Sphinx

by Robin Cook

  Erica pushed on. Although the presence of the bats was horrifying, it was also encouraging. There had to be a connection with the outside. Eventually she tried lighting the mummy wrappings and discovered they burned briskly. In fact, Erica found that the pieces of mummies with their wrappings burned like torches, and she forced herself to pick them up. The forearms were best, because they were easy to hold. With the help of better light she worked her way through many galleries and up several levels until she felt fresh air. Dousing her torch, Erica walked the last feet by the light of the moon. When she emerged into the warm Egyptian night, she was several hundred yards from the place she had entered the mountain with Muhammad. Directly below her was the village of Qurna. There were very few lights.

  For a time Erica stood trembling at the entrance to the catacomb, appreciating the moon and the stars in a way she’d never done. She knew she was enormously lucky to be alive.

  The first thing she needed was a place to rest, pull herself together, and have a drink. Her throat was raw from the suffocating dust. She also wanted to wash, as if the experience clung to her like dirt, and most of all she wished to see a friendly face. The closest source of all these comforts was Aida Raman’s house. She could see it up against the hillside. A light still shone in the window.

  Stepping from the seclusion of the catacomb, Erica walked warily along the base of the cliff. Until she got back to Luxor, she would take no chance on being seen by Muhammad or the Nubian. What she really wanted to do was get back to Yvon. She’d tell him as best she could the location of the statue and then get out of Egypt. She’d had enough.

  When she was directly above Aida Raman’s, Erica began the descent. For the first hundred yards it was deep sand, then loose gravel, which frightened her by shifting noisily in the bright moonlight. Finally she reached the back of the house.

  Erica waited for a few minutes in the shadows, watching the village. She saw no movement. Satisfied that it was all clear, she walked around the building into the courtyard and knocked at the door.

  Aida Raman shouted something in Arabic. Erica responded by calling out her name and asking if she could talk with her.

  “Go away,” shouted Aida through the closed door.

  Erica was surprised. Aida had been so warm and friendly. “Please, Mrs. Raman,” she said through the door. “I need a drink of water.”

  The door unlatched and swung open. Aida Raman was clad in the same cotton dress she had on for their first meeting.

  “Thank you,” said Erica. “I’m sorry to trouble you. But I am very thirsty.”

  Aida looked older than she had two days previously. Gone was the apparent humor. “All right,” she said, “but wait here by the door. You cannot stay.”

  While the old woman fetched a drink, Erica looked around the room. The familiar sight was comforting. The long-handled shovel nested in its brackets. The framed photos hung neatly on the wall. Many were of Howard Carter with a turbaned Arab Erica thought had to be Raman. There was a small mirror among the photos, and Erica was shocked by her appearance.

  Aida Raman brought some of the juice she’d given Erica on her first visit. Erica drank slowly. Swallowing hurt her throat.

  “My family was very angry when I told them you tricked me into revealing the papyrus to you,” said Aida.

  “Family?” said Erica, the drink reviving her. “I thought you said you were the last of the Ramans.”

  “I am. My two sons died. But I also had two daughters, who have families. It was one of my grandsons I told about your visit. He became very angry and took the papyrus.”

  “What did he do with it?” asked Erica, alarmed.

  “I don’t know. He said it had to be treated very carefully and that he would put it somewhere safe. He also said that the papyrus was a curse, and that now that you have seen it, you must die.”

  “Do you believe that?” Erica knew that Aida Raman was no fool.

  “I don’t know. It’s not what my husband said.”

  “Mrs. Raman,” Erica said, “I translated the whole papyrus. Your husband was right. There was nothing about a curse. The papyrus was written by an ancient architect for Pharaoh Seti I.”

  A dog barked loudly in the village. A human voice shouted in reply.

  “You must go,” said Aida Raman. “You must go in case my grandson returns. Please.”

  “What is your grandson’s name?” asked Erica.

  “Muhammad Abdulal.”

  The news hit Erica like a slap in the face.

  “You know him?” asked Aida.

  “I think I met him tonight. Does he live here in Qurna?”

  “No, he lives in Luxor.”

  “Have you seen him tonight?” asked Erica nervously.

  “Today, but not tonight. Please, you must go.”

  Erica hastened to leave. She was more nervous than Aida. But at the doorway she paused. Loose ends were beginning to merge. “What kind of work does Muhammad Abdulal do?” Erica was remembering that Abdul Hamdi had written in the hidden letter in the guidebook that a government official was involved.

  “He is the chief of the guard of the necropolis and he helps his father run the concession stand in the Valley of the Kings.”

  Erica nodded in understanding. Chief of the guards was the perfect position from which to mastermind a black-market operation. Then Erica thought about the concession stand and Raman. “And that concession stand is the same one that your husband, Sarwat Raman, built?”

  “Yes, yes, Miss Baron, please go.”

  All at once everything became clear. All at once she believed she could explain everything. And it all depended on the concession stand in the Valley of the Kings.

