by Wilbur Smith
"No." His voice was hoarse and strained with the effort.
"It's solid. Won't budge."
"Lift me up. Let me look."
"With the greatest of pleasure. Any excuse to lay hannds on you." He
stepped behind her and placed lascivious han both arms around her waist,
then lifted her until she was able to touch the bird's head.
Quickly she explored it with her fingertips, and then she let out a
small cry of triumph.
"Nicky! You have started something. The paint is cracked all around the
outline of the head. I can feel it.
Lift me higher!
He grunted with the effort but raised her another foot off the floor.
"Yes, definitely!" she exclaimed. "Something has a hairline crack in the
wall above the moved. There is head, as well. You have a look!
He fetched one of the empty ammunition crates from the landing outside
the entrance and placed it below the vulture image. When he stepped up
on to it he was on a level with the vulture's eye.
His expression changed. Quickly he groped in his pocket and brought out
his clasp knife, He opened the blade and probed carefully around the
outline of the head.
Tiny specks of dried paint and plaster filtered down as he worked.
It does look as though the head is a separate detached piece, "he
admitted.
"Look on top of it, higher up the wall. There along the edge of the
sunbeam. Can't you see a vertical crack in the plaster?"
"You are right, you know," he admitted. "But if I try to open that crack
I am going to damage the mural. Do you want me to do that?"
She hesitated only a moment. "This tomb is going to be reflooded when
the river rises, so we are going to lose it again anyway. It's worth the
risk. Do it, Nicky!'
life-blade into the fine He pressed the point of the kn crack and
twisted it gently. A slab of painted plaster the size of his s'read hand
fell out of the wall and splattered into the dust on the agate tiles of
the floor.
He peered into the cavity that it had left in the wall.
"It looks like some kind of slot or groove in the wall," he said. "I am
going to clear its full length." Carefully he worked at the cavity he
had opened, and more loose plaster rained down.
Royan sneezed in the dust, but would not retreat, Particles of debris
lodged in her hair like confetti.
"Yes," he said at last. "There is a vertical groove running up here."
"Chip the plaster away from the crack around the vulture's head," she
ordered, and he wiped the blade against his trouser leg and attacked the
wall again.
"It's free," he said at last. "It looks as though the head will travel
up the groove. Anyway, I am going to try it, Stand back and give me room
to work."
He placed the heels of both hands under the head of the vulture, and
heaved upwards against it. Royan bunched her hands into fists and
screwed up her face in sympathy with his effort.
There was a soft grating sound, and the head began to move jerkily up
the exposed groove in the wall. It reached the top of the slot and
Nicholas jumped down from the crate. They both stared expectantly at the
disembodied head, now disfigured by the chipped and damaged plaster.
After a long, breathless wait, Royan whispered dejecr edly, "Nothing It
hasn't changed anything."
"The rest of the quotation from the stele," he reminded her. "There was
more to it than just the vulture and the sun."
"You are right." She looked around the rest of the wall eagerly. "'The
jackal hops and rests Upon his tail.
She pointed with a trembling finger at the small, almost insignificant
figure of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the graveyards, on the wall
opposite the vulture that they had mutilated. Standing at the foot of
the huge, towering painting of Osiris, he was only a little larger in
size than the ringed and bejewelled big toe of the husband of Isis and
father of Horus.
Royan ran to the wall, and the moment she touched Anubis she felt that
his image too was raised. She flung all her strength against the tiny
figure, trying to twist it first one way and then the other.
"'The jackal turns upon his tail"," she panted as she wrestled with him.
"He must turn!'
"Here, let me do that." Gently Nicholas pulled her away, and knelt
before the black-headed god image. Once again he used the blade of his
clasp knife to chip away the plaster and the thick layer of paint from
around the outline.
"It seems to be carved in some sort of hard wood and then it's been
plastered over," he told her, as he tested the construction of the
figure with the point of the blade.
When at last he had chipped it clear he tried to twist it in a clockwise
direction, and grunted with the effort.
"No! He gave up at last.
"They had no clock dials in ancient Egypt," she reminded him agitatedly.
"The other way. Turn it the other way-$
When he tried to turn it counter-clockwise, there was another rasping,
gritty sound from behind the wall panel.
The tiny figure revolved slowly in his hands, until the black head
pointed down towards the yellow tiles.
They both stood well back from the wall, looking expectantly at it, but
after another long wait even Nicholas was disheartened.
"I don know what to expect, but whatever it is, it isn't happening he
grunted with disgust.
"There is still the last part of the quotation," Royan whispered. "'The
river flows towards the earth. Beware, you violators of the sacred
plain, lest the urrath of all the gods descend upon you!"'
