His chest did blow apart, but, just as with any ancient, he would not leave the afterlife until his name was removed. If left as he was, he could, and he would, come back.
Ay took hold of the reins, turned his chariot around and raced away with Merenptah holding on for dear life. Bordin had stepped from the chariot as it had turned. Cairo called out “Traitor” as he lunged for Bordin with a sword he had taken from a fallen ancient. In a single continuous movement Bordin disarmed Cairo, spun him around, slapped him with the blunt side of the blade and killed his first soldier.
“Welcome home, my friend,” called out Nakhtifi, as they now both took on soldiers who were running in from the desert.
There was a world of difference between the battle-hardened swordsmanship of Ramses and the Pirates of the Caribbean swordsmanship of Nakhtifi, but as Alex watched, he was pleased that they were both on the same side as him. He then watched as Nefertiti turned her chariot before racing back to where the armies of Ay and Merenptah were camped. He had a pang of guilt, as only now had he thought of Emmy. They had to get back to Amarna before Nefertiti did, if they were to have any chance of saving her.
Alex heard Kate scream. His initial reaction was that she had been hurt. He spun around, immediately seeing that she was unhurt as she ran towards him. In the micro-second it took for his brain to engage, he was too late to move. He felt cold steel penetrate his back, though far more worrying for him was that he saw the same cold steel appear out of his front. Ramses immediately took out his attacker. With typical battleground humour, he called out above the sound of steel hitting steel, “Look on the bright side, Alex, you have two swords to fight with now!”
Alex fell to his knees. He knew that either he was about to pass out or die, he was unsure which. What he did know was that if he fell on the sword, it would be the latter. He rolled sideways, landing on the sand behind the chariot, next to Rose and Gadeem.
Upon seeing Nefertiti leave, her soldiers stopped coming out of the ground. This part of the battle was won.
“Get Gadeem and Alex back to my tent as quickly as you can, Nakhtifi.” Ramses did not have to ask him twice.
As Ramses walked around behind the chariot of the warlock, he saw Bast, in human form, kneeling beside the shimmer that was the magician. His features were still easily recognisable. “I cannot get him to disappear. There must be a name in there.” She pointed to his underpants. Ramses smiled. “Smile all you want, but there is no way that I am going in there. Evil warlock or not!”
“Then I will,” said Kate.
“No,” said Ramses firmly, “this is man’s work.”
Kate ignored him as she thrust her hand into the shimmer. She pulled out a label, onto which the warlock had written his name. “This is why I am in Egypt,” she announced, as she tore the label into minute pieces. The warlock was no more, as now even the shimmer had gone.
Ramses picked up Cairo from the ground and carried him back to his chariot. He was sobbing at the loss of both Gadeem and Alex. These were his friends, and he had not only lost them, he had failed them. Friends were supposed to watch each other’s backs.
It was time to head back to camp, and as they did, neither Alex nor Gadeem registered in Kate’s thoughts. She could think of nothing except slinging her arms around her father, as she told him that he could live the rest of his life without being in fear of the warlock.
The elite soldiers signalled to their counterparts before heading back to their respective camps. As frustrating as it was for them, honour demanded that they did not enter the fight unless their leader called for them to do so. This had not happened on either side.
Kate rode back with Bast, who proved to be as wildly reckless a charioteer as Ramses. Kate, like Cairo, had no option except to hold on for dear life.
“Bast?” called out Ramses. He pulled his chariot as close as he could. “A small wager.”
“What!” she exclaimed in disbelief. Her thoughts were with Gadeem and Alex, as well as the suffering that Rose was going through.
“First one back, gets to send the signal to the Sobeks.”
“You have yourself a bet!”
Both Kate and Cairo had the same thought. “What have the Sobeks got to do with any of this?” Beyond this, survival became their only consideration, as, to their disbelief, both chariots sped up.
Chapter 38
-
Tears
“You beat me fair and square,” said Ramses, who had not even broken into a sweat.
