Cairo tipped the obelisk, the room ascended, Rose stepped in, and they were back with Ramses and the others in under a minute. After all the usual pleasantries Ramses asked, out of interest rather than concern: “Have you been able to return Ankhtifi’s papyrus?” He added, in a fairly jocular tone: “And if not, why not?”
“They might be in high spirits now, but they won’t be when I tell them what I saw,” Kate thought as she exchanged her wine for tamar-hindi.
After an extended period of general conversation, during which dinner – in the form of an extensive finger buffet – had been served and enjoyed, the youngsters came to understand why spirits were so high. Friction between Celina and her parents had led them to book a flight back to Germany far earlier than planned. They, along with Leonie – the real Leonie – were booked on the pre-breakfast Egypt Air flight to Cairo in the morning, before flying on to Stuttgart.
“Problem solved,” as Ramses put it whilst raising his glass for a toast.
He was correct, nobody could or would disagree with him. Their leaving would be one potentially major problem removed from Luxor. Though the possibility of either of those girls ‘seeing’ was extremely unlikely, being in Egypt, at this particular time in their lives, at the age of thirteen, dramatically increased that chance.
Where Kate, Cairo and Emmy’s ancient relativities were part of the extended Ramses family, whilst Alex was related to Aryamani, an ancient Nubian king who was friends with Ramses, nobody had any idea who the ancient relatives of Celina and Leonie would turn out to be. Celina’s parents, having failed to ‘see’ when they were teenagers, had no idea who their ancient family was, whilst nothing much at all was known about Leonie. In fact, nothing much was really known about any of them, which was why there was palpable sense of relief at them leaving. Had they been part of ‘the family’, ‘the family’ would have most definitely have known.
A second cause of their relief was, that the problem of the stolen papyrus was Ankhtifi’s and Ankhtifi’s alone. It was created by his magician and, as far as Ramses and the others were concerned, only affected his time, a time that they knew so very little of.
Since their last get together, Gadeem, at the request of Rose, had found out as much as he could about the time of Ankhtifi, though even with all his connections in the afterlife, the period was not simply explained. Every contact appeared to have a different take on who was in charge of each nome, as well as who the pharaoh of the time was, if indeed there had been a single pharaoh. What Gadeem could see, very clearly, was just how important it was for the young adventurers to locate and return Ankhtifi’s papyrus.
It had been a troubled period, an extremely fragmented period in the history of Egypt, and though Gadeem seriously doubted that any ripples through time would be of enough significance to affect Ramses, he was risk adverse, so, to him, locating and returning the papyrus could not happen quickly enough.
The telling of events had reached a point where Kate was now describing her chase of the thief, of how she had dived and brought him crashing down to the floor.
“Bravo, very well done young lady,” Ramses said in a very definite English accent. He held his empty glass out so that it could be refilled by his Thoth, whilst showing all the signs that his scribe had not done so as quickly as the great man would have wished.
“You haven’t been watching old films with Ramses, have you?” Kate asked of Cairo.
He immediately nodded, flushed, and then carried on eating. Everybody else had finished some while ago, with everything having been cleared away, though Cairo appeared to have somehow retained his own personal store of food.
“Thought so,” she said in the general direction of Alex and Emmy. Both gave a look which said that they had thought the same.
“Do tell us more.” Nakhtifi was desperate to hear more. “What did you do after he was on the floor? He sounds as though he was quite strong and you are only small.”
Kate did not know why, but she quite liked being thought of as small. “Instinct really; I picked up the closest thing to hand and smacked him with it as hard as I could.” She paused for a moment of reflection. “At first I was rather confused, because I was unsure if he was an ancient.”
“What makes you say that?” Rose asked, as when they had talked outside of the gaffirs hut earlier Kate had made no mention of this.
“Well, ancients cannot bleed, yet when I hit him he appeared to bleed profusely, though by the time I had moved to sit down, so that I could catch my breath, any sign of blood had gone.”
