by C J Turner
‘It must be destroyed! And at once, that is seen.’ Hameeda interrupted with such flat conviction and authority in her voice that Max stared at her in astonishment. ‘Amunet is right, and my husband; it is a thing of great evil and has no place in the chamber of light. Tomorrow you will retrieve it from wherever you have hidden it and destroy it! That will be end of the matter.’ The old lady spoke with great finality, brooking no further debate on the subject.
Over her head, Max looked across at Blake who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. They knew that it was not as simple as that and that they had a murderer to catch and a puzzle to solve before they could afford to relax. However, there was no point in bringing that up and worrying the two women any further this evening. Tomorrow he and Max would have to decide what they were going to do, for tonight, it would seem that the discussion was over.
Having made her decision, Hameeda clearly did not see the need for any more words on the subject and as Amunet seemed abstracted and disinclined to talk, the group eventually broke up and retired to their beds.
If the night brought very little rest to Hameeda, and only a disturbed and unusually dream tossed sleep to Max, it at least fulfilled its promise of enchantment for the other two. They pulled their mattress out on to the flat roof and Blake fell in love with Amunet all over again as, throwing off her earlier preoccupation, she brought a new depth and intensity of passion to their lovemaking under the star filled arc of the heavens.
Blake woke late but refreshed from a deep sleep the next morning. He stretched luxuriously, smiling as the memory of the previous night returned, and turned to find in place of his wife, a crumpled, velvety red rose on the pillow beside him.
Chapter 24
Amunet too had woken refreshed, but she had also woken early. Blake was still sleeping soundly and even when she kissed him softly, he stirred but did not fully waken. She was feeling too keyed up to go back to sleep and her promise to Alice was weighing heavily on her mind. Now would seem an ideal opportunity to deal with it. Full of renewed purpose, she slipped from their improvised bed, and saw the rose Blake had given her the night before lying on the floor. Smiling, she picked it up and put in on the pillow beside her husband’s sleeping head.
Quickly washed and dressed, she paused only to pick up the sturdy rectangular box that she had brought with her from England, and collecting an apple from the kitchen table, quietly let herself out of the house. If she took the steep path they had walked yesterday, she would come to a level area, which she thought must approximately lay above the secret chamber, deep underground.
She sat down with the box beside her and thoughtfully ate the apple with enjoyment as she contemplated the awe-inspiring vista spread before her. From her vantage point, she could take in the stark, bony splendour of the valley in vivid contrast to the distant soft green haze of the cultivated land. Beyond this narrow verdant strip, slivers of silver light caught the movement of the restless Nile. It was very peaceful here above the village and it was with reluctance that she wrenched her gaze from the wonderful panorama and turned her attention to the reason why she was here. Alice had been most specific in her instructions. Now she opened the box and took out the first page from a sheaf of papers inside. They were in the form of a manuscript and Amunet settled down to read with a certain amount of nervous trepidation.
The very first page riveted her attention.
Could Alice have been right all along? Perhaps this chain of events was no accident, as Max’s masterly summary had brought home to her last night. She read on, completely enthralled now, and lost all track of time.
‘… Was it just the sound of the wind in the papyrus beds, or the tremulous echo of a sign, as the promise of the scarab was lost to them forever…’
When Amunet eventually came to the last page and read the final sentence, she sat numbly gazing into the hazy blue distance for a long while. This time she was blind to the magnificence of the scenery. She had not known at the time why Alice had asked her to take the manuscript and read it somewhere near the secret chamber, but now she had done so, everything seemed to slip into place. Alice’s dreams, her nightmares, the scarab and the dagger, all was explained and now that she understood, she knew what had to be done.
She would need Blake’s help, she mused, deep in her plans to help the ancient lovers. Absently, she shuffled the pages together and went to put them back in the box when she noticed handwriting on the back of the past page. The rest of the manuscript had been typed and intrigued, she turned it over and started to read, for some reason half-fearful of what she would learn next.
