by Overton, Max
They climbed to the ledge and thence to the cave entrance. Daylight seeped inward a dozen paces before fading out over the remains of the debris loosened the evening before. The scientists examined the cave walls with interest, looking for signs that the rock had been worked in the ancient past. Massri and three soldiers joined them, armed with torches, and Dani and Zewali, with Daffyd just behind, were the first to enter the shaft that lay at the rear of the cave. Their feet crunched on the gravel and grit that littered the floor, and the torch beams flicked and flashed over the walls, probing the dust-polluted air. Thin intermittent streams of dust fell from thin jagged cracks in the roof of the shaft, adding to the air burden.
Dani touched Zewali's arm and pointed with her torch beam. "There."
At the limit of their vision, the shaft ended in a pile of rubble, and through the gaps in the piled rock, they could see serried ranks of mud bricks and stones.
"My God." Zewali advanced cautiously and shone his torch on the bricks, running his fingertips over the surface. He moved one of the rocks and it released a small landslide, raising another cloud of dust into the air. Coughing, he waited for the debris to subside before studying the wall again.
"There's a cartouche," he said, excitement growing in his voice. "Vigorous is the Soul of Re, Holy of Forms. I don't believe it, that's the nomen of Smenkhkare-Djeserkheperu. It can't be his tomb though; he's in the Valley of the Kings--KV55."
"Isn't that the tomb that Queen Tiye's supposed to be buried in?" Dani asked.
Zewali nodded. "It's not exactly decorated like a royal tomb."
"The male buried there is probably another son of Amenhotep by a slave girl. I can't remember his name but he died of the plague around the same time as Tiye."
"How do you know that?" Daffyd asked. "I'm sure that wasn't in the account."
"I don't know. I just do."
Zewali gave her an odd look and turned his attention back to the wall. "Whether Smenkhkare is in KV55 or not, this must be a tomb sealed in his reign, which is why it has his cartouche."
Dani pointed to another seal, half obscured by dust. She lightly brushed it off. "Here's another."
Zewali looked over her shoulder, his eyes screwing up in puzzlement as he read. "It's a royal cartouche. Beautiful of Forms--Neferkheperu and Scarab joined to the Atum--Khnumt-Atum Scarab. I've never come across any name like that. I'd swear it's not a king, probably female--maybe a consort?"
"Have you forgotten what this whole quest is about, Karim? It's a search for the tomb of Scarab, otherwise known as Beketaten, daughter of Amenhotep the Great, and sister of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen. She was also pharaoh in her own right, being crowned after the death of Smenkhkare by Aanen, the Hem-Netjer of Amun."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"She told me." Dani laughed at the expression on Zewali's face. "The inscription in Syria, Karim. It was quite detailed."
"I have to read it."
"That's not in my power to grant, but what are we going to do with this?" She touched the brickwork tenderly.
"There's no question of that. It will have to be guarded and excavated properly. This could be a major discovery."
"And Sarraj?"
Zewali grimaced. "He must be made to see reason. The use of explosives on this shaft was criminal. It could have destroyed a national treasure."
"Well I doubt he'll use explosives any more. Pick and shovel will be enough." Dani drew the museum director aside. "Karim, there's nothing we can do to prevent Sarraj and Bashir entering the tomb. All we can do is be on hand and try to stop any wilful destruction or theft of artefacts. These things can be recovered." She did not voice her suspicion that they might not long survive the plundering of the tomb.
"There's nothing we can do?"
"Sarraj is in control, but perhaps the Guardian can stop him."
"Guardian...? You don't really believe in that, do you?"
"Those two soldiers died of something, and Marc saw a Guardian during his Near Death Experience."
"Suggestibility? Hallucination induced by an oxygen-starved brain? I don't rule it out, you understand, but relying on a ghost? I don't say it can't happen, but I think we'll need something more substantial to protect this tomb."
They exited the shaft, brushing off the dust that had covered them, and spitting to clear the grit from their mouths. Sarraj demanded to know what they had found and punched the air in triumph when told they had possibly found the walled-up entrance of a tomb. Zewali pleaded with him to step back even now from any desecration, but the Colonel refused.