“You let me win, you naughty boy,” replied Bast. If Kate and Cairo had hung around, they would have seen Bast at her most dishevelled.
Kate had immediately run off to tell her father the good news. Cairo disappeared into Ramses’ mobile palace. He frantically searched for Alex and Gadeem. “How many rooms can a tent have?” he thought to himself.
“Careful, Cairo,” said Gadeem, as Cairo almost bowled both him and Rose over. He had his previously severed arm in a sling, with his good arm around Rose. Her eyes were red and puffy from shedding so many tears, though her face radiated happiness.
“You alive?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I am an ancient whose name was not removed, so I must be alive. Just do not touch the arm, as it hurts like hell.”
“I do not know how many more times I can watch him die,” said Rose, as any sign of happiness disappeared from her face and tears, yet again, welled in her eyes.
Cairo was elated that Gadeem would be okay. He now had to find Alex. Rose shouted something as he raced off, but Cairo did not take it in. He eventually found Alex laid out on Ramses’ bed. He was alone. No doctors, nobody urgently trying to save his life. Cairo stopped in his tracks. After his eagerness to find Alex, he now had no wish to confirm that he had lost such a special friend.
He sank to the floor, where he sat for a short while, before moving over to the bed on all fours. Poking his head up, he looked across the bed through squinted eyes. Alex looked so pale. Cairo wondered if he felt cold, now that life had left him. The thought that at some point, long in the future, they were likely to meet again as ancients, enabled him to hold back the tears. He failed to hear Ramses and Bast enter the room behind him.
Ramses went to make Cairo jump, whilst Bast smacked him on the arm before she bobbed down, reassuringly placing her hands upon Cairo’s shoulders. “Leave the scarab to do its work,” she whispered in his ear.
“He alive?”
“Barely, but he is only alive thanks to the quick thinking of Rose. The small golden scarab she was able to slip into the wound managed to keep him alive until he reached here. There is now a much larger golden scarab working hard to save his life. We just need to give it the time it needs to complete its work.”
Cairo hugged Bast, emotion finally overtaking him.
“Enough of this,” said Ramses, who always struggled when people were in tears. “Bast, it is time to send the signal to the Sobeks.”
“Do give us a minute … please.”
“We have rid the world of the warlock, but there is still an army ...” He paused as he thought for just a second. “Actually, there are three armies out there, and they are not going away anytime soon. Forget Ay and Merenptah, for they are not the problem. Nefertiti is! She will see this as her chance to take control. We could be attacked at any moment, so … no … I will not give you a minute.” He took both Bast and Cairo by the shoulder, lifting them to their feet. “We must defeat her before she defeats us. Now, go outside and signal the Sobeks before a battle starts that we will not be able to win. And you, Cairo, you will want to see this so you can tell Alex all about it.”
A table had been set up just to the north of the camp. It was shaded by a very large umbrella. All the chairs were on one side facing north. Gadeem and Rose were sitting and hugging as if they were young lovers. Nakhtifi was also seated, but, much to the surprise of Cairo, so was his Thoth. Thoth R stood behind a chair that, by the excessive use of gold and heavy ornamentation, was obvious
ly Ramses’.
“Guess where you are to sit, Cairo,” said Ramses.
He did not need to guess. The glass of tamar-hindi, which stood beside a plate stacked high with bulls’ head sandwiches, was a dead giveaway. The note from Inky and Mrs Inky, which had been tucked under the edge of the plate, congratulating them, was a really nice touch. Especially, as it was not only written in English, which Cairo could not read, but in the more pictorial type of hieroglyphs, which he could read.
Kate arrived with her father. The swelling around David’s eye had reduced significantly.
Once they were all seated and they each had a drink in front of them, Bast stood. She lifted the wooden hammer which had been placed before her and hit the gong, which Thoth R was holding, with all her might. Thoth physically vibrated. After a few seconds, there was nothing except silence.