‘… And the ka of Menkheperne was angry at being cheated of the girl’s soul and it would not rest, but lay dormant for thousands of years, waiting for chance to open a path for it to return to the world of men and seek the means for its revenge.
And that chance came, in a single drop of blood. Blood, which was recognised by the ka, which denied salvation, had impregnated itself into one of Menkheperne’s favourite possessions when he was alive, the dagger that he had used to finally put an end to Tameri’s young life, and which Kenna, in a strange twist of fate, had also used not only to disfigure Menkheperne’s own mummified remains but at the last, to kill himself.
The blood gave his ka the strength to leave the dagger, but being impotent in its present bodiless form, it first had to find an appropriate host, which it could use to do its bidding.
So evil sought evil, but first must find a weaker vessel, unable to fight back, which the ka could make strong again . . . when the existing occupier had . . . been disposed of.’
Fascinated, Amunet read on, so absorbed in the dawning horror of what was unfolding that she hardly felt the crashing blow to her head that sent her spinning out into blackness.
Blake was naturally disappointed when he woke up to find Amunet conspicuous by her absence, but alarm kicked in rapidly when he made his way downstairs and Max and Hameeda had stated in surprise that they had not seen Amunet that morning either. Abruptly turning on his heel, Blake had returned to their room but it was only when he noticed that the box Amunet had insisted on bringing with her was also missing, that he became entirely frantic.
Now his obvious fear was communicated to the other two and they turned out to scour the area for any sign of her.
Because of the missing box, Hameeda and Max were inclined to think that Amunet had merely gone for a walk to find a peaceful spot somewhere in order to read her papers and had forgotten the time, or had fallen asleep. However, the look on Blake’s face frightened them and at his obdurate insistence that she must be found as soon as possible, Hameeda sent for a local man in the village who had a reputation for being a skilled tracker.
It was he who led them to the little plateau above the valley, and there they found a page from the box that had fluttered into a thorn bush and become caught. The tracker cast around and found recent traces of different footsteps leading to the spot where Amunet had sat for some time and a much clearer trail returning from it, for now the imprinted footsteps were much deeper, as if the bearer had been more heavily laden on his way back down the hill. The trail ended in tyre marks showing that a vehicle had been parked for some time, hidden by a fold in the hills, and then driven away. On the ground, he found a small twist of paper, which looked as if it had been torn from a map.
Blake took one look at it and set off at a run to the jeep, stopping only briefly at the house to pick up two revolvers and some spare boxes of ammunition - thanking God as he did so that they had come prepared, and an equally fervent prayer that they would be in time.
Sometime later, Amunet woke to find herself in pitch darkness and acute discomfort. She was lying on what felt like sharp pieces of loose rock, which were digging into various parts of her body and had actually drawn blood in some places, as testified by sticky sore patches on her arms and legs. When she tried cautiously to lift her aching head, she found that blood from her cheek had effectively glued one si
de of her face to the gritty stone floor and she could not stifle a sharp exclamation of pain as she broke free.
A trickle of something warm and wet ran down her face and she was conscious of an excruciating headache as she sat up. For a moment, her vision swam but gradually the pounding steadied to a just bearable level and impatiently, she tried to wipe the blood away from her eyes. It was then that she had discovered the short length of chain, which was securely fastened to each wrist by means of a tight iron band. Her ankles had been fettered in the same way.
What had happened? She remembered sitting on the ledge and reading Alice’s manuscript and then, and then nothing! As her eyes gradually adjusted to the light, she became aware of a faintly lighter area some way off, which gradually defined itself as an oblong of paler grey; the way out perhaps? If she took small enough steps she found she could just about shuffle along. Slowly and unsteadily, she felt her way along the stony walls, which appeared to form some sort of passage, towards the light.
Even before she got to the rough opening, she could see that the cave beyond was not lit with natural light but from the wavering glow cast by two or three lanterns standing on the sandy floor. They created poor enough illumination to read by and the hunched figure squatting down between the lamps had to lift some pages close to his face to squint closely at the neat rows of typing before throwing each one from him in disgust. He appeared to have got through half the manuscript already and discarded pages lay strewn thickly around him.
