as she pointed west.

  They ran as fast as they could, pulling the lifeless Alex between them. In their haste they dragged him over a rock the size of a football. They were both sorry, though also extremely relieved to hear a moan. At least this confirmed he was still alive.

  “I can see our way out,” said a puffing Henuttawy as they approached the edge of the cemetery, where she came to a halt.

  Even Cairo could not miss it. Across a wide expanse of open rocky desert was the River Nile. They were in ancient Amarna, so seeing ancients fishing with homemade nets from long narrow rowing boats was only to be expected, each fisherman using his square wooden oars as wings, onto which he had attached his nets. Their boats drifted with the flow of the mighty river. The image between two extremely tall date palms was somewhat different; unexpected though most welcome. A modern coal barge appeared from the left of the right-hand tree and disappeared centimetre by centimetre as it reached the right-hand side of the left tree. This was their way back to their own time. They just had to reach it before any soldiers or the warlock stopped them.

  “It too far,” said Cairo.

  They both looked to their right, where stall after stall was being upturned in the soldiers’ frantic search for them. People forgot their purchases as they ran screaming from the market. There was a red, followed sometime later by a green flash, as the warlock cast his spells, presumably on some totally innocent ancient who had the misfortune to look vaguely like one of them. Henuttawy hoped it was not Kate, David or Emmy being caught. However, she doubted it would be, as they had headed towards the other side of the city when they had split up.

  “You go,” said Cairo in a way which, for him, was an order. “I bring Mr Alex when they gone. You important.”

  Henuttawy placed her hand on the little box which contained the grains of sand of the Sun, as she thought about just how important they were. She could also see that the window to Egypt in their time was very slightly closer to the soldiers than it was to them. If she ran on her own, she would be quick as well as having the element of surprise. All things considered, she could make it through. The soldiers could not follow her through to the modern day, though the warlock could. However, despite his magic, like bullies the world over, he would not be brave enough to follow her on his own.

  “I do not want to leave you both here, so I will stay until Alex recovers.”

  It took him extreme effort to form the words, but Alex got them out. They did not come out very clearly, but he said them with enough force to make Henuttawy run. “Go, now, order.”

  These windows did not stay in the same place for long, so if she was going to go at all, she needed to move now. She was off and running without another second’s thought.

  Wearing what was now a dirty white dress, she blended well with the terrain. Though moving quickly, she kept low between the rocks. Not one of the soldiers noticed her as they continued to turn the market upside down. Nobody noticed her except Cairo. He watched her progress whilst keeping the prone Alex informed all the way. She waved without looking back as she stepped through to the modern day.

  Chapter 29

  -

  Crocodilopolis

  Alex had been a long way from the warlock when he had cast his spell. Thankfully, it had failed to hit him square on. With the help of Cairo, he now managed to move. His legs were wobbly, though feeling was returning, as was his ability to produce more words than dribble.

  This time they were heading south, keeping the River Nile to their right. The inviting blue water was becoming ever closer. Alex thought the shock of cold water from a quick dip may help to rid him of the magic. Upon being reminded that Nile crocodiles were to be found all along the river in ancient times, he quickly went off the idea. His memory was jogged at the same time as Cairo’s; it was as they stepped over a rise and looked down upon eight or nine, possibly ten or more, basking on the banks of the Nile. They did not hang around to count accurately.

  In modern day Egypt crocodiles were only to be found south of the High Dam at Aswan. Tourists often claimed to have seen them much further north, especially from their cruise boats, though these sightings were of nothing more than fully grown Nile monitor lizards, which did indeed look crocodile-like as they swam in a sinuous motion across the Nile. They looked even more like a crocodile when the tourist, who had reported the sighting, had previously spent far too much time at the all-inclusive bar. When the largest Nile monitor lizard, at just a shade less than two and a half metres in length, was compared with a Nile crocodile, typically four to five metres in length, there was a vast disparity. The lizard also differed in the fear factor. It had no teeth, though its bony jaw could certainly break bones. The crocodile, on the other hand, had a large mouth with an even larger number of oversized teeth.

