by Emma Carroll
‘That’s why we’ve come, Papa,’ said Lady Evelyn. ‘We’re just going to check, that’s all. We have to know it’s not been plundered.’
There were more knocking sounds. Something heavy was being moved.
‘If we take out those stones …’
‘There, that’s big enough to climb through …’
‘You try first, Eve, you’re the smallest.’
I couldn’t believe they were going in, without any permission to do so. I supposed that made them almost tomb raiders themselves. If what Pepe said was right, then they’d certainly be so in the eyes of Egyptian law.
Yet part of me couldn’t blame them. I mean, who wouldn’t – after all that digging and money spent, all those hopes and dreams – want to have a sly, secret look at what they’d discovered? Tomorrow, in daylight, it would all be official. Maybe tonight, when they thought they were alone, they could pretend what they’d found was theirs.
Hadn’t I felt that too, that night in my bedroom when I’d unwrapped the jar for the first time? What about Grandad and Professor Hanawati when they’d seen it on a market stall? They knew the jar was valuable, and they’d wanted it for themselves.
So imagine being the first person inside the burial chamber for thousands of years. The last feet to have taken those steps would’ve probably been Lysandra, Ay and the rest of Tutankhamun’s mourners. The thought made me dizzy.
Inside, Mr Carter called for another lamp.
‘What can you see in there?’ Lord Carnarvon asked.
I shuffled forwards till I was at the very top of the steps, holding my breath, waiting for the answer.
Mr Carter laughed. A great, thunderous, disbelieving laugh.
‘Carter, tell me, can you see anything?’ Lord Carnarvon insisted again.
‘Yes.’ Mr Carter sounded choked. ‘Wonderful things.’
I clenched my fists, fighting the urge to run down the steps and have a look myself, and blow the consequences. But I knew already what was in that chamber: Lysandra had told us, so I could see it in my head. Chariot wheels, statues, swords, jewellery and baskets, which Mr Carter and co. were gazing at now in absolute amazement. Little did he know the room might well have been a dumping ground for the palace’s unwanted things. Maybe it didn’t matter: Lysandra’s junk was his treasure. That seemed to be how history worked, sometimes.
As if to prove the point, from inside the tomb, someone squealed with delight. I was almost envious of Mr Carter, then. His dream had come true: he’d finally found what he’d been looking for all these years.
The curse hadn’t put him off. He didn’t fear that ‘death would come on swift wings’ to anyone who touched the pharaoh’s tomb.
But then he didn’t seem the type to be scared of anything. Nor did he have a desperately sick grandfather or a best friend with a scorpion sting. He hadn’t read Lysandra’s account, either.
Anyway, I reminded myself, we weren’t here to take from a dead boy’s tomb: we were here to put something back.
Frantically, I waved to the others behind the tent. With Carter inside gloating over his treasures, we could break our cover. Oz came out first, scuttling low like a spider. Then Pepe, leading the camels, with Tulip on Chaplin’s back.
‘Carter’s inside the tomb. They’ve broken in,’ I whispered once they’d reached me. Tulip and Pepe looked shocked.
‘How on earth did he manage that? Where are the guards?’ Tulip gasped.
‘Money.’ Pepe rubbed his fingers again. ‘He’ll have bribed them to keep quiet.’
‘Well, he’s in there now, so this is our chance to start climbing,’ I said urgently.
Pepe tipped his head back to gauge the cliff. ‘Straight up from here?’
I nodded. ‘Can we leave the camels behind?’
‘No. Both your suggestions are –’ Pepe tapped the side of his head – ‘cuckoo.’
I glared at him, but then I caught sight of Tulip’s leg: it wasn’t realistic for her to walk anywhere, or climb. The swelling wasn’t just in her foot any more, but had spread halfway up her calf.
Desperate, I turned to Pepe. ‘We need to find a way up there. Is there a path?’
He thought about it for a nerve-rackingly long moment. ‘I have local knowledge of the area, yes. Follow me.’