“Again, Bast,” said Ramses.
“Do you really have to?” thought Thoth.
Bast obviously thought that she had to. She hit the gong just as hard as she could, and she hit it several times. When the ringing in everybody’s ears had stopped, there was a definite drumbeat in the distance.
“Well done, Bast. That will be the Sobeks.” Ramses stood, raised his glass to the desert and said, “Let the show begin.”
The drumbeat stopped, only to be replaced with a long low rushing sound. Before anyone had the time to analyse what they were hearing, jets of water started to shoot out of the ground. These were so far away that it was difficult to see what the water was throwing into the air. The rushing sound grew ever louder.
“If this works, Gadeem, I will give you a medal.”
Gadeem was unimpressed by Ramses’ offer. “Keep your medal, my friend, twelve bottles of your red wine would be much more appreciated.”
“You are good, you are worth your weight in gold, but never, not for one moment, think you are worth twelve bottles of my red wine!”
The sound changed dramatically as it reached just over one hundred metres from them. It was then that the ground swelled, changed colour and broke open. Hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers were ejected from their underground hideouts by a wall of water. The power of the water did not just raise them a metre or two above the desert, it took them twenty or thirty metres up into the air. Upon landing, there was not one soldier who was in any fit state to fight. Crumpled and broken bodies lay everywhere.
“You, my friend, are a genius. Nefertiti’s army wiped out at a stroke.”
“I think, Ramses, you mean ‘washed out at a stroke’.” Gadeem and Ramses shared a laugh. The laughing stopped when Gadeem mentioned the wine again, but by now everybody was congratulating him. The soldiers, who had lined up to watch, all hollered in celebration. A group came over and raised Gadeem onto their shoulders. Rose shouted out several times for them to be careful of his arm, but she seemed to be worrying about it much more than he was. A cacophony of cheers followed a beaming Gadeem, as they paraded him around the camp.
“Shall we let Gadeem bask in his moment of glory, whilst we go and rescue … Now, what is her name? You know, the girl of Henuttawy’s.”
Cairo was convinced that Ramses knew her name, as he would not be so eager to rescue someone he knew so little about. The fact that she was the great, great, and many more greats, granddaughter of Henuttawy, Ramses’ favourite daughter, meant that her name would not have escaped him. Cairo had not finished eating, so he gave Ramses the look.
“Oh, alright,” said Ramses, just before emptying his glass of wine in one gulp. “Let us go and rescue Emmy after you have finished your sandwiches.”
“See, that not so hard,” said Cairo, as the last of the sandwiches disappeared. “Let’s go.”
Kate steadfastly refused to leave her father, and when pushed to do so, she shouted that as far as she was concerned her adventure was over. She did add that she hoped Emmy would be okay, but also added, quite forcefully, that Emmy was not her problem.
“Looks like it is just us to the rescue,” said Ramses as he stepped onto his chariot which had been brought out with a new pair of horses.
“Just us,” thought Cairo in panic, though he still stepped up behind Ramses.
“Don’t worry, my little friend, they cannot kill me.”
“But they can kill me! I too young to die,” were the last words that anyone heard Cairo utter, before Ramses turned his horses to the north and headed, at speed, straight for the army camp where Nefertiti, Ay and Merenptah were.
Upon opening his eyes, Alex was unsure where he was. Everything around him radiated an ethereal light. It took him two attempts before he was able to push himself up on the bed. Now looking into the room, rather than at the ceiling of the tent, he realised he had not died, he also knew exactly where he was. Henuttawy dashed over and piled cushions behind him, before sitting on the edge of the bed.
Alex tried to speak, but he was so dry that he managed nothing more than a squeak. After drinking a whole glass of water, his voice came back to him. “I am so sorry, Henuttawy, we must go and rescue Emmy.” He tried to push himself out of bed.
“You are going nowhere.”
That was not the voice he had expected to hear. “Emmy, is that you?”