“With ancients, nothing is written in blood! Get it!” Alex groaned at Ramses’ witticism. “Even you, Thoth, must admit that that was a brilliant response. Instant! Not a millisecond of hesitation.”
Thoth flicked through the papyrus in his hand. It was a single sheet, however, he flicked through it as though it was the largest of books.
“Yes, my pharaoh, it was also ‘instant’ four hundred years ago and …” Thoth paused as he flicked through ever more papyrus. “It would appear that it is instant approximately every 400 years.”
This was far from the wisest thing for Thoth to say. It was as though he was compelled to relay fact after fact about the life of Ramses, but, Alex thought, that was exactly Thoth’s purpose for being. Before Ramses could explode, Alex defused the situation. “Look at it like this, Ramses, do you know of any comedian who only repeats a joke every 400 years? That is pretty amazing. Thoth has just proved that you have a memory worthy of a great leader!”
He corrected Alex with a smile, “The greatest leader.”
“Of course, it goes without saying.” Calm had been returned.
Kate went on to tell of how, whilst she was looking at the items on an ancient dressing table, Hathor must have come into the tomb and suckled the thief back to health, because the next thing she knew he was attacking her again. “I thrust my flaming torch in his face and even though he was on fire he still came back at me.”
You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes were on Kate, who had been most graphic in her description, they wanted to hear more … Cairo was so gripped that he had even stopped eating!
“Only when the vase I threw at him covered him in oil, immediately turning him into a fireball, did his attack come to an end. This left the ancient, whose tomb I was in,” – she could not even start to pronounce her name and felt that calling her Leonie would just confuse things – “with no option except to seal it, otherwise everything would have gone up in flames … me included! Due to the lack of oxygen I did black out, though I don’t think I was out for long. The moment the thief was no longer likely to ignite everything the tomb contained, air had been let in and flaming torches lit,” – these were where they were designed to be, well away from anything flammable.
Kate had explained everything in great detail, even down to the imminent interrogation of the thief, which she felt was vital, holding back only one detail, the one that she did not want to mention to anybody until the events of the day had been completely told.
Alex, Cairo and Emmy took over from Kate, explaining everything from that point on.
Once the story was told there was much mirth. Ramses had even joked about Kate’s attacker “giving her the eye.”
Alex wasn’t quite as happy as the others as he tried to rationalise the action, followed by the inaction, of Hathor; Kate most certainly wasn’t happy. He was coming to some alarming conclusions and wondered why nobody, not even Gadeem, who usually picked up on the detail, was concerned that a fire-damaged ancient had been left for dead on a tomb floor. “Too much wine,” he thought. He saw many more empty bottles that he was used to seeing, just as Ramses demanded more. It was as though they were celebrating a great victory, yet there was no victory … he was confused by it all.
“Oh, there is one thing that I forgot to tell you,” Kate said, having to shout over the din. The room fell silent; all eyes again trained upon her. “When my attacker burst into flames he lit up even the darke
st corner of the burial chamber.” She pointed to the darkest corner of the library to emphasise her point. “Hathor was standing there, tucked away, pushed back as far as she could go, though looking just as calm and gentle as she always does.”
Kate having paused, the conversation restarted. Ramses, for the umpteenth time, was holding his glass out for a refill.
“I haven’t finished!”
“Well, by now Hathor will have restored him.” Ramses was in a very positive frame of mind, the positiveness that came from partaking of just a little too much wine. “He will be like new, so, as we sit here and enjoy this wonderful evening, he has probably already told of where the papyrus is, if not, he soon will. We ancients know a thing or two about extracting information.”
“Well, extract this,” said a now very angry Kate. “I saw Hathor change into Sekhmet then disappear … big grin, teeth and all!” Moving quickly, she tipped the obelisk, the room left the ancients behind. Kate stormed over to the Sekhmet shabti and this time there was no sleight of hand, it left the room by the window. It had travelled out of the library only slightly quicker than Kate, the door slamming so hard behind her that the whole building shook.