He walked steadily, his light-coloured galabiya visible in the dark. That would also make us easy to spot, so it was a relief when we rounded another heap of stones and were finally out of sight of the entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb. The trouble was, Pepe kept walking. The part of the cliff we needed to climb was getting increasingly far behind us.
‘Um, Pepe?’ I spoke up. ‘Where are we going?’
He stopped to point to our left, where the valley side towered above us. In the dark, it was just an outline against the sky, but it did look slightly less terrifying than the other way. ‘You can climb quickly, or you can take the camel way around.’
We had to trust him.
Yet even this route got tricky. The climb was so steep, we soon had to get off the camels and lead them – apart from Tulip, who clung to Chaplin’s neck. All too quickly, I was stupidly out of breath. Either side of the path was loose shingle. Sometimes, bits would fall on us from higher up the cliff.
‘Ouch!’ Oz yelped more than once. ‘That hurt!’ It did too, like someone with a pea-shooter was firing down on your head.
We’d been climbing for over an hour, when Tulip vomited. She did it very neatly over Chaplin’s shoulder, and then insisted she was fine. She didn’t sound it, mind you. I was anxious she was getting worse, and again I thought that we should’ve taken her back to the boat. It was too late now.
The path got even narrower the further we climbed. Under my satchel, my blouse was stuck to me with sweat. Our little rest stops soon started to become more frequent. Oz kept asking for water. Tulip told him to be quiet.
‘How much further to the top?’ I asked anxiously.
‘Not far,’ Pepe assured me. ‘You can almost see it from here.’
You couldn’t, but it was kind of him to lie.
When we set off again this time, the path looped back on itself. I started to feel more optimistic. At least now, I guessed, we were heading back in the direction of Mr Carter’s dig. It was a hard climb, though. We went zig-zag fashion across more of the shingle, which was horrid stuff to walk on: it kept shifting and sliding away from you like loose snow. The camels, with their huge plate-like feet, managed it better than we did, though they didn’t much like it when little stones from higher up the hillside started falling on us again.
‘Arrggh!’ Tulip cried, as one pinged off her cheek. Her camel lurched forwards like he’d been stung by a whip. Luckily, Pepe was leading him and quickly calmed him. Oz and I were holding Charlie, the sensible one, who just grunted and flicked his ears.
The stones kept raining down on us – nasty little things that hurt like anything – and I was worried the whole hillside was about to slide out from under our feet. Something higher up the path seemed to be disturbing the shingle.
Pepe, who’d stopped and was squinting upwards, clearly had the same idea. ‘Oh dear me. I believe we’ve been spotted by a guard.’
‘What? Where?’ Following his gaze, I glimpsed a shoulder, a swinging arm, heard the crunch-crunch of footsteps. Someone was on the path above us.
‘And there’s a little detail I didn’t tell you,’ Pepe confessed. ‘The guards here carry guns.’
19
‘Guns?’ My jaw dropped. ‘What, with bullets and everything?’
‘They are loaded, yes,’ Pepe said quietly.
I glanced at Tulip, at Oz. I’d already put them through enough: this was extra danger we didn’t need.
‘What do we do now?’ Tulip whispered.
Pepe raised a finger. ‘Be quiet!’
I did, on tiptoe, straining my ears. The guard’s footsteps above us got fainter, stopped, started again, then thankfully were gone. All I could hear was the desert.
It wasn’t like being down by the river, which buzzed with insects and people. Up here, where there was nothing but rocks and sand, the silence made your ears hum. I’d never known quiet like it, though that wasn’t what Pepe meant.
About two hundred feet below us lights appeared once more. I was relieved to see how close we now were to the official tomb of Tutankhamun. Pepe’s route had almost brought us back to the spot we’d started from, only this time we were seeing the Carter dig from above.
‘They’re coming out of the tomb!’ Oz hissed. ‘Are they carrying any loot?’
‘I can’t see anything obvious.’
‘It’s not theirs to take,’ Pepe reminded us.
‘Death shall come on swift wings,’ Tulip murmured.
Yet none of the group looked remotely spooked or worried. Even from up here, I could sense their excitement. Mr Carter had an arm around Pecky’s shoulders, Lady Evelyn had taken her hat off and was holding her head like she was stunned.