"The river?" Nicholas asked. "As Sapper might say, I don't see no
perishing river."
Royan did not even smile at the cockney accent.
Instead she searched the profusion of writing and images that covered
all the walls around them. Then she saw it.
"Hapi!" Her voice was shrill with excitement. "The god of the Nile! The
river!'
High up the wall, on a level with the head of the great god Osiris, the
god of the river looked down upon them.
Hapi was'a hermaphrodite, with the breasts of a woman and the genitals
of a man protruding from under the pendulous belly. The mouth in his
hippopotamus head gaped wide to display the great curved tusks that
lined his cavernous jaws.
Standing on a pile of ammunition boxes, Nicholas was able to reach the
Hapi image at the full stretch of his arms.
As he touched it he exulted, "This one is raised also."
"'The river flows towards the earth,"' she called up to him. "It must
move downwards. Try it, Nicky."
"Give me a chance to clear the edges." He used the point of the blade to
chip the outline of the god free, and then he probed the plaster beneath
it and found another vertical slot running towards the floor.
"Ready to give it a go now. He folded the knife and tucked it back into
his pocket. "Hold your breath and say a little prayer for me," he
instructed.
He settled both hands on the image of the god and began to pull steadily
do
wnwards, Gradually he brought more pressure to bear upon it, until he
was hanging all his weight on it. Nothing moved.
"It's not working, he grunted.
"Wait!" she ordered. "I am coming up."
She scrambled up on to the boxes behind him and tight,, placed both
hands around his neck. "Hang she ordered.
"Every little bit helps, I suppose," he agreed, as she lifted her feet
and hung her full weight on his shoulders.
"It's moving!" he shouted. Suddenly the image of Hapi gave way under his
hands, and with a sharp grating sound travelled down to the bottom end
of the groove in the wall.
Nicholas lost his grip on the smoothly rounded shape as it came up hard
against the end of its slot. The stack of boxes under them toppled, and
both he and Royan dropped back to the floor of the gallery. She was
still hanging around his neck, and he lost his balance as she pulled him
over backwards. The two of them sprawled on the agate floor in an untidy
tangle of arms and legs. Nicholas scrambled to his feet and pulled her
up beside him.
"What has happened?" she gasped, looking up wildly at the damaged Hapi
figure and then around the walls of the gallery.
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing has moved."
"Perhaps there is another-' she began, but broke off at a sound from the
roof above them. They both stared upwards, startled and filled with
sudden trepidation. There was a ponderous movement from above the high
plastered ceiling.
What is thatV Royan whispered. "There is something up there. It sounds
like a living thing."
A giant was moving, coming awake after slumbering for thousands of
years, stretching and turning as he awoke.
'is it-?" She could not finish the question. She had an image in her
mind of the great god himself stirring in a hidden chamber in the rock,
opening those baleful, slanted eyes, rising on one elbow to discover who
had disturbed him from his eternal sleep.
Then there was another sound, a creaking and rumbling as though the arm
of a mighty balance was swinging slowly across, as its equilibrium
altered. Softly at first, then louder, the movement gathered momentum,
like the beginning of a mountain avalanche. Then there was a report like
the shot of a cannon.
A crack appeared in the high ceiling, running the length of the gallery.
Dust smoked from the jagged opening, and then, slowly as a nightmare,
the roof began to sag down over where they stood. Both of them were
paralysed with superstitious horror, unable to tear their gaze from the
slow, inexorable collapse of the ceiling upon them. Then a chunk of
plaster struck Nicholas's upturned face, slamming into his cheek,
tearing the skin and sending him staggering backwards against the wall.
The shock and pain aroused him at last.
"The warning!" he blurted. "Taitals warning. The wrath of the gods." He
sprang to her side and grabbed her hand, "Run!" He pulled her after him.
"Taita has booby-trapped the roof!'
They raced back along the gallery towards the opening in the seated
entrance. Lumps of stone and plaster began to rain down and dust filled
the passageway, halfblinding them. The dull rumble overhead became a
rising roar as progressively the roof collapsed. They did not dare to
look back as the thunder of falling masonry swept towards them,
threatening to overtake and overwhelm them before they were able to
reach the entrance.
A jagged piece of rock as large as her head struck Royan a glancing blow
on her shoulder, and her legs sagged under her. She would have gone down
if he had not flung one arm around her and held her upright, dragging
her along the gallery. The dust obscured the passage ahead of them, so
that the square opening that offered their only chance of escape receded
in the choking fog.
