The Skin Map be-1

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Who are you?” Kit demanded.

  “I’m the man with the rifle. Now, do as you are told, and put down the sword.” Kit obeyed. “Good. Kick it aside.”

  “You won’t get away with this.” Kit gave the blade a shove with his foot.

  “No?” The man moved toward him. “I think you’ll find I already have.”

  “Rogue!” spat Lady Fayth. “You, sir, are a low criminal.”

  “Oh, I am much more than that, my darling.” He gestured to his henchmen to seize and bring the others. “Con, Dex-take them.”

  Giles and Lady Fayth were seized by Burley Men. “What do you ruffians intend doing to us?” Lady Fayth demanded.

  “That ain’t for us to say,” replied the one called Con. “Lord Burleigh’ll decide when he gets back.”

  “Take them below,” said Tav. He gestured with the rifle barrel for Kit to join his companions. The would-be rescuers were taken to the low doorway of the underground chamber and shoved down the narrow stone steps.

  “We’ve brought you some company, Your Lordship,” announced Tav, his voice ringing loud in the stone chamber. “I would offer to introduce you, but I think you all know one another.” He gave Kit a nudge with the muzzle of the rifle. “Get on with you. Straight through there.”

  Kit stepped through the short tunnel-like entrance into another slightly larger chamber, the end of which was covered by a heavy iron grate door. Sir Henry shuffled into view behind the bars of his prison.

  “Phew! It stinks something terrible down here!” said Tav.

  “You devil,” spat the nobleman. “Let them go. They have nothing to do with any of this. They know nothing of value to you.”

  “With respect,” countered Tav, “I do most heartily disagree.” To the one called Con, he said, “Lock them up.”

  A key was produced and the grate unlocked. Giles, Kit, and Lady Fayth were shoved roughly through the door and into the rock-hewn chamber to be instantly assailed by the sickly sweet stench of ripe death-a smell so strong it made them cough and gag. The room was bare, save for the bottom half of a large stone sarcophagus and walls covered with bright-coloured panels of almost life-size paintings-most featuring a shaven-headed Egyptian in a kilt and ornate chest plate. Every inch of the room was painted-even the ceiling: a sea of blazing blue full of white stars.

  Sir Henry opened his arms to embrace his niece. “Haven, are you well? Have they mistreated you?” This minor exertion appeared to exhaust him; he staggered backward and collapsed in a fit of coughing.

  “Uncle!” she cried, rushing to his side. “Here, let me help you. Do not speak.” To Giles, she said, “Is there water? Hurry! He’s choking.”

  Sir Henry raised a shaking hand to stroke his niece’s cheek. “You should not have come,” he said, and coughed again. Kit heard the deep rattle in his lungs.

  Giles found a jar and bowl in one corner; he filled the bowl and brought it to his master.

  “Drink a little,” said Lady Fayth, taking the bowl and raising it to Sir Henry’s lips. He took a sip, then slumped back against the chamber wall. “What has happened here?” she asked.

  “Where is Cosimo?” asked Kit, already knowing, and fearing, the answer.

  Sir Henry, his skin pale and waxy, stretched out his hand and pointed to the sarcophagus in the centre of the room. Kit rose and approached the open stone coffin, dread making his heart thud; he looked inside to see the body of his great-grandfather, flesh pale and bloodless, eyes closed, hands folded across his still breast. Kit tried to speak, but his voice faltered. Giles stepped beside him and peered into the sarcophagus with him. Both men drew back as the noxious perfume of death rose from the corpse; their eyes watered and their stomachs squirmed.

  “I am sorry,” rasped Sir Henry. “He died in the night.” The words set off another fit of coughing, worse than the first. “The rogues put him in there…” He gulped air and continued. “Terrible thing. I must soon follow him.”

  “We are here now, Uncle,” said Lady Fayth. “We will help you.”

  “No, no.” Sick sweat beaded on Sir Henry’s forehead. “Listen to me,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “I have much to tell you.”