  “Aida,” said Erica with feverish excitement, “listen to me. As your husband said, there is no ‘Curse of the Pharaohs,’ and I can prove it, provided you will help. I just need time. All I ask is that you do not tell anyone, not even your family, that I have returned to see you. They will not ask, I can assure you. So all I’m begging is that you do not bring it up. Please.” Erica grasped Aida’s upper arms to emphasize her earnestness.

  “You can prove my husband was right?”

  “Absolutely,” said Erica.

  Aida nodded her head. “All right.”

  “Oh, there is something else,” said Erica. “I need a flashlight.”

  “All I have is an oil lamp.”

  “That will be fine,” said Erica.

  As she left, Erica gave Aida a hug, but the old woman remained passive and withdrawn. Holding the oil lamp and several books of matches, Erica stood in the shadow of the house watching the village. It was deathly still. The moon had passed the zenith and was now in the western sky. The lights of Luxor were still bright with activity.

  Taking the same path she had two days previously, Erica hiked up the spur of the mountain. It was a much easier climb in the moonlight than in the hot sun.

  Erica knew she was violating her recent resolve to leave the rest of the mystery to Yvon and the police, but the conversation with Aida had rekindled her intoxication with the past. Going from the tomb of Ahmose down into the public catacombs had offered her a single explanation for all the disparate events, including the mystery of the inscription on the statue and the meaning of the papyrus. And with the knowledge that Muhammad Abdulal would never imagine she was free, Erica felt reasonably safe. Even if he wanted to check the Ahmose tomb, it would probably take days to raise the portcullis. Erica believed she had time, and she wanted to visit the Valley of the Kings and the concession stand of Raman. If she was right, she would discover a truth that would make Tutankhamen’s tomb pale to insignifica
nce.

  Reaching the summit of the ridge, she paused to catch her breath. The desert wind softly whistled among the naked peaks, adding to the feeling of desolation. From where she was standing she could see into the dark and barren Valley of the Kings with its network of etched paths.

  Erica could see her goal. The concession stand and rest house stood out clearly on its small rocky promontory. Seeing it encouraged her, and she pushed on, descending carefully to keep from setting off small avalanches of pebbles. She did not want to disturb anyone who might be in the valley. Once she had joined the route to the ancient necropolis workers’ village, the trail flattened out and she could walk much more easily. Before entering one of the carefully scraped pathways lined with stones that ran between the tombs, Erica waited and listened. All she could hear was the wind and the occasional screech of a bat in flight.

  With a light step Erica walked to the center of the valley and mounted the front steps of the concession stand. As she expected, it was tightly shuttered and locked. Walking back out onto the veranda, Erica let her line of vision trace the triangle made by Tutankhamen’s tomb, Seti I’s tomb, and the concession stand. Then she walked around to the rear of the rock building, and steeling herself against the foul odors, pushed her way into the ladies’ room. Putting a match to Aida Raman’s oil lamp, she checked out the room, following the foundation line. There was nothing strange about its construction.

  Within the men’s room, the pungent smell of urine was much more intense. It came from a long urinal made from fired brick built along the front wall. Above the urinal was a two-foot-high crawl space that extended forward under the veranda; the men’s room did not abut the front foundation of the building. Erica walked toward the urinal. The lip of the crawl space was at shoulder height. Holding the oil lamp into the opening, she tried to look in, but the light penetrated for only five or six feet. She could see an opened sardine can and a few bottles strewn on the dirt floor.

  With the help of the waste barrel Erica climbed up into the crawl space. She left her tote bag on the edge. Avoiding the debris, she crawled forward like a crab until she came to the front masonry wall. The smell of the toilet was worse in the confined space, and Erica’s enthusiasm rapidly waned. But having come this far, she forced herself to check the rough stone wall from one end to the other. Nothing!

  Resting her head on her wrists, Erica admitted that she’d been wrong. It had seemed so clever. She sighed deeply, then tried to turn around. It was difficult, so she began to worm her way backward toward the toilet. Holding the oil lamp in one hand, she attempted to push herself backward with the other, but the earth under her was loose and gave way. She tried to gain a better purchase on the ground, and when she pushed, she felt something smooth under the dirt.

  Erica twisted herself and looked down. Her right hand was touching a metallic surface. Scraping away some of the dirt, she exposed a piece of sheet metal. She put the lamp down and with both hands began to clear away the loose earth. At the perimeter of the metal she could see that it had been set down into a carved bed in the rock. She had to clear away all the dirt before she could lift the edge of the metal and work it up over the mounds of surrounding earth. Beneath the sheet of metal a yawning shaft had been cut into the bedrock.

  Holding the light over the hole, Erica could see that it was about four feet deep and was the beginning of a tunnel that headed toward the front of the building. She had been right! Her head slowly rose, and she stared into the gloom. A sense of satisfaction and excitement gripped her. She knew how Howard Carter had felt in November 1922.

