The kilted men said nothing, but as one, they nodded.
Anu spoke rapidly to them, and four of the six left the room. Deane could not answer. All were emaciated, as though their newly revived bodies had not yet eaten enough to fill out the desiccation of the grave. And each had the scar of a knife on his side.
“There are hundreds who should be with us,” Anu went on, “but they cannot come, since their bodies have been destroyed by robbers and looters. They wander and cry in the dark, being only living shadows.”
Deane could neither disbelieve nor accept. Coming after that succession of shocks, Anu’s words made a final and numbing impact. He sat up and croaked:
“Why am I here?”
The priest stared blankly. Deane repeated the question in Egyptian, and pronounced the dead language as best he could.
“You will see, in a moment,” Anu answered. “There is a way in which you can atone for sacrilege.”
That noncommittal reply sickened Deane almost as much as the odor of death and the grave. He had opened many a tomb, he had scoffed at curses. But now he shuddered at the implication of the embalmer’s implements.
“By our old magic,” Anu went on, “we can let a substitute body serve as a new home for one who is released from Amenti’s shadows. We will have such a corpse, presently.”
Deane yelled. His cry of horror did not make the three from the grave change expression. But as he flung himself to the slab and snatched the obsidian knife, they closed in, and it was not necessary for the priest to lend a hand.
“There is no use struggling,” he said.
They did not disarm Deane. Somehow, his fingers remained locked about the ragged blade of chipped flint, though there was no strength left elsewhere in his body.
“You can’t carve me up! I’ll—”
They ignored him. His incoherent defiance was mockingly echoed from the passages of the maze. Their icy hands had him secure. The odor of the tomb stifled him. Then Anu called to the others.
They came out, and for a moment Deane thought that they had arrived to bear him to the slab and use the knife. Then he saw that they were carrying Nefeyda on a litter. They rolled her from it, and to the stone that had supported so many of the ancient dead.
Anu smiled. “Your conscience was more vengeful than we are. It is not lawful for us to take life. But she is dead, so we need you.”
When the shock of reprieve dimmed enough, Deane found his tongue.
“Why?” he demanded.
“None of us,” Anu explained, “is a paraschiste, so we are not suited for the duty of making the first incision in a corpse. Neither are we embalmers. But you understand these things, and what you do not know, I can tell you—about the prayers and the ritual.”
He gestured, and one of the men tore Nefeyda’s gown to the waist. Another took a crayon of red earth and marked where the incision was to be made.
“She has died for her blasphemy,” Anu resumed. “Being of the ancient race, and betraying the tomb of her ancestors, the gods damned her. There is no resurrection. Anubis must eat her accursed soul. But if the sacred ritual of embalming is performed, one whose body was destroyed by looters like yourself can come back and find a new home.”
Deane was sickened from contemplating the lovely form that he would have to mutilate. Examining the work of an embalmer, reading in old papyri how the work was done was one thing; the doing was another. When they let his hands go, he stood there, swaying dizzily.
Anu smiled. “You understand, and there is the mark. And there is the jar into which you will place her heart. There are the tongs with which you will extract the brain, through the nostrils, according to custom.”
“Shut up!” Deane gasped, choking.
“And here are those who wait with stones which they will hurl at you as you run from your work,” the priest went on. “They will curse you, as they cursed the paraschiste, ages ago.”
“I won’t!” Deane turned. “You can’t make me!”
For a moment he faced the living dead who stood there, each holding a pebble, each ready to hurl it, and to cry out the prescribed curses. The long-sustained tension, the terror of Nefeyda’s weird death, the struggle for escape had all shaken him so that what was before him became more horrible than death itself.
“I won’t!” he croaked, and lunged at the priest, slashing.