When the group finally mounted their donkeys and tottered away across the sand, I took a long slow breath. Now it was our turn.
‘What about the guard?’ Oz was worried. ‘He’s still out there somewhere. There might be more than one, you know.’
I glanced at Tulip, who was crouched low on her camel, shivering.
‘We’ll have to risk it.’
*
A few minutes later, we arrived at the very top of the cliff. There was no sign of anyone else up here. It was more bare rock, more sand. What we now had to do was find which way was east. By my reckoning it had to be at least two or three o’clock in the morning, if not later. Mrs Mendoza would be back from her cocktail party. If she was anything like my mum she’d be fretting herself silly about where we’d gone, but it was best not to think about that now.
‘To find east,’ Oz told me, ‘you look at the stars.’
The trouble was, there were so many. Oz was scratching his head, looking confused. ‘That’s Venus, there. No, wait, it might be that one. Or is it Jupiter?’
‘Ask Pepe,’ I told him.
Meanwhile Tulip had slid off her camel and was peering intently at something on the ground. She picked it up, holding it suspiciously at arm’s length. ‘Look at this.’
It was a notebook, like the ones Mrs Mendoza used, covered in that funny dots-and-dashes writing reporters did incredibly quickly. It wasn’t wrinkled or dirty, either. Someone must’ve only recently dropped it.
‘That man we saw just now – it’s got to be his,’ Tulip said excitedly. ‘I wonder if he’s been watching Howard Carter too.’
‘You think he’s a reporter? Not a guard?’ I asked, hopefully, because it’d mean we weren’t about to get shot at least.
Before she could answer, Tulip threw up all over Oz’s shoes.
After that she agreed to lie down. In the shelter of a heap of rocks, Pepe made her a pillow from his scarf. Chaplin, who I think had taken a shine to Tulip, dropped down nearby. Charlie stayed standing, swishing his tail like he was in very deep thought.
Together, we worked out where Venus was in the sky.
‘Sunrise will be in an hour or so,’ Pepe seemed to think.
Oz, shoeless and rather miffed, admitted Pepe knew more about stars than he did.
Once we’d found east, we started looking for a tomb entrance. I still had in my head the official one we’d seen down in the valley, which was set into the rock like a bunker. Back in England, Grandad had also shown me pictures of the Rameses tombs whose entrances were wider than the front door at the Winter Palace.
But we weren’t looking for an official tomb, I reminded myself. We were searching for something so small and quiet it might easily be mistaken for a hole in the hillside or the resting place of an ordinary boy.
There was a ledge that ran just below the top of the cliff for ten, maybe twenty yards. In daylight, the views out over the valley from here would probably be terrific. It was as good a place as any to look, though at first glance there was nothing there – just more rock. More boulders to step around.
Behind me Pepe said something I didn’t catch.
‘Sorry?’ I turned around a bit too fast. My right foot slipped off the ledge. Arms whirling, I fought to keep my balance. But everything was in the wrong place and there was nothing to hold on to but air. I panicked.
‘Grab the rock!’ Pepe yelled, waving frantically at a boulder that stood between us.
Just as I felt myself toppling over the edge, I latched on to it. First with one arm. Then the other. I squatted, hugging the boulder for dear life. When I finally felt safe enough, I fumbled to check my satchel was still there: it was, thank goodness.
It was then I felt air against my cheek. It came from behind the boulder – just once – and was warm, like someone’s breath. I was also aware of a shift inside of me. As if my head was clearing, or I’d just stretched my tired legs.
No, that wasn’t it. Not quite.
It was the absolute opposite of the gloomy, heavy feeling I’d dragged around ever since Grandad fell ill. When Lysandra guessed what Maya had done with Kyky’s heart, she’d said it was like a lock opening. It was the best way I could think of describing it too.
‘Pepe?’ I said, trying to stay calm. ‘Can you come here a sec?’
