Gold of the Ancients

by Graham Warren

  Cairo had mentioned that he knew where to go. In his haste to follow him, and also because of his desperate wish to not be arrested, not forgetting the fact that he was still naked, Alex completely forgot to kill the speedboat motor. It had soon killed itself, sending a mushroom shaped cloud into the sky which, for the few seconds before the wind took hold of it, had looked much like a mini nuclear explosion.

  Kate, Alex, Emmy and Cairo, having been well fed, were now sitting in an upper room, in the house which Cairo had led them to. They had a panoramic view over the bay. Below them, two floors below them to be precise, was a family run bakers. Apparently the whole building was owned by some relation or other of Cairo’s. He had memorised the address, though he had never been here before.

  “I can picture how Alex escaped. I saw most of your rescue, Kate. That was scary! Much to my regret I can only imagine the naked bit,” Emmy flushed as she said this, but was pleased to see the smile on Alex’s face. “What I don’t get, is how you managed to set fire to so many boats which were nowhere near you.”

  “It was the parachute,” Alex said by way of explanation.

  “So, it was not you. The burning boats were all the fault of the parachute. Did I get that right?”

  Alex went to reply, but Kate got in first. “He’s the shy type so he wrapped himself up in the parachute once I was on board. Then suddenly it was on fire – whoosh!”

  “It think some of it must have gotten caught up on the exhaust. It really went up in flames amazingly quickly. There was nothing I could do except let go; the wind did the rest. I was really lucky; I didn’t even get a burn.” It had been the only time in the day where he had been glad of the wind being so strong. It had literally ripped the now flaming parachute from the speedboat only to cause utter devastation half a kilometre away, as it draped itself across several boats. The inferno which ensued was unbelievable as flames leapt from one burning boat to another, carried across on the wind.

  “You WERE flipping lucky,” Kate added.

  Alex now had the use of an oversized dressing gown. Cairo’s relation, even though he did not know her name, had been unfazed at the sight of a naked foreigner arriving out of the blue, and had simply handed the dressing gown to him as though she did this with all arriving guests.

  “So, who are these relations of yours, Cairo?” Kate asked.

  “Not know. Dad made me member … remember many address, as they safe places to go. This one of them.”

  “Any other addresses in Alexandria? Alex asked.

  “No. This only one.”

  “At least we are safe for now, thanks to Cairo.” Emmy tussled his hair and he grinned contentedly.

  Not one of them slept well that night. What with feeling safe, having a really comfy large bed and an old sofa – which would rival any at the Winter Palace Hotel for both size and comfort – combined with the day they had just had, they should have all slept like logs, however, their thoughts would not let them.

  They were all experiencing very similar thoughts, though not necessarily in the same order. It was a complicated confusing mix of facts, half facts, educated guesses, and total unmitigated guesswork, which at times veered well off into the world of fantasy. There was so much for each of them to digest, now that they knew what they all now knew!

  Chapter 33

  -

  A Trip to the Cinema!

  “Let’s keep it simple,” Kate had said after the teasing of Alex over his rescue had played itself out.

  Alex had responded with, “Good idea. Let’s do nothing more than tell each other what we each know, quickly and succinctly.”

  They had all agreed, though as always in these situations keeping things simple proved to be anything except simple. So many emotions were involved as each of them had told of recent events from their point of view. There had been shock and tears as Emmy had told of the death, the murder of the young girl. There had been no less shock as she had told them just how badly beaten Rose had been. You could have knocked Alex over with a feather at the news that his father was being held against his will. That he had actually been abducted from his hotel.

  Emmy had expressed time and time again her regret at not trusting in Bast.

  Yes, as with every conversation of this type it had repeatedly covered the same ground, though from different points of view. Yes, short explanations had rambled off into long monologues. Yes, there had been many snippets added in as memories had been jogged, but all things considered, it had brought to the fore the extreme barbarity of Cleopatra. Rose, the young girl, and how Cleopatra’s soldiers had set upon the person whom they had thought was Alex, confirmed that she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted … it was just that they had no idea what she did indeed want! Gold, yes … but for what? Cleopatra’s status already determined that she would have had more gold than she could ever know what to do with. Why on earth would she risk everything to get more?