Anu laughed, and the men caught him from every side, just as he stumbled in his attack. They crushed him to the floor. Their hands were claws that closed about his throat, cutting off his gasps of air that reeked of corpse dust, and linen wrappings pulverized in the struggle. The choking vault blackened, and red spots danced in the foul darkness. He heard Anu say:
“Leave him here. He does not eat or drink until he obeys.”
As he lay there, panting, bare feet padded in the gloom, and somewhere a door closed. He was locked up with the woman whom a strange doom had stricken.
Later, Deane sat up and fumbled for his matches. From what he had seen of the masonry, he judged that the embalming equipment had been installed in a tomb. And while no two homes of the dead were ever identical, they followed a pattern that he could picture with his eyes closed. Somewhere in the maze, there must be an outlet that was not closed.
His matches had been lost in the scuffle. His watch did not have a luminous dial, and he had no idea of the passage of time. Time ended in this vault which reeked of the long dead, and the musty spices which told of perfumed corruption. Slowly, Deane crept toward a wall, and followed it. He skirted a sarcophagus, which he recognized from its sculptured sides; a massive stone coffin, and not the vat he had noted during the moments of illumination.
Deane rounded its corner, and got back to the wall. There was an opening, and the floor dipped slightly down. As nearly as he could judge, he was at the mouth of a passage about two feet wide. As he advanced, the air became dense and musty. Dust rose from the paving and choked him. It was so fine that its touch to his palms was almost greasy. This was ancient dust, settled out of air long unstirred, and unlike the sand particles in the vault he had left.
Then debris began to block his path. He crept under a slab that had fallen from the ceiling. The paving was cracked, perhaps by a long-forgotten earthquake. And finally, Deane felt a breath of clean, cold air. Somewhere, there was an opening that led to the desert’s surface. In a few moments of increasingly difficult progress, he reached heaped-up sand and chunks of rock. Overhead, he caught a leakage of moonlight.
Eagerly, he clawed at the crevice, ignoring the chance that a sudden slide might bury him. But the flinty debris tore his hands, broke his nails, and in a few moments, his fingers were raw and bleeding. The thing to do was to go back and get the embalmer’s knife. By patient combing of the floor, he might find the weapon he had dropped during the struggle.
When he reached the starting point, Deane began his slow, blind search. Up and down, he worked his way from end to end. Once, finding the door through which the resurrected dead had gone, he spent some time tugging and clawing at it, but it resisted his efforts.
Finally, he forced himself to calmness.
“Take it easy!” he repeated, and licked the dust from his lips, wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes. “Hang on. The dead can’t come back. Those curses don’t work. It wasn’t the old gods that killed Nefeyda. Whatever it was, it’s no curse!”
Muttering self-assurance that he could not entirely believe, Deane resumed his slow search, patting the floor as he crawled, sweeping it with strokes of his palms. Nefeyda’s perfume, distinct in the musty darkness, made him shudder. Her dead presence shook him. In whatever uncanny manner she had died, they could do the same to him.
At last he found his matches. Seeking them had kept him from going mad in that oppressive gloom and silence. But for that one slender hope, Anu’s prediction would have come true—Deane would hav
e cracked.
He struck a match and found some bits of age-yellowed sycamore from a coffin. He tore some scraps from the mummy’s wrappings. They were coated with bitumen, which burned with a smoky flame. By the light of this short-lived torch, he found the flint knife. It lay near the slab.
He turned his eyes away, to avoid seeing Nefeyda’s frozen face. Perhaps the old gods had less power over him than over one of her ancient race. But he cried out with relief when he snatched the knife and scrambled away, to take more scraps of resin and bitumen-soaked linen to tie to the torch.
Deane hurried down the passageway. He did not know how he would account for Nefeyda’s death when he escaped. His story would brand him as a madman. Her disappearance would make questioning inevitable. Horror left him not a chance of reasoning.
Once at the end of the passage, Deane thrust the improvised taper into a crevice, and set to work. The haft of the flint knife cut his hands and he had to be careful lest the brittle blade snap and leave him helpless. Sweat drenched, he dug at sand, until he got enough cleared away to give him a hold on one of the rocks that reached down. Then he put the knife into his pocket and began to tug and twist. But the leverage was not enough.
