The Eye of the Serpent

by Philip Caveney

  ‘William!’ cried Ethan with forced jocularity. ‘I’ve brought somebody to see you, an old friend.’

  Uncle Will lifted his head slightly and those dead eyes surveyed Alec for a moment, but showed no sign of recognition.

  Ethan guided Alec forward until he was standing right in front of his uncle. Alec looked down at Will’s hands, which were arranged like claws on his blanket. They were shaking as though he was in the grip of a terrible fever.

  ‘Look, Will,’ persisted Ethan. ‘It’s your nephew, Alec. He’s travelled down from Cairo to see you. You remember Alec, don’t you?’

  Uncle Will’s eyes continued to stare up at his nephew and he said the name ‘Alec’ in a flat monotone. Ethan nudged Alec, prompting him to respond.

  ‘Hello, Uncle,’ said Alec. ‘It’s . . . good to see you again. I’m . . . sorry you haven’t been well.’

  ‘Alec,’ repeated Uncle Will, but once again it was just something spoken parrot-fashion. There was no trace of warmth in that croak of a voice. Like the pale, watery eyes, it seemed completely devoid of life.

  ‘Alec’s come to help out with the dig,’ said Ethan, crouching down to put himself on the same level as his old friend. ‘I know he’s been of great assistance to you in the past and I can sure use his skills. I don’t know if you recall, but you mentioned him several times in your journal. You said you were completely at a loss to decipher a message and something Alec said gave you the key to it? Do you remember writing that?’

  ‘Key,’ whispered Uncle Will and his grey head nodded, but whether this was in answer to what had just been said was anybody’s guess, because the head kept nodding slowly long after it was appropriate.

  ‘Father sends his regards,’ said Alec. ‘I’m sure he’ll be over to visit you when he gets the opportunity. Coates is with me too. You . . . you remember Coates, don’t you? The valet?’

  ‘Coates.’ Again the same dull croak. It was as if the words were meaningless to Uncle Will and he was just acting the role of an echo.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. He came with me on the last two trips. You must remember him. He didn’t know I was coming to see you, otherwise I’m sure he . . .’

  Alec felt ridiculous talking like this and getting no response. He looked at Ethan apologetically.

  Ethan nodded, understanding, but was clearly not ready to give up just yet. He put a hand on Uncle Will’s shoulder. ‘Alec’s joining us at an exciting time,’ he said. ‘We’ve almost cleared out the last of the artefacts from the antechamber. Any day now we’ll be ready to break the seals on the door to the tomb.’

  Something happened then. Uncle Will reacted. His eyes widened and a kind of manic realization seemed to come into them.

  ‘Break them?’ he said. ‘Break the . . . seals?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ethan was delighted to have elicited such a response. ‘It won’t be long now. Everything you and Tom worked for will be—’

  ‘No!’ gasped Uncle Will. ‘Don’t. Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’ asked Ethan, puzzled.

  ‘Go in. Don’t. He’s not there. Already . . . out. Already out.’

  ‘Who’s already out, William?’ Ethan was staring into Uncle Will’s face, trying to fathom his meaning.

  ‘He’s out. Out. I’ve seen him. The serpent’s eye. We . . . we removed it.’ Uncle Will’s eyes were now staring with a shocking intensity and they suddenly seemed to fasten on Alec, as if recognition had just set in. He reached up and grabbed his nephew’s wrist with a strength that made the boy wince. ‘Go home!’ he bellowed, his voice rising in power. ‘You shouldn’t have come, Alec. You shouldn’t have come!’

  ‘William, you’re hurting the boy!’ Ethan was trying to prise Uncle Will’s fingers free of Alec’s wrist, but despite his apparent frailty, he seemed to have discovered an incredible energy and was now talking non-stop, virtually shouting the words into Alec’s face.

  ‘He seized the dragon, that serpent of old, the Devil or Apophis, and chained him up for a thousand years! He threw him into an abyss, shutting and sealing it over him, so that he might seduce the nations no more till the thousand years were over! After that he must be let loose for a short while!’

  ‘Uncle, please, stop, you’re hurting me!’ Alec struggled to pull away from his uncle, but he hung on tenaciously and even the brawny American couldn’t seem to break his grip.