We were more careful this time. Oz was under strict instructions to keep way back from the edge. The boulder wasn’t much bigger than a motorcar tyre, but it took both Pepe and me to move it even a little way. Behind it was an opening. It was small – cupboard-door sized, probably. We crouched around it, trying to peer inside. But when I reached in with my arm I couldn’t feel the end of it, and if anything, it seemed to get wider further along.
‘It’s the size for one person,’ Pepe said.
‘I’m the smallest,’ Oz pointed out.
‘And the youngest,’ I reminded him. ‘Your sister would go berserk if anything happened to you.’
‘Aren’t we a team?’ he asked, sounding upset.
I looked at him. He was standing just back from the ledge, big-eyed, springy-haired. The boy who never went to school or spoke to strangers, here on a mountainside in Egypt in the middle of the night. He still wasn’t one for hugs, mind you, so I patted his arm. ‘We are a team,’ I told him. ‘None of us would’ve done this on our own.’
He sniffed. ‘But—’
‘Sssh,’ I stopped him. ‘This last bit I’m doing for my grandad, all right? Stay with your sister. I won’t be long.’
Hands stuffed in his pockets, Oz picked his way back along the ledge.
Pepe, though, didn’t.
‘I haven’t enquired till now what exactly you are doing, English girl,’ he said, folding his arms. ‘But the time has come for me to ask.’
All I did was open my satchel and take out the jar. Even though it was still dark, I sensed the jar’s power, its gleam of gold, the Anubis head, the heavy, important weight of it.
Twenty-two years ago, an Egyptian boy had stumbled across Kyky’s tomb and the jar inside it. Very soon he regretted what he’d found. And out of nowhere, I thought of what Dad had said that day I’d stood up for Tulip in school.
Being English didn’t give me the right to sort out other people’s problems, not when they could solve them themselves.
‘Here.’ I handed the jar to Pepe. ‘We’re returning it to where it belongs.’
He did look amazed, I’ll give him that. Even more so when I mentioned what was inside, wrapped in old linen, and what Lysandra had told us about the boy pharaoh whose official tomb Mr Carter was feverishly exploring directly below us in the valley.
For a very long moment, Pepe held the jar to his chest.
‘His heart?’ he murmured, like he couldn’t quite believe it, and who could blame him? When he’d recovered, there was a new determination in his face. He tucked the jar inside his gown.
‘Let’s begin,’ he said and, crouching down, climbed in through the opening.
I followed. Crawling inside was t
he easy bit. I went on my belly, using my elbows, until the passage was wide and tall enough that I could get up on my hands and knees. Pepe must’ve gone fast because I lost him immediately. The quiet in here was thicker even than the quiet outside. All I could hear was the blood thumping in my ears. I was shaking a little – from tiredness, from the unbelievable thrill that this was it. I was here.
Then I got my first surprise. I expected the passage to keep going horizontally into the hillside. It didn’t.
‘Whoa!’ I was falling.
Not far, thankfully. I landed with a jarring thump on what felt like a step down. With my outstretched foot I could feel more steps cut into the rock. It was then, a little way below me, I saw a light.
‘Pepe?’ I called out.
‘It’s me,’ he answered. ‘These steps are risky. Here, have the torch.’
As Oz would’ve predicted, the torch was on the blink. There was just enough dim light to see steps spiralling downwards, though not in the logical way a staircase would: these took you by surprise. Pepe was just ahead of me, treading slowly and carefully. It took every ounce of my concentration not to stumble into him. Some of the steps were shallow, some deep; one was so far from the next that you had to leap to get to it. By the time we reached the bottom, my legs felt like string.
The torch went out.
The darkness was thick and total – not spooky, exactly, but rather queer. The air felt thick and stuffy, the walls a bit too close on all sides.
‘We’re burying the jar here?’ Pepe whispered, sounding unsure.
Doubts, as doubts do, chose their moment, and suddenly my head was full of them. What if this wasn’t the right place? Was I too late? Had Grandad already died? Was Tulip about to? Were the bad omens going to come true?
Tulip would have told me to pull myself together. Mum would have reminded me I had Grandad’s spirit, and Dad, well, he’d have said our hard work had paid off. My brain, for once, listened.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This is the place.’