  Alex was now walking like someone who was suffering from the aftereffects of spending too much time at the
aforementioned bar. Cairo no longer had to offer quite so much assistance, though once Alex started to wobble sideways, he was very much in need. They both looked at the writing on the wall which was now in front of them. Alex could not make head or tail of it. His ancient memories only allowing him to read Greek hieroglyphs.

  Cairo, who could not read or write modern Arabic, had, with the help of his ancient memories, been able to read the more pictorial hieroglyphs within the Bucheum. He could, however, speak the language of ancient soldiers. Having discovered, when he spoke to the soldier outside of Nefertiti’s room, that the soldier language of Amarna was not dissimilar to that of Luxor, his confidence had been boosted. He left Alex propped up against the wall as he went over to ask a nearby soldier what the writing said.

  Kate, David and Emmy waded on through the water of the tunnel. They all became aware, at about the same time, they were no longer in total darkness. There was no visible source of light, but there was the smallest amount of it reaching them from somewhere as they could now make out the basic shapes of each other. The water continued to make more noise with every step they took. This, they discovered, was due to a sharp right-hand bend. Once around this, they knew exactly where the light was coming from. It was no larger than the head of a pin, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

  “Do you think we should go on?” asked Kate.

  “Well, nobody has followed us, so they must be expecting us to either have to go back, or be waiting for us as we reach the light,” said David, as he echoed Kate’s unspoken concerns.

  “Whatever we do, we cannot stay in this water, so I say we go on,” said Emmy, who was obviously feeling the cold.

  Now she had pointed it out, they all felt the cold. No longer was this the warm water of the baths. They had all felt the turbulence, as flows of water from submerged pipes had joined with the main flow at various points along their journey, and every time they did, the water chilled just a little more.

  “I’m with Emmy on this,” said David. “We cannot go back, we cannot stay here, so we must have a plan for when we reach the end of the tunnel.”

  No plan had been formulated as the light at the end of the tunnel became a room at the end of the tunnel, a very large room. There was the definite sound of falling water, though the level of water in the tunnel remained constant.

  Upon reaching the low wall at the end of the tunnel, over which the water cascaded, they realised why nobody had followed them. They also realised that any of the half-thought-out plans they had come up with, would be absolutely useless.

  Kate leaned over to look down to the water below. She shot back sharply as a rather large crocodile rose vertically from the water, snapping its jaw together far too close for comfort. So close in fact that not only did she feel the air move, but she also received a nose full of its bad breath.

  The water flowed through the underground room like a river. Crocodiles were not only in the water, there were many basking on artificial sand banks. This room was overpopulated with mature crocodiles.

  “Well, it is now blatantly obvious why we have not been followed,” said David, as he tried to take in all aspects of the room without giving any crocodile an easy meal.

  “I should say so,” said Emmy as her eyes scanned the area. “Where is the light coming from?”

  Kate pointed up and around the room as she said, “From those holes up there.” She did keep her arm back, as anything which even slightly protruded over the edge of the cascading water stirred the interest of the crocodiles. “They could be our way out.”

  From their vantage point they could see a large, highly polished metal pyramid, suspended upside-down from the ceiling. Light flowed in from a single hole high up in each wall. They knew this because even though they could not see the opening above them, they could see the result. Four beams of light hit the four sides of the inverted pyramid. The result was a room flooded with so much light that it was indistinguishable from daylight.

  “I reckon that each of them is easily as large as this corridor, only there will be polished discs at the end.” Kate again pointed up to where the light was coming in. “Those discs will be angled to reflect the sunlight in from above. I bet, if we could get into one of those corridors, it would be our way out of here.”

  “I bet if we could get out of here,” thought Emmy, “we would have all witnessed a miracle.” She had failed to take into account Kate’s tenacity.

  “Good I speak to him,” said Cairo as he returned to Alex. “He was going to get soldiers to arrest us as time travellers.”

  “So, that is what they are calling us, is it?”

  “Yes, but as I talk to him in ancient soldier language, he now think we from his time. So we okay.”

  “Good work, Cairo. Did he tell you what was written on the wall?”