  ‘He’s out, Alec, don’t you see? He’s out, and now everything changes – nothing is ever the same again. Tom knows, Tom was there, Tom knows better than anyone what he’s capable of. I’ve seen him, Alec! I’ve seen what he can do . . .’ Then, all at once, Uncle Will’s voice trailed away and he seemed to lose all his strength. He let go of Alec and flopped back into the bath chair, his mouth hanging open. The vacant look came back into his eyes and Alec saw that they were filling with tears. ‘Out,’ he whispered. ‘He’s out. I’ve seen him.’

  He went back to his silent study of the floor.

  Alec and Ethan stood for a moment in silence, staring down at the old, old man in the chair. The sudden transformation had startled them. Alec felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ethan asked him at last.

  Alec nodded. He rubbed his wrist, where already a ring of dark bruises was appearing. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what happened there. He seemed to realize it was me at the end.’

  ‘I don’t know what got into him – he’s never been like this before. What was that stuff he was saying – about a dragon or something?’

  ‘I think it’s from the Bible,’ Alec told him. ‘Except he said . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said Apophis. The Egyptian serpent god of the underworld. I’m not much of a Bible reader but I’m pretty sure Apophis doesn’t figure anywhere. And there was something about . . . a serpent’s eye?’

  Ethan frowned. ‘I’m real sorry, kid. I had no idea he’d get all riled up like that. Guess I shouldn’t have brought you here.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. I’m glad I saw him. Really.’ Alec felt badly shaken by what had happened. It was hard to believe that the wretched, wasted creature in the bath chair was the same man he had spent so many happy hours with. ‘What can have happened to him, Mr Wade?’

  Ethan shook his head. ‘I wish I knew,’ he said.

  He turned and crouched beside Uncle Will again. ‘We’ll be on our way now,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe we’ll come and see you again soon, huh?’

  Uncle Will said nothing. He was still gazing at the floor and his hands had begun to shake once more. Alec felt so sorry for him – and so totally powerless to do anything to help. He had retreated back to the world he had been lost in when they first entered the room.

  Ethan shrugged in defeat. He stood up and led the way back to the door. Just before Alec followed him out of the room, he glanced back at his uncle.

  What could make a man change so completely? Whatever had happened to him, it must have been terrifying.

  With a sigh, Alec watched Ethan lock the door behind them. ‘Is that really necessary?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. He’s . . . unpredictable. They’re afraid he might harm himself.’

  They began to retrace their steps along the corridor.

  ‘Is there no hope for him?’ asked Alec.

  Ethan’s face was expressionless. ‘I’m sorry, kid. The doctors who’ve seen him say he’s a hopeless case.’

  ‘Perhaps if we got him back to Cairo – or even London?’ suggested Alec.

  ‘You’ve seen the condition he’s in. I doubt he’d be strong enough to make such a journey.’

  Alec rubbed his bruised wrist. ‘For a minute there he seemed strong enough,’ he observed.

  They dropped off the key at reception and made their way out onto the street. An inquisitive crowd of natives had gathered around the Crossley and were poking and prodding at it, as though convinced it had just dropped in from outer space. However, they fell back
obediently to allow Ethan and Alec to climb into their seats. Some of them reached into their pockets and started brandishing homemade ‘relics’.

  Ethan got the engine running and then swept off back the way they had come. Soon they were driving sedately out into the desert again.

  ‘Uncle Will kept saying, He’s out,’ said Alec.

  ‘Yeah. Not sure who he’s talking about though. Seems to have something to do with the tomb. He didn’t want us to open the door. But that doesn’t make any sense. It’s what he and Tom worked for all those years.’

  ‘He’s already out. I’ve seen him,’ mused Alec. ‘You’re sure it’s Akhenaten’s tomb?’

  ‘Well, the seals on the outer door sure have his name all over ’em. But until we get into the burial chamber, we can’t be certain.’

  ‘Akhenaten is interesting,’ said Alec. ‘He’s one of the least known pharaohs. After his death, the people who succeeded him did everything they could to erase his memory. They destroyed his statues, his temples . . . In his official tomb in Amarna, even his sarcophagus was smashed into tiny pieces.’

