Cairo was still missing it. “What a Leo?”
“It’s a sign of the zodiac.” Alex was using a finger to draw a circle in the air.
“Like the one I saw at Dendera. It on ceiling.”
“Does anyone know if Leo is on that zodiac?” Rose had to admit to Alex that she had no idea, whilst Kate had never even been to Dendera. “Never mind. Leo is a sign on the zodiac. Leo is a lion.” He opened the book in front of him at a bookmarked page, turning it around before sliding it diagonally across the coffee table. Kate, Cairo and Rose looked at a picture of a Sekhmet shabti that was shown beside a closeup of a section of an ancient zodiac. “That’s Leo and that’s Sekhmet,” Alex said to help Cairo. They were virtually identical.
“Sekhmet is lion. Leo is lion.”
“Yes, Cairo, we are finally starting to connect the dots.”
Chapter 15
-
Never-Care!
“What on earth does it mean?” Kate was looking closely at an area of writing on the tomb wall, one that she had previously been told was a very long name.
“I don’t know; I have absolutely no idea.” Alex turned to Cairo, only he was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Cairo?”
“Don’t know. He ran off very excitedly. Perhaps he had an idea … or needed a toilet … who knows?” Kate continued to examine the writing. “Why did I ever think that this was a name? It’s obvious that it isn’t.”
“Because you trusted the person who told you.”
She could not do anything except agree with Alex. “I saw Hathor and Sekhmet over there.” Kate pointed to the darkest corner of the tomb.
Alex walked over: “Well, there’s nobody here now.”
“Actually, this is quite strange …” Kate paused as she looked around the burial chamber, her eyes darting from object to object. “Neither Hathor nor Sekhmet are depicted on anything in here.”
“That’s not normal. I really hadn’t noticed, but you are right. Down there,” he pointed out of the tomb and along the corridor, “there is a tomb filled with nothing except Sekhmet statues and shabtis.”
“And you were going to tell me this … when?”
“I took pictures.” Again, he searched his pockets for his non-existent phone. At the time he had not been in any condition to search for his sim or memory card. Now, having been exposed to the searing heat of the Egyptian sun, they would be useless.
“On your deceased mobile, I presume.”
Alex shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you. It’s only now that I can see its true importance.” He walked between the many items, looking in all directions as he did. “No Hathor here at all, and her image is in every tomb. Usually it’s everywhere.”
“But not in this one.”
“No … no … not in this one,”
“There’s no Sekhmet either.”
“That alone makes it all the more strange. Just down there, Kate, she is the only god … goddess! There must be literally hundreds of Sekhmet items down there. Why would …?” Alex abruptly stopped. “What is the real name of the girl we met? This is her tomb, so her name has to be here somewhere.”
“I really have no idea where to look for a name, and if I found it I couldn’t read it.”
Kate was correct, though it did not stop Alex from looking. If he could have found a cartouche he would have known that it contained a name; there wasn’t one. Yet, in the Sekhmet tomb, there was a sarcophagus which had plenty of cartouches carved into it.
“Men-ankh-Neferkare is the name you are looking for.”
Kate and Alex took defensive postures after they spun around.
“Please put that down. You did enough damage with it the last time you were in here,” said Ankhtifi’s Thoth as Kate waved a green granite shabti menacingly. He and Cairo had obviously entered the tomb by an entrance, as yet, unknown to Kate and Alex.
“Thought, he could help,” Cairo said.
“She’s called Men-ankh-never-care. No way!” Kate was not impressed.
“I’m not sure that sounded exactly as Thoth said it,” Alex said.
“If I may …” Thoth moved closer to the dressing table where he pointed to a short line of hieroglyphs on a jewellery box, the size of which would have been too large for cabin baggage. “Her royal name is Men-ankh-Neferkare … It most certainly is not Men-ankh-never-care.” He placed a strong emphasis on each of the four syllables as he repeated the Neferkare part of her name again: “Nef-er-ka-re. In full, Men-ankh-Neferkare means Beloved King’s Wife. And she was, she really was.”