“Well, at least I’m not in pain,” Alex said out loud before turning to Rose: “Probably not the time to say this, but all things considered, you do appear to be calming her.”
Cairo and Emmy looked at Alex in such a way as to say: ‘Are you crazy or what!’
Rose motioned for Cairo to tip the obelisk. “Shall we just say that she is a work in progress!”
Chapter 13
-
Kate’s Frustration
There had been only a slight, extremely minor interruption, in the joviality of the wine drinking ancients. As Alex, Cairo, Emmy and Rose dropped down to the lower level, laughter and wine were again mixing freely.
“Aren’t any of you worried by what Kate has just told you?” Alex had to say this twice over the din before anyone took notice.
“You worry too much, my boy,” Ramses said as he leaned forward on the sofa to be able to see Alex clearly, without Nakhtifi partially blocking his view. “Kate was about to pass out from the lack of oxygen. Of course she saw Sekhmet, though only in her oxygen starved mind; she hallucinated. I understand that you have both been reading up on Sekhmet recently. That is enough to give anyone nightmares.”
Alex’s eyes instantly darted from Rose, to Gadeem, and then back to Ramses, as they followed the flow of information which had obviously stemmed from Kate. “But,” he said, stopping Ramses in mid-sentence, “when Kate said she saw Sekhmet it was well before the tomb was …” He abruptly stopped; his eyes widened. Jumping from his chair, he spun around before launching himself at the panic alarm, pulling it with so much force that he ended up holding a gold knob attached to a long piece of twine.
Swinging the room door open with almost as much force as Kate had previously used to slam it, a door which at ancient ground level led nowhere for anyone except an ancient, he looked on as the imposing figure of Helios stepped out from a solid wall.
There was no time for niceties. “Have you seen Kate?”
“Yes, she–”
‘Yes’ was all Alex needed to hear. “Bring her back here NOW!”
“But she is walking towards the temple, people will see me, tourists will see me.”
“I don’t care who sees you, get her, bring her back here, carry her if you have to, just get her back here NOW!”
“What–?” was all Ramses managed to say before Alex cut him off.
“I have a question for you, Ramses,” he said whilst quickly scribbling a note on the flyleaf of the book he was currently reading:
Answer is YES
10,000
almost instantly
The simple act of Alex tearing out a page from a book, even if it was a previously blank page, sent an icy chill through everyone the room. In total silence his note passed quickly from Gadeem, to Nakhtifi, to Ramses, each reading the few words it contained, though none being any the wiser for having done so.
“Is your army close?”
“Yes, it is Alex.”
“How many soldiers?”
“Ten thousand. Could be many more.”
“Yes, it could,” Gadeem added, in the understanding that their conversation was not for anyone within the room. “I sent a large contingent of infantry out into the desert this morning, on exercises. They will be on their way back to us by now, if they have not already arrived. Needless to say, the charioteers, archers and elite troops are not very happy with having to guard us whilst we enjoy his excellent red wine.”
“Yes, it is excellent, isn’t it. Shall we open a few more bottles … Thoth?”
“Yes, my pharaoh?”
“Six more bottles and make it quick.” The last thing on Ramses’ mind right now was drinking wine. His aim was to keep the conversation as normal as possible.
“How quickly could we become the centre of your camp?”
“Almost instantly.” Ramses gave the order. “There, that is done. Good idea of yours, Alex, to test our preparedness. I like it … NOW, where is that wine Thoth?”
“Calm down, Kate.” This was at least the third time Alex had said this. “Helios is not going to put you down until you calm down.”
“It’s all right you saying calm down, but you are not the one being carried like a roll of carpet,” Kate screamed back.