Finally he got a foothold, and arched his back so that his shoulder bore against the key to the crevice. Straining until red spots danced before his eyes, he endured the cutting of the rock through his coat. Sand trickled down, and fresh air followed it.
His feet slipped when the keystone yielded. He fell from his narrow perch, and rolled into a corner, just as an avalanche poured down. He was half buried, and the approach to the surface was blocked by yards of sand. There was no more light. He had only succeeded in imprisoning himself more securely. It would take hours for him to claw away the debris.
And then he thought of getting one of the Canopic urns, knocking off the neck and making a scoop. That would hasten his progress. But he had scarcely returned to the vault when the door opened, and the priest and his men came in. Anu noted Deane’s torn coat and trousers, and said:
“You waste your time trying to escape. Do your duty, and you will go free.”
Deane staggered forward a pace.
“I won’t! You couldn’t trick me with your talk about living dead. You’re alive! I can see where your corpse skin is cracking. From fighting with me.”
Anu’s bronzed face twisted a little.
“It doesn’t make much difference, after all. Someone will find the note this girl wrote you. Your car is outside. Sooner or later, the police will find you here, with a corpse floating in a bath of natron. Suppose one of us did the work—do you think that any story you can tell will help you?” He extended his hand, displaying the note.
They had him cornered. That much was clear. The reason behind it all was something that did not enter into the gruesome situation.
“Go ahead! You killed her!” he croaked. His voice cracked, and he reeled. “Go ahead and see if they can prove me guilty!”
This sounded like desperate defiance, and Anu smiled indulgently. He did not suspect that Deane was pulling himself together, prodding the masqueraders into revealing more of their plans.
“That’ll be easy, Mr. Deane,” he said. “We’ll just lock you up with the dead. You’ll stay here until we want you to be discovered.”
Deane’s shoulders slumped. “If I do the work—”
“We’ll turn you loose. There is still time for your car to be taken away, and the wind will wipe out the tracks. You won’t be discovered. But you must embalm this woman according to the old rites. As you have guessed, we are alive, but there is very much about old Egypt that you do not know. Least of all why we want this done. The old beliefs are not dead. This proves their life.”
Deane tottered forward a little. “Give me the knife.”
The priest nodded contentedly. Another robed figure entered the room, and stood in the shadows, somewhat apart.
“Where’s the knife?” Anu asked. His helpers muttered and glanced about. “Find it, you fools!”
Deane actually had the flint blade in his pocket, but he had to catch the ghouls off guard before he could risk using it. Bit by bit, the ghastly situation made sense. As he stalled for a breathing spell, he pieced his guesses together.
Hassan’s investigations must have aroused suspicion, and thus the tomb looters had been prepared for Nefeyda’s treachery. They had killed her and at the same time trapped Deane.
Heyl, he reasoned, must be behind all this. It was his illicitly concealed discovery that she had exposed, either for spite or for a reward. This was an Eighteenth Dynasty tomb; that mummy could be Bint Anath’s.
But however that might be, the looters had Deane cornered. Nefeyda’s corpse, embalmed and concealed, would be a club over his head. He would have to assure Crawford that the treasures were genuine. And from then on, Deane would have to authenticate all Heyl’s offerings to gullible collectors, whether faked or real.
Deane now realized how useful he was to the looters. That gave him courage. They would have to protect him with perjured evidence, once Nefeyda’s disappearance was traced to him, as it would be, for some of Quasim’s customers had seen him leave with the girl. Also, these ghouls would not want to hurt him, unless in self-defense.
As they obeyed Anu, and sank to their hands and knees to find the missing knife, Deane muttered:
“I want to smoke. God, it makes me sick.” He fumbled and found his pack of cigarettes. “Give me a light.”