"I am prepared to be generous, however. You may have the honour of opening the tomb." When Zewali shook his head, Sarraj smiled and added, "Or I can have my men just flatten it."
"I will do it," Dani said, "And Dr Zewali can watch me, but first, your men must clear all the debris from in front of the wall."
Captain Massri took charge, coaxing his reluctant men to enter what they all now believed was a haunted cave on Jebel Shabah--Ghost Mountain. After the deaths of two of their comrades, the soldiers were becoming increasingly recalcitrant, bordering on mutinous when ordered to carry out duties in the cave. Leading by example and exhorting his men to put their faith in Allah, Massri and his men slowly demolished the last of the rubble and pitched it down the slope.
Marc shaded his eyes and stared up at the slopes above the cave mouth, frowning as a few loose pebbles slid downward, clattering onto the ledge near them. Nick came and stood beside him, following his gaze.
"What do you see?" he asked. "This Guardian chappie of yours?"
"No, but something disturbed the rocks up there. I can't see anything though."
"Probably just natural erosion. It's a hot day after that frigid night and those rocks expand and contract. I wouldn't worry about it."
"Who's worried? It's Muammar, I'm concerned about. He had enough worries without being lost in the desert."
"I'm sure he's fine."
"Guys," Dani called, from near the cave mouth. "Do you want to come and see? They've cleared the wall."
Everyone showed interest in gazing upon the exposed wall before they broke through, but the room in the shaft was limited, so Zewali and Dani took it in turns to escort two or three others to the mud brick surface and explain what they were seeing. They pointed out the royal cartouches and translated them to each group of visitors, moving on to age-worn inscriptions scraped into limestone blocks incorporated in the wall.
"They're mostly prayers for the repose of the occupants," Zewali explained. "There are two sets..."
"No curses?" Bashir asked.
"The ancient Egyptians didn't write curses on tombs," Zewali said. "Only prayers. As I was saying, these prayers were apparently inscribed on two different occasions. See here where this inscription exhorting the Ennead of Heliopolis..."
"Who?" Nick asked. "I've never heard of a god called Ennead."
"The Ennead is a group of nine gods--Atum, Shu, Tefnut, and so on. To continue, this prayer partly overlays another dedicated to the god Amun, implying two separate burials some years apart."
Zewali ran his fingertips over the wall, brushing away the dust. "These are the seals of the officiating priests--the High Priest or Hem-Netjer of Atum and this one of Amun. I can't make out the name of the Atum priest--as you can see, the rubble has chipped it away, but the Amun priest is...is Nn."
"Strange name," Bashir commented.
"No vowels in the written language," Dr Maroun murmured. "Speakers of the day would be familiar with the names and supply vowels as needed. For instance, the god Amun was represented as Mn and could equally have been Amen or Amon. This priest Nn could be Enen or Anen or..."
"Aanen," Dani said. "Brother of Ay and uncle of Scarab."
"Enough of this prevarication," Sarraj declared. "Open the tomb, Dr Hanser." He moved everyone back, but allowed Daffyd to stand alongside Dani in the confined space to lend his strength should it be needed.
Da
ffyd looked at Dani's pale face with concern. "Are you all right, lass? It can't be easy for you."
"It's not, but I can't think what else to do. If I don't do it, Sarraj will and he'll be heavy-handed."
"Is it really going to matter in the long run? If he lets us go, the contents of the tomb are still going to disappear into the hands of private collectors. Everything will be lost."
"It matters, Dafs. Don't ask me how or why, but it's important I'm the first one in there."
"Why the delay, Dr Hanser?" Sarraj called. "If you have lost your nerve I'll have my men knock it down."
"I'm just checking the best place to enter," she replied. "Somewhere we won't cause too much damage." Dani sighed and pointed. "There, I think, Dafs, but please be careful." She stepped back, allowing the Welshman room to move.