  Ethan frowned. ‘Yeah, why was that exactly?’

  ‘Well, most people think that it was because he banished all the popular gods that people had been worshipping for years and made them worship only one, Aten, the sun disc. It was the start of monotheism.’

  Ethan looked at Alec doubtfully. ‘For a kid, you sure know some fancy words,’ he said.

  Alec smiled. He was beginning to like the American. He loved the way he didn’t try and pretend he knew more than he did. Most adults would have just nodded, as though Alec was telling them something they already knew.

  ‘Uncle Will always believed that Akhenaten’s followers must have rescued his mummy and had it reburied in the Valley of the Kings, away from harm,’ said Alec. ‘Some archaeologists think that his mummy is the one they found in tomb fifty-five in nineteen-o-seven, because all identifying features had been erased; but Uncle Will never accepted that was him. He thinks it’s the body of Smenkhkare, another missing pharaoh – and I agree with him.’

  Ethan grinned. ‘I ain’t about to argue with either of you,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you both know your stuff.’

  ‘Uncle Will kept saying that he was already out . . . Do you suppose he meant that Akhenaten’s mummy was gone? Maybe tomb robbers got there before Uncle Will did and stole the remains.’

  Ethan shook his head. ‘No. As far as we can see, nobody ever broke into this tomb. It was absolutely untouched.’

  Alec stared. ‘But that’s incredible!’ he said. ‘There’s not a tomb been found that hasn’t had somebody break in and filch some of the treasures. Even King Tut’s tomb had been broken into twice over the past three thousand years.’

  ‘Yeah, Carter told me that. I spoke to him the other day.’

  ‘He’s a nice chap,’ said Alec. ‘Uncle Will introduced me to him on the last dig. It was good of him and Lord Carnarvon to allow Uncle Will to excavate in the Valley of the Kings. He had to approach them for permission, years back. Carter could have said no, but he didn’t – he said something about there being no harm in a bit of healthy competition.’

  ‘You admire Carter, huh?’

  ‘I was back at school in Cairo when they found Tut’s tomb. I would have given anything to have been in on that.’ Alec wasn’t about to admit it, but Howard Carter was the nearest thing he had to a hero in his life. If he could have changed places with anyone in the world, Carter would have been his first choice.

  Ethan smiled. ‘Well, Howard’s having a tough time of it now. Since Lord Carnarvon died he can’t make a move without somebody shoving a camera in his face. All that baloney about a curse.’

  ‘You don’t believe it, then?’

  ‘Heck, no! People like to make up that mumbo jumbo – it sells newspapers.’

  ‘But Lord Carnarvon did die back in March.’

  ‘Sure, but not from a curse – just an infected mosquito bite.’

  Alec nodded. ‘Same thing that got my mother,’ he said.

  Ethan looked uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, I remember Will mentioning it in one of his letters. Must’ve been tough for you, Alec.’

  Alec did what he always did in these circumstances. He ignored the sympathy and pressed on with the point he was making. ‘Llewellyn said something about a curse, back on the Sudan,’ he said. ‘Not for Tut’s tomb; for the one that Uncle Will found. How is it he knows about the find?’

  ‘Not sure. I’ve only told a few people and I swore them all to secrecy. I guess somebody must have blabbed.’

  ‘Hmm. You have to admit that it’s strange that nobody has been near that tomb since it was first sealed. Have they found much in the way of artefacts?’

  ‘Are you kidding? So far, we’ve only been in the antechamber and that is stacked with goodies. Jars, scrolls, statues, chariots. You name it!’

  ‘Which makes it even more odd. We know that tomb robbers usually turn out to have been in cahoots with the people who organized the burial. Why didn’t somebody come and loot this one?’

  ‘Well . . . maybe it was just better hidden than most. From what I read in Will’s journal, it was a complete accident that somebody chanced upon it when they did. He said that— Oh, great!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Alec looked up in surprise. Ethan was staring at something in the rear-view mirror. Alec turned to look over his shoulder. The sky behind them was darkening to an ominous gunmetal grey; below, a shifting, stirring brown mass was whipping around in the air.