“Thoth read hieroglyphs. He can tell us what writing say.”
“Brilliant, Cairo.” Alex was impressed.
“Yes, great thought,” Kate said to Cairo, before turning to Thoth, pointing to the writing on the wall, and asking: “Can you tell us what that says?”
“Of course, yes, but what it says is unimportant, it is what it is that is important!”
“Then what is it?” Kate was becoming agitated.
“It is ancient protection. It would be spoken out loud several times a day to keep the spirit of Sekhmet content and calm.”
There was a short period of silence. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She looked from Alex to Cairo, both were nodding.
“I think it’s time that I showed you the tomb with hundreds of Sekhmet statues in it.”
“You cannot open that tomb,” Thoth said, his already trill voice reaching new peaks. “It is not safe to do so, really, it is not.” A quick mental calculation; a worried expression; the realisation that for Alex to know of its existence meant only one thing: “You have been into it.” Alex nodded. “This is not good, not good at all.”
“Follow me.” They did follow Alex, and Kate and Cairo went into the tomb with him.
Thoth’s shape barred him from entering, though the young adventurers were fairly confident that had he been able to get in, he would not have done so.
Returning to the tunnel, Alex dusted himself off. “Whoever’s tomb that is, they certainly had a love affair with Sekhmet.”
“So, you, the great Alex Cumberpatch, have no idea whose tomb it is?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Whose tomb is it, Thoth?” Kate asked with such a don’t-mess-with-me attitude that if he had known, then he would have been forced to tell.
As far as Thoth was aware it had been an empty tomb, one which Ankhtifi had used to contain everything relating to Sekhmet, though only after she had been calmed and returned to being Hathor. Before Kate had spoken of, and then described, the sarcophagus, it was clear that Thoth had been totally unaware that there was a sarcophagus in there, one which presumably had a body in it … or, at least, had!
“Take us to Ankhtifi, Thoth, we really need a talk to him.”
Alex had been thinking along the same lines as Kate. He would have already asked Thoth to take them to Ankhtifi, if he had not been distracted by Cairo suddenly tensing. Placing a hand on Kate’s shoulder, in order to gain her attention, he pointed to Cairo, before placing a finger to his lips.
After what seemed more like a lifetime, rather than the four or five seconds of silence it had been, whilst her senses screamed, the fear that had hit Cairo now hit Kate … they were surrounded by light.
Being so used to flaming torches, she had not given the ones along the tunnel a second thought. Thoth, Ankhtifi, or almost any ancient, could have caused them to appear. Some torches were triggered to appear and ignite as anybody passed, some would automatically light a whole tunnel, though, having been through here before, Kate knew that these were not that type. Her heightened state of anxiety reached new highs with the realisation that there had been flaming torches in the Sekhmet tomb, torches that could only have been lit by one person … the occupant of that tomb.
Cairo was now jittery, to say the least. It was obvious that he wanted to run, he just did not know which way to run. The slightest noise from either direction and he would be o
ff.
Alex looked at Kate blankly. She pointed to the nearest flaming torch, then to the gap they had slipped through in order to enter the Sekhmet tomb. He was still none the wiser.
Leaning forward, Kate whispered in his ear: “Torches were alight in there.”
Instantly, Alex was as tense as Cairo and, even though running was not his thing, he wanted to run more than anything else in the world, he wanted them to get out.
Kate screamed as they were plunged into darkness.
Alex thought it was possibly a scream from both Kate and Cairo. The tunnel acted like an echo chamber. A faint glow came from Neferkare’s tomb. Once there, they would only have to turn right, then run along a short tunnel, before they were outside, but could they make it there? Ankhtifi’s white room was closer, but to get there it now meant running in total darkness. Alex wanted to keep his options open. “Thoth, can you get us some light?”
“He gone, Mr Alex.”