Daffyd swung a pick in the cramped passage, the point glancing off the wall in a puff of dust. Again he swung, harder this time, and the point dug into the sun-hardened mud brick, gouging out a chunk. He kept up a steady battering at the wall, limiting his blows to a few bricks around the first one, making the dust fly and a shattered fragments drizzle onto the floor of the shaft. Then the pick sank in several inches and stuck. Daffyd waggled it experimentally.
"I think it's gone through." He tugged the handle sideways and the metal head ripped out, revealing a small dark hole in the wall.
Dani shone her torch through the hole, the beam almost solid in the thick dust, but shook her head. "I can't see a thing. You'll have to enlarge it."
Daffyd resumed his efforts, sweat staining his shirt and dripping in his eyes, in the close, hot atmosphere of the tunnel. The hole widened slowly, brick fragments now dropping inside the chamber beyond as often as not. At last he stood back, panting as he leaned on the handle of the pick.
Dani moved forward and knelt in the dust, shining her torch into the chamber. Stale air, sealed inside for three thousand years, wafted over her, and as the dust slowly thinned and settled, she could start to make out details of the tomb's interior.
"What can you see?" Nick called, his voice reverberating in the narrow shaft.
For a few moments, Dani considered saying something memorable, like Howard Carter when he first peered into Tutankhamen's tomb saying 'Wonderful things!', but decided this was a more solemn moment. It almost felt as if she was peering into her own tomb, and the thought dampened her excitement.
"Not much...wait, yes, I can see two long objects on the ground toward the back of the chamber. It's not a big chamber...there's some debris and...you'll have to see for yourself."
The others started forward, eager to see inside, but Sarraj and Bashir pushed them back and shouldered Daffyd aside. They knelt and peered into the chamber, the beams from their own torches probing the dusty darkness beyond.
"I can't see anything," Sarraj complained. "Break down more of the wall. I'm not going to crawl through that."
The two men moved back and Daffyd applied himself again, Marc coming up to lend a hand as the older man tired. Eventually, they punched a hole through that would allow even Bashir, the most portly of them, to enter, having to duck only slightly. While the hole was being enlarged, Sarraj had sent down for two kerosene lanterns, and these now cast a strong yellow glow over the walls of the shaft, adding a hydrocarbon stink to the acrid dust.
When Sarraj and Bashir entered the chamber, each bearing a lantern, they found Dani and Daffyd already there, shining the weak beams of their torches around. The glow of the lanterns threw back the shadows and all four people stared at the contents of the tomb, not at all expecting what they saw.
"I thought it would be more like King Tut's tomb," Daffyd murmured. "You know, full of grave goods, statues, furniture, with a gold-plated shrine and stone sarcophagus, painted walls and such. Not this."
"You forget, Dafs," Dani said. "Both burials were conducted in secret. They couldn't transport all the things a king would need in the afterlife, let alone heavy coffins. Remember the account? A wooden coffin, cedar panels inscribed with prayers, a few personal items."
"Where's the gold?" Sarraj rasped. "Ahmed, you told me there would be gold--lots of it. Have I wasted my time?"
"Yes, Dr Hanser. Where is the treasury of Smenkhkare? You said it would be here."
"That's what the account said." Dani looked around the small chamber and stepped across to some mounds of debris along one wall. She bent and sifted through the dirt, pulling aside strands of rotted fibre and fragments of wood.
"Here. Here's your treasure." She lifted out a finger-length roughly fashioned bar of gold and held it up. The metal gleamed in the lantern light, untarnished, sullied only by a patina of dust. She rubbed it and the metal glowed richly.
Sarraj gasped and strode past her, plunging his fingers into the mounded debris, scattering it as he drew out bar after bar of gold. Some he slipped into his pockets, others he stacked neatly on the floor. Bashir joined him and found piles of yellowed ivory in short curved lengths. He smiled as he ran his hands over the smooth surfaces.
"Hippopotamus tusks," Dani said. "And jewels over there."
Necklaces and pectorals, armbands and anklets lay spilled over the stone floor, all manner of precious stones and gold ornaments, many now lying loose as the cords connecting them had decayed, but still undisturbed in their patterns--turquoise and lapis, zircon and faience, amid a scattering of more precious stones--uncut rubies and diamonds held by gold and silver thread.