  ‘Sandstorm coming in,’ said Ethan. ‘Travelling pretty fast, by the look of it.’ He glanced round. ‘We can’t turn back. We’ll just have to keep on for the camp and hope we can outrun it.’ He looked at Alec and grinned. ‘What were you just saying about a curse?’

  He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and brought the Crossley up to its top speed, the metal chassis juddering as the wheels raced across the uneven dirt surface. Already the wind was picking up and Alec could see little flurries of sand gusting across the surface of the road.

  ‘How far is it to camp?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Maybe twenty miles.’ Ethan turned to the boy and winked. ‘Not a very nice welcome, Alec. But don’t worry, we’ll be OK.’

  Alec hoped the American was right. He hunched down in his seat and stared out at the seemingly endless ribbon of road unwinding in front of them. Whenever he glanced over his shoulder, he could see that the storm was getting closer by the minute.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hostile Reception

  THEY HAD JUST made it back to the fork in the road where they had parted company with Mickey and Coates when the storm began to close in on them, the sound of the wind rising to a howl. Ethan and Alec had already put up the roof and secured it in position and now there was nothing to do but bring the Crossley to a halt and wait for things to improve. Visibility had already dropped to just a few yards and it was hard to even see the road through the rising blizzard of sand. Then the storm struck and Alec could feel the heavy vehicle shifting beneath the force of it. It felt as though it might flip over at any moment.

  With the windows closed it grew intolerably hot and Alec and Ethan sat side by side, sweating profusely.

  ‘This is screwy,’ muttered Ethan, having to shout over the noise of the wind. ‘Damned storm just seemed to come out of nowhere.’ He glanced apologetically at Alec. ‘Sorry, kid. If we’d headed straight for the dig, we’d be there by now.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Alec assured him. ‘I’m glad we went to see Uncle Will, even though he wasn’t on great form. How did you come to know him?’

  Ethan smiled, remembering. ‘It was after the war,’ he said. ‘I’d seen some bad things and I guess it affected me more than I knew. I went off the rails for a while. I had trouble sleeping. Got a little too fond of hard liquor and gambling – couldn’t seem to hold down a steady job. My debts got so bad in the end, I had to get out of the country fast. I took work as a
deck hand aboard a cargo ship bound for Cairo. I ended up hanging around the docks doing odd jobs to get enough money to eat.’

  He shook his head. ‘I was at rock bottom,’ he went on. ‘Then I met Will. He was in town to take care of some business. He weighed me up pretty quick – must have realized I was in a bad way. He said he could always use more help over at the dig. So I figured, what the heck, I’d give it a try.’ He shrugged. ‘I knew nothing about ancient Egypt, and Will realized that, but he was prepared to give me a chance when everybody else had given up on me, so I’ll always be in his debt for that.’

  ‘That’s Uncle Will,’ agreed Alec. ‘Always likes to help others.’

  Ethan nodded. ‘Well, things finally started to work out for me. Will and Tom gave me more responsibility; I finally felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Oh, we weren’t having much success back then, just a few small finds. I worked with them for the first year and a half, but then something came up back in the States. My dad was pretty ill and I needed to go back and settle his affairs. Will made me promise to come back just as soon as I could and even lent me the money to get back to the States. It took a while to straighten things out.’

  Alec gave him a questioning look. ‘Your father died?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ Ethan looked sad for a moment. ‘He was a good age, and I guess it wasn’t unexpected but . . . well, it’s a sad time in anyone’s life.’

  ‘And your mother?’ asked Alec.

  ‘She was long gone.’ He glanced warily at Alec, remembering that the boy had recently lost his own mother. ‘Anyhow, I didn’t get back to Egypt for a long time. I went up to Wyoming for a year and worked as a cowboy.’

  ‘Wow! Honestly?’

  ‘Sure. There’s still big herds of cattle out there, need taking from place to place. It’s a hard life, but it can be satisfying. After that I headed down to Mexico and took a post as a mercenary, helping the government put down a revolution.’

  ‘A mercenary . . . that’s like a hired gun, isn’t it?’