  Kit, sick at heart and woozy with the smell, staggered back from the sarcophagus and marshalled his scattered faculties to listen to what Sir Henry was trying to say. “Do not stay here,” he whispered. “Use any means to get away… something in the air…” He coughed, and Lady Fayth helped him take another sip of water. When the coughing subsided, he continued. “There-on the wall…” He pointed to a particular painting. “Just before nightfall, the sun will shine through the doorway. You must…” He gasped, swallowed, and forced himself to go on. “… must be ready.” He began coughing again and this time refused the drink. Giles and Lady Fayth eased him the rest of the way to the floor and made him more comfortable lying down.

  “Be ready for what, Sir Henry?” asked Kit, kneeling beside him.

  “Copy… the map.”

  “The map?”

  “The Skin Map.” The nobleman gestured vaguely at the painting. Kit moved to it for a closer look. The panel depicted a bald Egyptian in ceremonial kilt and ornate jewelled chest plate, holding a curiously shaped flat object in one hand and pointing toward the heavens with the other. The object in the Egyptian’s hand looked a little like a scrap of papyrus that had been decorated with a random scattering of hieroglyphs. Kit held his face closer and recognized the tiny whorls and line-pierced spiral designs. “Copy them,” urged Sir Henry. “Use them to further the search.”

  “We will copy them, Uncle,” said Lady Fayth. “But you must rest now. Do not speak. Save your strength.” She offered the bowl again.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “Thank you, my child.” He seemed to be sinking further beneath the illness that was killing him.

  “The symbols on the map, Sir Henry,” said Kit. “We don’t know how to read them. Can you tell us?”

  “He died peacefully,” said Sir Henry, almost dreamily, “knowing he had passed the torch to you. He put all his hope in you, Kit. He was content.”

  “The symbols, Sir Henry,” persisted Kit. “Can you tell us what they mean? We don’t know how to use them.”

  But the nobleman had closed his eyes. “Sir Henry?” There was no reply.

  “He is sleeping now.” Lady Fayth pressed his hand and then rose. “We will let him rest.”

  Kit turned to Giles. “We have to find some way to copy the symbols,” Kit told him. “We can put them in the green book, but we have to find something to write with.”

  A quick search of the chamber failed to turn up a single useful item and, with great reluctance, both men turned towards the sarcophagus. “Do you think he might have had something, sir?” asked Giles.

  “Maybe,” allowed Kit doubtfully. “I suppose we should look.”

  “With your permission, sir,” said Giles, moving to the coffin. Kit nodded, and the coachman began going through Cosimo’s pockets. He quickly finished and reported that he had found nothing.

  “Then I guess that’s it.” Kit sighed. He ran his hands over his face as a tremendous fatigue drew over him. “What a mess I’ve made of this-this whole thing.”

  “You were not to know, sir,” Giles told him.

  Evening came on and, as Sir Henry had said, a shaft of sunlight through the vestibule illumined the interior of the tomb. Kit, feeling helpless, stood before the painting and tried to memorise the dozen or so symbols on the painted map so that he might reproduce them later. Giles and Lady Fayth joined him, each taking a section of the painting; but there were too many and the opportunity all too brief. They were able only to commit a paltry few to memory before the sunlight faded, gradually dimming away until darkness claimed the tomb of Anen.

  Sir Henry continued to sleep, his breath heavy and laboured. Kit, fatigued by the shocks and alarms of the day, began to hurt. His ribs ached, his head throbbed, the muscles in his neck and arms burned, and he seemed to
have been peppered all over with bruises. He settled into a convenient corner and found himself next to Lady Fayth. “So,” he said, sliding down beside her, “your name is Haven. I didn’t know that.”

  “A lady does not give her Christian name to just anyone,” she replied primly.

  “But we’ve known each other for days and days.” He could not decide whether to be offended or by how much, but in any case was too tired to protest further.

  “You were wonderful,” she told him, and he heard her sigh. “So very gallant.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” replied Kit, a sudden warmth spreading through his aching limbs. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “I have two elder brothers.”

  “That would explain it.”

  “I am so sorry about your great-grandfather,” she said. Kit felt her fingers on his arm. “So very sorry.”