Anu graciously handed him the taper. He had taken it, and was holding it up so that his assistants could peer into the dim corners. Deane touched light to his smoke, and then he flung the taper at the mummy on the table. The flammable linen burst into smoky flame. Anu yelled, and just then, Deane’s hand came out of his pocket, armed with the flint knife.
The squatting helpers heard the cry, and saw the flame. They leaped toward the mummy to extinguish it. They did not know that Anu’s cry was prolonged by anything but wrath. But a flint blade had ripped him, and he fell, clutching his stomach.
Deane launched himself at the men who were falling over each other in their scramble to smother the flames. He slashed, long, deadly strokes with the glass-hard blade. Taken utterly by surprise, they got in each other’s way. Before they could realize what was happening, two of them were drenched with blood.
The flames rose, red and smoky. Choking black fumes thickened the air. The man who stood to one side closed in, but Deane whirled, butting him in the stomach with his shoulder.
Some had recovered, and were belaboring him, booting and kicking and choking as he slashed their legs. Someone was coughing:
“Don’t kill him, you fools! Grab him—and hold him!”
This was a European’s voice—the voice, now undisguised, of Gunther Heyl. Deane stabbed upward but the brittle blade snapped on a rib. He was unarmed, and the survivors were on him. Their weight bore him down, and the dense fumes, searing Deane’s lungs, weakened him. His desperate outburst had taken his last remnant of strength.
“Open the door,” one of the Copts gasped. “Open—we’re choking.”
A bit of fresh air thinned the smoke. Deane caught a glimpse of dawn from outside. Then that was cut off. They were lifting him to his feet. He had lost his chance. One had found a steel knife, and was approaching Nefeyda.
But that blow was not struck. There was a yell from the tunnel which had collapsed during Deane’s vain attempt at escape. Hassan came in with several Egyptian police. Crawford, red-faced and puffing, followed them. His cheeks and forehead were slashed and battered.
That ended the show. Deane and the survivors were hustled up the stairs, and into the barren room. Two men carried Gunther Heyl outdoors. His macabre makeup was drenched with blood. He was groaning and half conscious. The flint blade, though breaking, had torn him.
There were two cars in front, but
Deane’s was not in sight.
* * * *
Later, when the choking fumes of the burning mummy had thinned, Deane demanded:
“The girl! Is she really dead?”
“Beyond all hope, Effendi,” the police official answered. “And we found you because your servant and Mr. Crawford helped us.”
“Effendi, you remember I warned you,” Hassan explained. “When you did not listen, I hid in the trunk of your car. All looked well, when we came here, so I did not come out. Then the girl screamed, and the door closed. There was nothing I could do. By Allah, I cannot drive a car, so I ran. All the way to the Sugar Factory police station. They would not believe me. I was frightened, and they thought I was crazy.”
“So,” said the official, “when he told us about Heyl and Crawford, we drove into Cairo and looked for both. We found only Crawford, and your servant nearly killed him before we could stop him. Then he told us of Heyl and we believed your servant and came out.”
“The house was empty,” Crawford interposed. “We went around in circles until we found a hole in the sand. As if an underground passage had collapsed.”
“That was where I was trying to dig out,” Deane explained.
“Then we heard the yelling below,” Hassan interrupted. “We dug in from the top, easily.”
“But how did they kill her?” Deane demanded, shivering.
“Now that it is daylight, we can see what you missed,” the police official said. “Those fine bits of glass on the floor. The surgeon perhaps can tell us what the little bottle contained before it broke. Perhaps a gas. Something like cyanogen, though I do not understand these things.”
Deane shook his head. “But if I had followed her, I’d have been killed, and they wanted me alive.”
“Effendi,” said the official, “they seized you after she was dead. Now, had you gone with her into the house, they could have seized you first and taken you away, then poisoned her. But what I do not understand is, why did they do these things?”
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 52