As soon as she saw who it was, she tried to draw back into the shadows, but it was too late. Quickly springing to his feet, the man angrily tore the page he was holding in two and threw it violently to the floor. Amunet straightened up, willing herself to hide her fear, to stand still with as much dignity as she could muster and stare coldly at the man who stood gloating over her with immense satisfaction in his hideously grinning face. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbing her wrist chain, jerking her forward so roughly that she lost her precarious balance and fell painfully onto the rough stone floor of the central chamber, skinning her knees badly. Swooping down to seize a handful of the discarded papers, he flourished them in her face.
‘What is this rubbish, what does it mean?’ He shouted, little flecks of white saliva gathering in the corners of his mouth.
The stink of his breath made her shy back in disgust and she slipped, falling heavily on her side and jarring her elbow sickeningly on some fallen masonry. Before she had a chance to speak, he had kicked her viciously in the side. For an agonised moment, she could only gasp for breath and as she did so, a sharp pain warned her that he had broken or cracked at least one of her ribs.
‘I thought it must be important for you to leave the house so secretly in order to read it alone, but it is nothing but childish scribbling. It does not matter – I have you, which is what I really wanted, and soon I will have the tomb and everything in it. Even, if that son of Shaitan finds what I left for him and has the wit to use it, I might have your husband too! The so worthy Professor. The interfering, murdering bastard Professor! He sent my uncle to jail and between the two of you, ruined all our plans, and now I will ruin yours. That is right, is it not? That is what you say, a tooth for a tooth? An eye for an eye! And such pretty eyes, perhaps I will make a necklace of them and send it to him! Unless he comes, that will be better! He will see you wearing a pretty necklace made of your own eyes, but you will not be able see him, ha ha! I will not know which of you to kill first – you, I think, while I force him to watch what I shall do to you.’
He giggled in excited anticipation, a hateful sound, and a drool of saliva dribbled out of his slack mouth and fell on her arm. She recoiled in reflex horror and, enjoying her disgust, he spat full in her face, roughly grabbing a handful of her hair and jerking her head painfully back to look at him.
Whatever Mustaf’s original claim to even superficial good looks had been, they had now entirely vanished during the last few hard months. His hold on her hair was making her eyes water and as the wavering light from the lanterns flickered over his face, Amunet noticed a curious thing. His eyes, which were dark and muddy, did not reflect the light. Indeed, they seemed to absorb it so that as he stood looking down at her in triumphant, it was like looking into two dead, black holes.
He saw her shiver and mistaking the reason, laughed and spitefully slapped her hard, open handed across the face, before releasing her to fall back against the rocky walls. Judging her to be sufficiently cowed for the moment, he turned back to his problem.
Mustaf was taking no chances with this one, this devil woman who had dishonoured him in front of his own men way back in London, and he looked forward to creating as slow and painful a death for her as his warped imagination would allow. If her thrice cursed husband had taken the bait and showed up, so much the better.
There had been no amusements for ages, ever since that stupid weakling Ghalida had died so easily under his hands, before he was ready. This one should last longer. Even the blonde English bitch had had to be dispatched quickly and with no refinements. He smiled as he remembered the disbelief and horror in the English woman’s face as she lay on the bed expecting another man and saw Mustaf’s evil countenance leaning over her instead! That had been a surprise for both of them in fact, for he had been expecting Amunet to be in the bed that night and he had come prepared to strangle her with his bare hands, extracting as much pleasure as possible from the slow, agonising death. But the unknown blonde had been examining the dagger when he had silently came up behind her and he had snatched it up and plunged it into her breast before realising what it was. He would have taken it with him as a souvenir, except that he could not resist leaving it as a nice melodramatic touch implicating Blake in a murder which he would find very hard, if not impossible, to explain to the police.