  Quickly she pulled her tote bag into the depths of the crawl space. Then she lowered herself backward into the shallow pit and held the oil lamp to the mouth of the tunnel. It slanted downward and immediately enlarged. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward. At first she had to walk partially bent over. As she advanced, she tried to estimate the yardage. The tunnel was heading directly for Tutankhamen’s tomb.

  Nassif Boulos crossed the dark empty parking area of the Valley of the Kings. He was seventeen years old and the youngest of the three nighttime guards. As he walked, he hiked up the shoulder strap of his aged rifle, which had been abandoned in Egypt during the First World War. He was angry because it was not his turn to walk up to the end of the valley and back to the guard house, where he could rest and get a drink. Once again his colleagues had taken advantage of his youth and lack of seniority by ordering him to make the rounds.

  The moonlit night soon soothed his anger, leaving him merely restless and anxious for something to break the boredom of his watch. But the valley was quiet, and each of the tombs was sealed by its stout iron gate. Nassif would have loved to use his rifle against a thief, and his mind wandered into one of his fantasies in which he protected the valley against a band of brigands.

  He stopped across from the entrance to Tutankhamen’s tomb. He wished the tomb were being found now instead of a half-century before. He looked up at the concession stand, because that was where he’d have been on guard in Carter’s day. He’d have hidden behind the parapet on the veranda, and no one would be able to approach the tomb without succumbing to his murderous rifle.

  Looking up, Nassif noticed the door to the lavatories was ajar. He realized it had never been left open before, and he debated whether he wanted to walk up to the building. Then he looked up into the valley and decided he’d check the lavatory on the way back. While he walked, he pictured himself traveling to Cairo with a group of men he’d arrested.

  Erica estimated that she should be very close to Tutankhamen’s tomb. Progress had been slow because of the rounded, uneven floor of the tunnel. In front of her there was a sharp turn to the left, and she could not see ahead until she had rounded the corner. The floor of the passageway then slanted steeply down and entered a room. With her hands pressed against the rough, rock-hewn sides of the tunnel, she inched herself downward until her feet rested on a smooth floor. She had entered an underground chamber.

  Now Erica guessed she was directly below the antechamber of Tutankhamen’s tomb. She lifted the oil lamp above her head, and the light spread out, illuminating smoothly finished but unadorned walls. The room was about twenty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, with a ceiling made of a single gigantic limestone block. As Erica’s eyes dropped to the floor, she saw an enormous tangle of skeletons, some with varying amounts of naturally mummified tissue. Holding the light a little closer, she could see that each one of the skulls had been fractured and penetrated by the blow of a heavy blunt instrument.

  “My God,” whispered Erica. She knew what she was looking at. This was the remains of the massacre of the ancient workers who had dug the chamber in which she was standing.

  Slowly she passed through the room with its gruesome reminder of ancient cruelty, and began to descend a long flight of steps that led to a masonry wall. Raman had opened a large hole, and Erica stepped into another, much larger room. When the light penetrated the darkness, Erica gasped for breath and steadied herself against the wall. Spread out in front of her was an archaeological fairyland. The room was supported by massive square columns. The walls were painted with exquisite images of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. In front of each deity was the image of Seti I. Erica had found the pharaoh’s treasure. Nenephta had realized that the safest spot for one treasure was below another.

  Gingerly Erica advanced, holding her oil lamp so that the flickering light could play upon the myriad objects carefully stored within the room. In contrast to Tutankhamen’s small tomb, there was no disarray. Everything had its place. Entire gilded chariots were standing as if waiting to be harnessed to a horse. Huge coffers and upright chests fashioned from cedar and inlaid with ebony lined the right wall.

  One small ivory chest was open, and its content—jewelry made with unparalleled elegance—had been carefully l
aid out on the floor. Obviously it had been a source of plunder for Raman.

  Wandering around the central pillars, Erica discovered there was another stairway. This led to a further room of the same dimensions, also filled with treasure. There were several passageways leading to still more rooms.

  “My God,” said Erica again, only this time with astonishment, not horror. She realized that she was in a vast complex of chambers extending downward and outward in bewildering directions.

  She knew she was gazing on a treasure beyond comprehension. As she wandered on, she thought of the famous Deir el-Bahri cache discovered in the late 1800’s and carefully plundered by the Rasul family for ten years. Here the Raman family and then the Abdulal family were apparently doing the same.

  Entering another room, Erica stopped. She was standing in a chamber that was relatively empty. There were four matching chests of ebony built in the form of Osiris. The decorations on the walls were from the Book of the Dead. The vaulted ceiling was painted black with gold stars. In front of Erica was a doorway carefully blocked with masonry and sealed with the ancient necropolis seals. On each side of the doorway were alabaster plinths with hieroglyphics carved in high relief along the front. Erica could read the phrase instantly. “Eternal life granted to Seti I, who rests under Tutankhamen.”

  All at once it was clear to Erica that the verb was “rest,” not “rule,” and the preposition was “under,” not “after.” She also realized she was looking at the original location of the two Seti statues. They had been standing across from each other in front of the masonry wall for three thousand years.