“Great!” Alex looked in both directions. “I think we should quietly move towards the light of the tomb down there.” He failed to recall Neferkare’s name.
“I think we should run,” said Kate.
Cairo did not express an opinion. He was already running, his flipflops smacking against the soles of his feet so loudly that any thought of them getting out without drawing attention had evaporated. Cairo made it to the entrance of Neferkare’s tomb before Kate, and well ahead of Alex. Turning to the right he headed out, to daylight, only there was no daylight. First, he crashed into a solid wall of rock, then, after picking himself up, he collided with Kate as he ran back. They, in turn, collided with Alex, as they all arrived at the entrance to Neferkare’s tomb at the same time.
“It blocked.”
“No way out.”
Alex felt magic being deployed. Diving on them, he took Kate and Cairo to the floor, though only after crashing over the large ornately decorated box that Kate had previously sat upon.
They were scrambling further into the tomb when the box exploded, along with the four canopic jars it contained. Men-ankh-Neferkare’s four-thousand-year-old lungs, liver, intestines and stomach were blown into a million gooey stinky pieces.
“What the hell was that? And what the hell did she have for her last meal? That’s a seriously evil smell.” Kate rolled over. Staying low, she scrambled across the tomb on all fours in her effort to catch up with Cairo. He was attempting to leave, she hoped, by the same way he had entered the tomb with Thoth, and she was not going to be left behind.
Alex had been slower to gather his wits. Now, as he was ready to move, he sensed magic being deployed for the second time. Being to the right, at the far side of the tomb, he would have to cross in direct line of sight of its entrance, and the tunnel they had just run down, before he even had a chance of catching up with Kate and Cairo. He heard nothing, saw nothing, until the dressing table exploded. The force of the explosion not only physically lifted him from the floor, sending him violently backwards, it blew a two-metre-deep hole in the wall, directly behind where the dressing table had stood only moments earlier.
He was unable to hear anything except ringing in his ears. The four-thousand-year-old girl, whose deeply offensive smelling entrails – which were of no use to her in the afterlife – were stuck all over him, had saved him from being blown back against her tomb wall. Knowing that he had to get to the far side of the tomb before magic could yet again be deployed, he stood on legs made of jelly. Slightly concussed he wobbled as though he was drunk.
Neferkare gave him the biggest shove. He flew across to the far side of the room, landing on top of an ancient bed which immediately gave way. Rolling over on the floor he found himself up against the remains of a chariot. It had been destroyed by Neferkare’s flying jewellery box, revealing an archer’s bow and an open leather tube filled with arrows. Perhaps, because of seeing these; perhaps, because of his slightly concussed state; perhaps, because he was angry at being attacked; whatever the cause, his ancient memories took over. Slinging the arrows over his shoulder as he stood, he removed one, running the vane across his lips before pulling its nock into the bowstring.
With the bow primed for action, he stepped out to stand directly in line with the tunnel. One foot slightly in front of the other, he drew back on the bowstring, until the nock of the arrow kissed his lips, before letting it fly. This was followed by another, and then another in quick succession. His wobbling proved to be no hindrance to his aim: archers on chariots were taught to take aim whilst being bounced around, there was no other way.
Three ancients, each with an arrow deeply imbedded between their eyes, fell to the floor. Behind them, Alex saw the man they had been protecting raise a hand, his lips move, more magic was about to be deployed. Alex’s ancient training took hold. Waiting for the second the lips stilled, for the time between the spell being cast and the magic bursting forth, he let the arrow fly. A direct hit to the shoulder spun the attacker around, his magic flying back down the tunnel to deadly effect. Alex sent arrow after arrow down the tunnel, each hitting its target. Magic had taken care of those who were coming to attack him, but were too far away to be any immediate danger … he had taken care of the rest.
With one arrow left, and nobody to aim it at, he sent it straight down the tunnel. In the far-off darkness, there was the thud of an arrow hitting bone, followed by the louder thud of a body hitting the floor.