“If it was okay for Cleopatra, then it should be okay for you.” Bringing back bad memories to Helios, of his previous employer, was not what Alex would have ever wished to have done. He was annoyed with himself, though he was most annoyed with Kate for placing him in this situation. “Shut up, Kate, once and for all, shut up,” his anger resonating down the tunnel to the Winter Palace.
Her volume subsided, her flailing arms and legs lost their force. Alex gestured for Helios to drop Kate on any sofa and then leave, giving him a satisfactory nod of a good job well done as he did. The lower level of their living room was the only place where it was possible for an ancient and somebody of today to arrive together. Alex had left the library the second he had heard Kate’s screams.
“We have a very serious problem, Kate.”
She rolled over and sat up: face like thunder and as red as a beetroot. “I know, it’s absolutely ridiculous, there is something that I’m missing, but I just cannot work out what I know, what I should be able to piece together.”
This, Alex realised, had been the cause of her meltdown. “Rose has her work cut out.” As he thought this, the realisation that Kate was, whilst remaining extremely stressed, actually sitting and talking, rather than lashing out, pleased him immensely. “You do know that I never want to be without you, not ever again.”
She did not. After the way she had just behaved, after his crash down the hillside, she was left speechless, as well as more than a little emotional. “I am a monster.”
“Never,” Alex shot back with real feeling. “And that is the last time I ever want to hear you say that.”
“I threw your shabti out of the window. That’s not me. I don’t know what’s wrong. I would never intentionally damage an ancient–”
“Stop right there and follow me.” Alex tipped the obelisk. They ascended, quickly stepping out onto the veranda, where Kate waved to Helios. It was her way of saying sorry.
Standing behind his guard hut, down at ancient ground level, he raised a hand in acknowledgement, though, from his movements, it was obvious that he was being even more alert than usual.
Rose, Cairo and Emmy, having risen with the library, now descended with Kate and Alex. The play acting nothing-of-a--conversation between the ancients stopped. All eyes focussed on Alex as he took his seat; Kate remained standing.
“Okay, now what?” Kate asked of Alex, though everyone in the room possibly wanted to ask that exact same question.
Sitting in his chair, still a little sore from earlier, he said nothing as he raised a hand, extending
his index finger from a clenched fist, pointing over to an exact spot within a bookcase.
“You got her back, she isn’t broken. I’m so glad.” As Kate looked over to the shabti of Sekhmet her face became stern, angry even. In the dawning reality, she spoke as though each word was a new sentence: “I – would – never – intentionally – damage – any – ancient – artefact.”
“Exactly!”
“You didn’t get her back, did you?”
“Nope.”
“She just appeared back here.”
“Yep.” Alex was enjoying watching Kate’s constantly changing emotions as the clues she had previously failed to connect, connected.
“I know,” Kate said, after smashing the shabti into almost as many pieces as those of Alex’s mobile phone, “you have to destroy it. But, oh boy, do I feel good.”
The shabti duly put itself back together, reappearing back on the bookshelf. Alex did indeed destroy it. Due to past experiences, nobody needed to be brought up to speed. Somebody had obviously placed a spell on the shabti so that it acted as a spy camera and microphone. That same person had also added a homing spell: ensuring that the shabti always remained close to whoever the magic had attached itself.
Kate had thrown it, she had stormed off, yet it had returned itself to the library where Alex was. He had been the first one to touch it. True, an ancient soldier had given it back to him as he had left Ankhtifi’s tomb, but at that time it had been wrapped in a golden cloth. Alex was the one who had unwrapped it, held it in his hands, then placed it back onto the bookshelf. He was the one the spell had attached itself to, so he was the only one who could break the spell, which, in this case, was achieved by him smashing the shabti, his favourite shabti.
Explaining where the magic must have been attached to it, Alex felt uneasy. He knew more, but should he say more … was it wise to say more? Bast was a goddess and he was about to talk ill of the gods. “Where’s Bast?” he asked, having been struck by the sudden realisation that though she had arrived with Ramses and the others, he had not seen her since.
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