  Cairo explained. Apparently, it said the area beyond was the sacred area of the Pebble Men. Alex looked, but all he could see was a large flat area which had a single soldier as a guard.

  “Where are the Pebble Men?” Alex asked.

  “Soldier say we can offer our praises to them here, but they live underground. He said be careful of those holes.” Cairo pointed to a nearby shaft in the ground.

  Alex’s curiosity was high. He knew he should not think of anything except defeating the warlock, but what was a Pebble Man? He just had to find out. Leaning against the wall, he had been wiggling his toes whilst opening and closing his fists. It felt as though the magic had left him, well, ninety-five percent had, and that was good enough for what he wanted to do. “Shall we find out what a Pebble Man is?” he asked Cairo, nodding at the same time, in the added hope of receiving the answer he wanted.

  “We should get out of here.”

  “Come on, Cairo, aren’t you just a little bit curious?” Cairo’s head moved as if he was thinking, before Alex received the nod he had wanted. As the soldier walked away from them on his patrol of the area, Alex took a peek down the nearest shaft. He was back with Cairo in no time. “It’s not deep at all. The next time the soldier walks away from us, you go down this shaft and I will go down the one over there.” Alex pointed in the general direction. Before Cairo could protest, the soldier who had been walking back towards them turned on the spot. As he walked away, Alex ran.

  “Look,” said Kate with real attitude, “there is no way we have come this far, only to turn around and walk back. I would rather take my chance with the crocodiles than the warlock.”

  “Then what do we do?” asked Emmy, as the cold of the water ate ever deeper into her bones.

  “I don’t know how to get out of here. I wish I did, but I am not going back. There is a tunnel above us, we just have to reach it.”

  “How, without being eaten by crocodiles?”

  “Now, come on you two,” said David. “We are all cold and irritable, but being irritable is not going to get us out of here. I agree with Kate, I’m not going back to face the warlock.”

  “I don’t want to go back,” said Emmy, “it’s just that we have no way forward and this water is freezing. So, what other choice do we have?”

  “I’m not going back,” reiterated David, though with more force than before. His intimate knowledge of exactly what the warlock could do to people, without a moment of remorse, sent a shiver down his spine. The cold of the water sent a second shiver. “I also have no idea how we get from here to the tunnel above us without being eaten alive. If the crocodiles were not here it might be possible, but even then, without ropes, it would still be very risky. With the crocodiles here, it is impossible.” He paused as he rubbed his chin. “Let us consider what we know about these crocodiles and see if we can use this knowledge to our advantage. We know they prepare to attack the second any part of our body protrudes beyond the end of this tunnel. That is not normal behaviour for Nile crocodiles.”

  “What is their normal behaviour?” asked Emmy.

  “Well, they can at times be opportunistic feeders, though normally crocod
iles are very patient. They have no need to feed every day. It is in their nature to only attack when they are one hundred percent certain of a kill. Lying in wait in the Nile with nothing more than their eyes and nostrils breaking the surface for hours, sometimes days, is quite normal. No attempt to attack any prey would be made whilst it was standing by the river, even though there would be a high degree of success. Crocodiles can move very fast over short distances. No, the crocodile would only attack when its prey was actually drinking, when they were almost nose to nose.”

  “Then why do you think these crocodiles are acting differently?”

  “That, Emmy, is what I was thinking about.”

  Kate saw a chance to look good in her father’s eyes. “It must have something to do with how they are being fed. Looking down there is like looking at a zoo exhibit. There is nothing natural about their way of life in here.”

  “Exactly, but when they are fed, the food must be thrown down from the tunnels we cannot reach. I think we have drawn a blank there. So, what else do we know? I have noticed that despite having very good hearing, they do not react to us talking.”

  “Do they have very good hearing?” asked Emmy. Kate wanted to shout at her ‘if my dad says so, then they do’, but she kept a still tongue.

  “Yes, I read up on the Nile Crocodile when I was researching the link between real crocodiles and the ancient Egyptian Sobek cult. They can, by all accounts, hear at least as well as we can. Many believe they have better hearing than we do, though that is debateable as it is difficult to isolate one sense entirely from the others. What else do we know about crocodiles?”