Chapter 16
-
Priests and Kings
“Where the hell have you been?”
Kate’s hostile greeting actually pleased Alex. It meant his hearing was returning to him.
“You would have been impressed with Alex up there.” Neferkare slid out a round heavily dented thick gold tray from one of several slots in the stone wall beside them, to which she affixed a paddle attached to an upright pole: one on each side. She did the same to a second one. “Quickly, Cairo sit on this and follow the light. Kate, take this one.” She gestured to the upright poles. “Pull back on either one of these to steer. Not too hard or you will spin right around and end up going down backwards. Pull both together to stop when you see daylight or you will end up in the Nile. Do not brake before you see daylight or you will not make it up the final slope. Understand?”
Cairo did.
Kate did.
Alex said that he did, but as his hearing was not yet back to normal he had missed a few words.
“There is a boat waiting to take you back to the Winter Palace. It will be the only one there, understand, the only boat. Tell the captain something like ‘it is a lovely day’. If he answers that ‘it looks like rain’ you can trust him.”
Kate left first, with Cairo close behind. Their screams we so loud that they could have possibly been heard in Luxor. Whoever was after them would no longer have to guess where they were, if indeed Alex had left anybody left alive to come after them. A thought that was only now starting to prick on his conscience.
Neferkare kept glancing back, quite nervously, to where they had just come from, as she assembled two more round trays.
Alex’s only conclusion was that they were still in danger. Whilst attempting to sit on the gold disc it slid forward, causing him to fall back, as it left quicker than he had anticipated. He caught a glance of the ceiling; the zodiac carved into it; the Leo that was Sekhmet peering straight down at him. Those eyes, there was something about those eyes.
Kate and Cairo were sitting on the small metal boat, the captain having passed the test on the likelihood of rain. It was typical of those which ferried tourists across the Nile in all ways except one: the outboard motor was easily twice the size of normal.
Alex, having not heard the part about breaking, became airborne the moment he left the tunnel. Flying directly over the little boat he landed in the Nile on its far side. Eventually he did come to the surface, whereupon he spluttered, “I’m okay, I’m okay.” Swimming back, Kate and Cairo pulled him up and into the boat.
Kate’s initial anno
yance turned to laughter, as she remembered the last time she had seen somebody fly through the air as if shot out of a cannon.
“Quickly,” Kate called out to Neferkare as she gestured for her to board.
“I am an ancient. I cannot travel on water.”
“You did before.”
“That was different, that was back in my time.”
As Kate and Neferkare had had to shout to each other, Alex had heard every word. He called out: “Tomorrow, where we first met.”
“I will be waiting,” she called back as she waved them goodbye.
The powerful motor sprang to life on the first pull of the cord. Throttle twisted, the boat dipped worryingly at the stern as its nose rose from the water. In seconds, Neferkare was nothing more than a dot.
Feeling annoyance as he looked at the split spine of his copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, thanks to Kate, Alex reached down to a lower shelf before sliding out Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, making sure that he had a firm grasp of the tome with both hands. Checking the index before flicking through to a quotation attributed to the French philosopher Denis Diderot he read out loud:
Man will never be free until the last king is
strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
“Is that how you feel?”
“Well, Kate, how do you feel about things; and what about you, Cairo?” Alex put the book back as he waited for their responses.
They had been unable to discuss anything on the boat as it had headed back to Luxor, partly due to Alex’s hearing, though mostly due to the noise of the outboard motor. On arrival, they had immediately headed to the lower kitchen of the Winter Palace, from where they had travelled through the tunnels to their home – Ropet and Sanuba had had difficulty controlling the craptors pulling the cart, due to them detecting the ‘delicious’ smell of entrails. Urgently, they had showered then changed before getting together in their library.
“The daggers clearly point to that priest.” Kate curled her feet up under her at one end of the sofa, whilst Cairo did the same at the other end.
Ankhtifi's Papyrus Page 14