For as Mustaf had lingered to admired the jeweled hilt held fast in the white breast of the English whore, he knew that this was the dagger that he and his uncle had sought for so long. It was too late for his uncle and now he himself had no need of the artifact, for Khalid had found Menkheperne’s tomb for them.
Mustaf spat into the dust at the recollection, bad cess to the old man, he was glad his uncle had shot him, saving Mustaf the job. No, he had no need of the dagger now, there would be plenty of other such valuable trinkets soon. Unlimited wealth and the added enjoyment he would experience when he revenged his uncle and his own loss of face, life could indeed be sweet. He sank into a pleasant reverie of how he planned to kill Hameeda Safwan next, she had always been his enemy – he would enjoy explaining to her first in great detail exactly how her daughter and then her niece had finally been tormented to death. Really, there was no end of the pleasurable rewards in store for him, but first he must get into the tomb.
Mustaf had been there, that horrible night in the ravine when his uncle had perished, but he had kept well to the back as far away as possible from the terrible old man. There was something about Khalid that made him nervous. He had not wanted his uncle to take up with him when Khalid had found his way to their camp one evening and managed to convince Ahmed that he could help them. Khalid had confirmed that Ahmed had been correct all along when he had suspected that Naa’il had possessed a talisman that would lead them to an undiscovered tomb full of treasure, which had belonged to a powerful magician called Menkheperne. He assured Ahmed that now they had no need of it as he, Khalid himself, had discovered the whereabouts of the tomb. With no means to excavate it alone, he was prepared to lead them to it if they agreed to split the plunder with him. Mustaf had been openly skeptical and had objected loudly to them being led by this obviously mad old beggar. He had tried to drive Khalid off there and then, but the seemingly frail figure had unexpectedly turned on Mustaf in fury with the strength and venom of a striking snake. Mustaf had been mortally afraid of the implacable hatred he had seen glaring out of the other man’s rheumy old eyes and thereafter, had left him severely alone.
Khalid seemed so well informed and
convincing that Ahmed was impressed and amused by Mustafa’s fear, insisted that the old man be allowed to demonstrate what he could do. His spy in Blake’s camp was still there and would liase with his master as and when he had news. Ahmed carelessly informed his rebellious nephew later when they were alone, that if Khalid really did show them the whereabouts of the tomb, it would be a simple matter to dispense with his services in a very final sort of way, after they were in possession of the treasure.
Mustaf did not think that the disposal of Khalid would be that easy and he made sure that he kept out of the old man’s way. He had therefore not been caught in the carnage wrought by the avalanche and had managed to escape with one of the pack donkeys up into the hills, where he had stayed concealed. Without his uncle, he was afraid to return to Luxor where the authorities might find him, so he had hidden in a cave until he felt it was safe.
Eventually he had been forced to venture back to civilization when his supplies gave out, but the hard and primitive conditions, which he had endured during those last weeks had inevitable contributed to the final collapse of his sanity, not the strongest suite in his family in any case. His uncle’s jeep had been well hidden and by a stroke of luck had never been found. Thus, on his return to Luxor, he had heard about Blake and Amunet’s approaching marriage.
The chance of wreaking a terrible revenge on the girl who had bested him and destroyed his uncle, was too good an opportunity to miss. After the murder of Lalage, Mustaf had followed Amunet to her Aunt’s house and lain in wait for her.
He had not been idle during his sojourn in the hills, as very carefully and slowly, like a burrowing rat, he managed to uncover part of the entrance to the priest’s tomb. This is what anchored him to this unhappy place and caused him to stoically endure the dreadful conditions and privations. It was a hazardous undertaking and he had been buried several times, on one terrifying occasion up to his chest in loose sharp shale and treacherous slipping sand. He knew well that there would be no help for him if he suffered a serious injury. Every time he flagged and was prepared to give up, he seemed to hear the voice of his uncle exhorting him not to stop, convincing him that he was nearly there with riches beyond his wildest dreams just within reach, he just had to go a little bit further, each time, just a little bit more.