"Didn't I tell you?" Bashir crowed. "There are hundreds of gold bars and almost as many ivory. We're rich."
"Remember our agreement," Sarraj said. "I get the gold and ivory, you get the artefacts." He looked around the chamber with a smug look on his face. "I don't see many artefacts, unless you count the necklaces, and most of those are made of paste and semi-precious stones."
"There must be more here," Bashir said, scowling. "Whoever heard of a tomb without gold statues and such?" He started rummaging at the back of the chamber, near the long objects. "What are these?" he nudged one with his foot.
"My goodness," Daffyd said, shining his torch over them. "They're wooden coffins. You can still see the painted features on them."
Dani stood looking down at the mortal remains of what must have been Scarab and her brother Smenkhkare. "Leave them in peace," she pleaded. "You don't need to disturb them."
Bashir licked his lips, his eyes gleaming with avarice. "I hear they put jewels and gold artefacts in the mummy wrappings. They'd be worth a fortune."
"No, Minister. Please. Have some decency."
"Come, Dr Hanser, you wouldn't deny me..."
A series of reports interrupted him and all heads turned toward the entrance. Voices cried out distantly, mixed with closer shouts and more shooting.
"Those are gunshots," Sarraj said. "What are those fools shooting at?" He ran out of the chamber, Dani and Daffyd on his heels.
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Chapter Forty
The camp was a scene from bedlam. Soldiers were hunkered down behind rocks and jeeps, firing their rifles at a largely unseen enemy that sniped at them from several directions. Already one soldier lay dead and one or two more bore wounds. Captain Massri crouched within the cave mouth, and as Sarraj emerged from the chamber, turned a shocked face to his commander.
"They came out of nowhere, sir."
"Who's our enemy?"
"I don't know, sir. I got a glimpse of robed men, so it might be those bandits we were after."
"That was a fiction, you fool," Sarraj snarled. He stared out at the surrounding terrain, noting positions where a puff of smoke betrayed a shooter, where a rifle protruded from cover or a head garbed in keffiya ducked quickly behind a rock. "I see four, maybe five." He pointed. "Get down to the jeep and organise the men there. Circle round that large rock and onto that other one. See? If you can do that, you'll make those positions there and there..." he pointed again, "...untenable. Go!"
Massri ran from the cave mouth and
scrambled down the hillside. By the time he was halfway down, the attackers had spotted him and bullets were whining off rocks and kicking up dust near him. He dived behind a rock, gathered himself and sprinted for the cover of the jeep. A bullet knocked one leg from under him as he reached the jeep and he stumbled and fell, dragging himself under cover.
Sarraj, meanwhile, took advantage of the diversion to slide and run down the steep slope toward a rock behind which two of his men sheltered. He made it unscathed and immediately led his men out in sprinting probes toward the jumble of rocks from which the enemy were firing.
The scientists watched from the cover of the cave, and Nick positioned himself near the entrance, sticking his head out frequently to follow the course of the battle, ducking back in to write copious notes in his notebook. "By George, this is going to make an interesting story--a quest for buried treasure, fugitives, ghosts, and now a gun battle. Who are they? Any ideas?"
"Bandits," Marc stated. "Sure to be."
"Sarraj told Massri that was a made up story," Dr Maroun said. "He said so just now."
"Those may have been, but there's bound to be more than one group of bandits in the western desert."
"They're pretty audacious attacking an army squad," Daffyd said. "It's not as if anyone knows there's treasure here."
"There's not much we can do to help, though to tell the truth, I'm not sure which group I want to help," Zewali said. "So I'm going to take advantage of Sarraj's absence to examine the tomb for myself. Coming, Maroun?"
The two museum archaeologists disappeared back into the cave. Nick watched them go, torn between the excitement of the shooting, and his desire to see the object of their search. After a few seconds, he gave in and ran back into the cave.
"You not going back to check on them?" Daffyd asked Dani.
"I think I can trust Karim not to disturb anything," she replied.
"Yeah, but what about Bashir?" Marc asked. "He's still back there." He saw Nazim standing deeper in the cave. "What about you? You're not with your master?"