“Yes, Alex, Ramses and Cairo rescued me. Henuttawy is in Thebes.”
“Waset!”
“Luxor!”
“Yes, any of those,” said Alex, as they both enjoyed the moment. He was growing to like Emmy more every time he saw her.
“I shall tell the others that you are awake.”
“But how did we kill the warlock? I know that we did … well, I think I know what we did. I just don’t know how we managed it.”
“I don’t know either, as I was otherwise occupied!”
“Of course, how silly of me.” Alex blushed.
“Ramses’ chef told me to tell him when you were awake, as he wants to bring you in some special fish. Are you a fish lover, Alex?”
Alex was not, but he knew this was going to be very special fish, which would aid his recovery. It had worked well for Kate after she had nearly died. “Not really,” he said, “but this fish is more of a medicine.”
“Oh, I see,” said Emmy, who really did not see at all. “Well, now that you are awake and well on your way to recovery, we will all be able to head back to Waset, Thebes and Luxor.” She had purposely used all three names for Luxor, ancient Egyptian, Greek and modern. Emmy reached out, took hold of Alex’s hand and squeezed it before standing up. As she was leaving the room, she stopped and turned back. “Dr Margretti will be so pleased when I tell him that you are awake and retain the use of all your limbs.”
“What! Is he here?”
“Yes, we will be travelling back in the ARM. Apparently, no tourists will be getting into Karnak for the next few days. They are already well into preparing for the day after tomorrow. Gadeem says it will be the largest celebration Luxor has ever seen.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yes, he is fine. Now, forget all your questions, as you need to get well quickly if you are going to take me as your guest.” She turned and left, though Alex heard her chuckle as she did. It warmed him. He was now ready to eat any amount of fish if it meant he would be well enough to enjoy the celebration with Emmy.
Chapter 39
-
Luxor, Amarna and London
“Well, I am off,” said Kate as she stood over Alex and Cairo in the bar at the Winter Palace. The boys were sitting at their usual table, both enjoying a tamar-hindi.
“What’s the hurry, Kate? Surely you have time for your drink.” Alex pointed to a fresh tamar-hindi, which had been placed on the table in front of the chair where she usually sat.
“Sorry, Alex, I hate goodbyes, and my dad is waiting for me in Amarna. See you, Cairo.”
“Hold on, five minutes will not make a difference.” Alex gestured for Kate to sit down. Cairo also asked her to sit.
“Look! Joe is outside. He is waiting to take me back to my dad. We talked a
bout this on the way back here. You knew I only came back to pick up my things.”
“But tomorrow big celebration. You reason for celebration.”
“Cairo is right, you know,” said Alex, “because if you had not ‘seen’ on that day at the British Museum, then neither Cairo nor I would have seen. Nakhtifi would not be secure in the afterlife, and the world would not be rid of the warlock.”
“Then don’t you think that I have done enough?” Kate snapped back. “Now it is time for me to be me, and I can do that with David, with my dad. He needs me, just as I need him. I am going to be the best daughter any father ever had.”
“Good for you, Kate,” said Quentin, as he walked into the bar with Dr Margretti. They both crossed to the far side of the room, sitting at a table by a window, which overlooked the road in front of the hotel as well as the River Nile just beyond.
“Dad!” said a very surprised Alex. “I thought you had already left for your dig.”
“Later, Alex, as Dr Margretti and I have something much more important to talk about.”
“What can be more important than your dig?” thought Alex.
“Do not worry,” said Dr Margretti as he looked Alex in the eye, “this is not about you … though … I suspect it will involve you.”
Cairo tugged at Alex’s sleeve as he said, “She gone.”
Alex looked away from Quentin and the Doctor, and indeed, Kate had gone. He looked back towards them as he stood and saw the ARM parked on the road outside. He ran out of the bar, through reception, arriving at the top of the sweeping outside steps just in time to see Kate step into the ARM and close the door. “She never looked back, not even a wave,” said Alex in disbelief.
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