"Keep going!" he yelled at her. "Almost there." As he spoke, a thick
sheet of plaster came crashing down and smashed into the tripod stand of
the floodlamp. Instantly the gallery was plunged into utter darkness.
Completely unsighted, Nicholas's first instinct was to come up short and
try to orientate himself. But all around him the rubble of the roof was
falling heavier and faster.
He knew that at any second the entire roof would come down on top of
them, burying and crushing them. Running on without a check, he dragged
Royan along behind him in the darkness. He reached the end wall at full
tilt, and the impact knocked the breath out of him. Now, through the
swirling dust cloud, he was just able to make out the rectangular
opening in the plaster wall in front of him, back-lit by the lamps on
the landing at the head of the staircase outside.
As he reeled backwards he seized Royan around the waist and lifted her
bodily off her feet. He hurled her through the opening and heard her cry
out as she fell heavily on the far side. Another piece of rubble struck
him on the back of his head and knocked him to his knees. He felt
himself teetering on the very brink of consciousness, mail but crawled
forward, groping frantically until he touched the jagged edge of the
opening. With this handhold he was able to drag himself over the sill,
just as the full weight of the roof came thundering down along the
entire gallery.
Here on the upper landing of the staircase Royan was crouching on her
knees. She crawled towards him, guided once more by the lamplight.
"Are you all right?" she panted. A trickle of blood snaked down her
cheek from a wound in her scalp line. It cut a dark glistening runnel
through the caked white dust that powdered her face.
He did not answer, but dragged himself to his feet and pulled Royan up
beside him. "Can't stay here," he croaked, _1ro just as a thic '. lite
at St. ug mouth of the opening and swept over them, choking them and
dimming the floodlamps to a faint glimmer.
"Not safe." He pulled her away from the opening. "The whole thing might
cave in." His voice was rough, his throat closing with the dust.
He dragged her to the head of the steps and they staggered down
together, stumbling against each other, their feet sliding under them as
they came on to the algae.
slippery footing. Through the dust mist ahead of them loomed the broad
square figure of Sapper.
"What the ruddy hell is going on?" he bellowed with relief as he saw
them.
"Give me a hand here," Nicholas yelled back at him.
Sapper lifted Royan in his arms and together they ran back -down the
tunnel, only stopping to draw breath when they reached the causeway over
the sink-hole.
unburrit and glared like a mirror in the high mountain sunlight. The
public telephone should have been in its booth outside the front door.
However, the instrument had long since vanished - stolen, vandalized or,
more likely, removed by the military to prevent it being used by
Political dissidents and rebels.
Tessay had expected this, and hardly glanced into the booth before she
strode into the small room which was the main post office. It was filled
w
ith a motley crowd of peasants and villagers, queuing to conduct their
leisurely business with the elderly postmaster, the only person behind
the barred counter. Some of the customers had spread their cloaks on the
floor and settled in for a long he post office in the village of Debra
Maryarri a small building in the dusty street behind was the church. Its
walls were of unplastered unpainted brick, and its galvanized iron roof
T
wait, chatting and smoking while their children romped and crawled
around them.
Most of the patient crowd recognized Tessay as soon as she entered the
room."Even those who had waited most of the morning in the lines at the
counter greeted her respectfully and stood aside to allow her to go to
the, head of the queue. Despite two decades of African socialism, the
feudal instincts of the rural population were still strong.
Tessay was a noblewoman and she was entitled to this preference.
"Thank you, my friends." She smiled at them and shook her head. "You are
kind, but I will wait my turn."
They were embarrassed by her refusal, and when the old postmaster leaned
over his counter top and added his insistence to the others, one of the
older women seized Tessay's arm and forcefully propelled her forward.
"Jesus and all the saints bless you, Woizero Tessay." The postmaster
clapped his hands in respectful greeting.
"Welcome back to Debra Maryam. What is it that your ladyship desires?"
The entire clientele of the post office crowded around Tessay so as not
to miss a detail of her transaction.
"I want to make a telephone call to Addis," she told the postmaster and
there was a hum of comment and discussion. This was unusual and
important business indeed.
"I will take you to the telephone exchange," the postmaster told her
importantly, and donned his official blue cap for the occasion. He came
around the counter shouting and hectoring the other customers, pushing
them aside to make way for Lady Sun. Then "he ushered her through to the
back room of the building, where the telephone exchange occupied a
cubicle the size of a small lavatory.
Tessay, the postmaster and as many of the other customers who could find
standing room pushed their way into the tiny room. The exchange operator
was almost overcome by the honour being accorded him by the beautiful
Tessay, and he shouted into his headset like a sergeant major commanding