  “Thanks,” he said. Overcome by an oppressive exhaustion, he yawned, and the movement brought instant pain to his jaw. When the pain subsided, he whispered, “Good night… Haven.”

  “Good night, Kit,” she whispered back. He closed his eyes, and it seemed that he had just drifted off when he was being nudged awake again. “Hmm?”

  “Shh!” hissed Lady Fayth. “Someone is coming.”

  Kit made to sit up, and the effort renewed all his aches and pains. “Ohh…”

  The chamber was still dark, but less dark than it had been before. A thin light trickled into the cell from the vestibule beyond. The light grew brighter, and then there was a lantern being held up to the grate. “Well, well, well-what have we here?” The booming voice resounded in the bare chamber. Kit came fully awake. He turned to look at Lady Fayth, who was on her knees beside him. “Looks like everyone is present and accounted for now.”

  The face at the grate, as revealed by the lantern, was vaguely attractive in a broad sort of way, with a luxurious moustache and large dark eyes; but there was a ruthlessness about the mouth that gave the lie to the overall genial impression.

  “Let us go, Burleigh,” said Kit, climbing to his feet. Giles rose and came to stand beside him.

  “So, you know who I am. And I know you. Isn’t this splendid?”

  “Keeping us captive won’t get you anywhere.”

  “It may surprise you,” replied Lord Burleigh, “but I am rather inclined to agree with you. Oh, I must say, the atmosphere down here is most foul! However do you put up with it?”

  “That’s all your fault. Cosimo is dead, and Sir Henry here is-”

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Burleigh quickly, “it is all very grim. So, let us not waste time wallowing in blame and recrimination. I propose we work this out between us. The simplest thing would be for us to join forces to work together for the common good-one hand washing the other. Help me find the Skin Map. Pledge yourselves to my service, and I will set you free.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “You will rot in here just as your great-grandfather did, and as Sir Henry soon will. It’s the miasma of the tomb, or the mummy’s curse, or some such thing, you see? Carries one off just like that!”

  “We’d be crazy to join you,” spat Kit. “Murderer!”

  “So be it,” replied Burleigh with a shrug. Withdrawing the lantern, he prepared to leave. Then, turning back, he addressed Lady Fayth, who was kneeling at her uncle’s side. “What about you, Haven? Does this rash young man speak for you as well?”

  Silence, deep as the tomb in which they stood, descended upon them. No one moved, hardly daring to even look at one another. Then, slowly, Lady Fayth rose to her feet.

  “Haven?” Kit said, breaking the silence.

  She crossed to him and held out her hand. “Uncle’s journal,” she said. “I want it.”

  “You can’t-”

  “Give me the book!” she demanded. When he made no move to obey, she snaked a slender hand into his pocket and extricated the cloth-wrapped book. Kit grabbed her wrist.

  “He’s your uncle-your own flesh and blood! How can you betray him?”

  “Unhand me,” she said, pulling free of his grasp. She moved toward the door.

  “Think what you’re doing!” shouted Kit.

  “I know full well what I am doing,” she replied coolly. A key clanked in the lock, and Burleigh pulled open the door. She glanced at Giles. “You can come with me if you like.”

  The servant regarded Sir Henry stretched on the floor and then shook his head. “No, my lady. I know my place.”

  “I thought as much.” She went through the open door.

  “Nicely done, my dear,” Burleigh told her, relieving her of the green book. “Nicely done, indeed.”

  “Haven, no!” Kit darted after her. “What about Sir Henry-you just can’t leave him to die.”

  “My uncle’s life is over,” she replied as the door began to close once more. “See for yourself. My life, on the other hand, has only just begun.”

  “No!” shouted Kit. “You can’t do this.” He rushed the door and threw himself against it. But the Burley Men on the other side forced the grate shut and locked it again. “Listen, Burleigh-wait!” cried Kit. “Don’t leave us here. You have what you want; let us go.”

  “You had your chance,” replied the departing voice. “Good-bye, Mr. Livingstone. I do not expect we will meet again.”

  CHAPTER 36

  In Which It Is Darkest Before the Dawn

  The footsteps in the passage faded, and silence reclaimed the tomb. Kit stood in the darkness, blind, mute, and unmoving. The enormity of the betrayal and the swiftness with which it had taken place took his breath away. He felt dead inside, hollow, as if his entrails had been carved out with a dull spoon. Whatever Giles was feeling, he kept it to himself. It was a long time before either of them could speak, and then it was Giles who said, “That was ill done.”

  Fairly shaking with anger and humiliation, Kit finally mustered enough composure to ask, “Why didn’t you join her, Giles? You could have walked free.”

  “My loyalty is to Sir Henry.” After a moment, he added, “And to those who are loyal to him.”

  “Thank you,” Kit said. “But it may well cost you your life. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” came a soft reply. “I do.”

  “Well, then,” said Kit. He fumbled in the darkness for the nearest wall and sat down with his back against it. Kit heard Giles moving, feeling his way along the wall. He stopped at the place Sir Henry lay.

  “Sir Henry is dead,” Giles confirmed, his voice ringing hollow in the chamber. “He must have expired in the night.” He paused. “Should we do something for him?”

  “We will,” said Kit after a moment. “As soon as it gets light.”

  He closed his eyes, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. How? he wondered. How in the name of all that is holy could he have been so stupid? How could he have got tangled up in such a reckless and ill-conceived scheme? How could he have come here so staggeringly unprepared to rescue anybody? Rescue! The word mocked him. The whole affair was an absolute, unmitigated catastrophe: Cosimo and Sir Henry dead, himself and Giles captured, and Lady Fayth allied with the enemy. Well done, Kit. Pin a medal on your chest, you bloody genius.

  He was a stranger in a strange land: lost in the cosmos, a man with neither compass nor guide, sitting in a tomb in Egypt surrounded by the dead, with Giles-a man his own age, but separated by class and sensibility and four hundred years-looking to him for answers. He had none: only questions, the chief of which was how could he have been so utterly asinine?

  The internal accusations and recriminations scalded his psyche and seared his soul. The disgrace-the disgrace of so monumental a failure-dragged at his heart with almost unbearable weight. Despite his best efforts to stifle them, hot tears of shame leaked from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as Kit descended into abject misery. This failure was his alone, and now he would have to pay the price. Tragically, he had dragged others into his half-baked scheme, a
nd now they would pay too: Giles with his life and Lady Fayth with her honour, whatever might be left of it. And that was another thing! He had trusted her and, trusting her, had allowed himself to be manipulated by her. The realisation that he had been completely taken in by that pretty face made the disgrace complete.

  These unhappy thoughts, and a clamouring host just like them, occupied Kit through the remainder of the night. Eventually, the darkness of the tomb receded with the dawn of a new day. As soon as he could make out the outline of the stone sarcophagus, Kit crept close and knelt down beside it. “I am sorry, Cosimo,” he whispered, steeling himself for a glance at the cold, stiff corpse of his great-grandfather. “I have failed you… failed everyone. I am so very sorry.” He forced himself to look into the pale, lifeless face, etching it in his memory. There was a peacefulness about it that surprised him, but it was clear that what he saw in the sarcophagus was the mere shell of the man that had been. Cosimo was no longer there. “If I ever get a chance to make things right, I will. I promise you, I will.”

  He had put his hope in you… were the last words Sir Henry had said to him. His own father and grandfather had, each in their own way, proven unsuitable. Now it was Kit’s turn. Was he any more fit than they?

  Faint stirrings of determination quickened his heart. First they had to get out. Kit began pacing the length of the chamber-arms outstretched, fingers splayed, sifting the air for that telltale tingle of a ley field. He felt nothing, but still did not give up. He tried jumping-once and again-in various locations in the tomb, to no avail. Not that he had expected anything to happen. After all, if there had been a ley portal or hub in the tomb, Cosimo would have found it.

  Abandoning that tack, he went to where Giles sat by Sir Henry. He knelt beside the body stretched out on the floor of the tomb and observed him for a moment. No breath stirred his chest; no pulse flickered at his throat. Just to be certain, Kit lightly pressed his fingertips to Sir Henry’s wrist, then applied them to the side of his neck. “I’m sorry, Giles,” he said.