  Sleep continued to evade Alex as he went over what they all now knew? “Okay, what do I know? I know that we all agreed that stolen ancient gold, artefacts – many possibly from dad’s digs in Luxor – is being taken to Tanis in order to be reworked and renamed. Yes, that is a fact, I’m happy with that. I agreed that Cleopatra was having her name put on everything in order to let the conversation proceed. Oh, Kate was being a real pain. I don’t think this is the case, there is something else going on.

  “So, what is going on? Why do I have doubts? The name changing is being carried out by abducted craftsmen who are being held as slaves and the work is being overseen by Cleopatra’s sister. Fact! She is obviously working in collusion with Cleopatra. Fact! Though why would she work with Cleopatra?” Alex thought about it for a while. He even wondered if there was a weakness here they could exploit, given the right circumstances. After further thought, he doubted it. The simple fact that she was working with Cleopatra, when she knew that Cleopatra was the person responsible for her death, told Alex that she could not be swayed. He was aware that they were all restless, that none of them were able to sleep. He carried on with his thoughts.

  “From Tanis, the gold must be going to Cleopatra’s palace.” He did not know this for a fact, none of them did, but there was no other logical conclusion. “The palace is now below current sea level out in the bay, not half a kilometre from here. Rose and dad are being held prisoner there, in order to keep Bast under Cleopatra’s control. Why?” The reason for this was not just unclear to Alex, it was opaque.

  “Why is Cleopatra happy to hold dad hostage, when it could not be clearer that she wants me dead?” Alex shuddered at the thought. “She has tortured Rose … poor Rose … though she drew the line at killing her. Perhaps blood is thicker than water?” After playing around with different scenarios he thought this unlikely. Being a relative of Cleopatra was not the reason she was still alive, being Bast’s closest friend was!

  “Does Cleopatra want Kate to be her captive or to put her to death? If she does indeed want Kate dead, and I know she wants me dead, then in what way are we such a threat to her?” His head then streamed with question upon question which none of them had been able to answer with any certainty. “What is the gold being used for? Why does Cleopatra need Bast? The moment Cleopatra has no need for dad or Rose, will she release them or kill them?”

  There was one final question which was going around his head, a question which he had not mentioned to the others. “Why was Ramses so reticent to come this far north?” Alex did not believe it had anything to do with the level of the ancient land. Then for some unknown reason, because he had not consciously given any of them a moment’s thought, his mother, Einstein, and the waiter in The Meeting Place all sprang into his mind at once.

  “Mum was killed to stop dad leaving for Egypt. Even for Cleopatra that was a little extreme.” He thought some more. “Possibly not … she doesn’t appear to value life. After all, she had her own sister killed, but there must have been better ways to stop dad from going to his dig. Once he
re in Egypt, it would have been so much easier for her to get to dad. The people stealing the gold would have willingly killed him in order to protect their income. NO, this does not make sense.” Alex wondered if he was just far too tired for it all to make sense as he was starting to experience some very dark thoughts.

  Alex needed to sleep, but his mind remained far too busy. He thought back to his lessons with Dr Margretti and attempted to clear his mind in the way he had been taught. It did not work. Kate, Emmy and Cairo were all far too restless. The blue and red flashing lights, as well as flames from the ongoing situation in the bay, was also not helping. The room having no curtains meant that there was no way to keep them out.

  He quietly left the bedroom and headed along the landing to the toilet. On his way back he peaked into a room whose door had been left ajar. It was even larger than the bedroom they were in. The king-sized bed was dwarfed by the room’s size. There was no other furniture and, rather surprisingly, there was no window. He went in, shut the door, and lied down. Peace, total peace.

  There had been several thought processes which Dr Margretti had tried to impress on Alex, all of which were apparently important for him to master. The one Alex was attempting now, he had never mastered. The doctor had given lots of long rambling reasons why, but as far as Alex was concerned the reason was simple … he had been bored!

  Well, he most certainly was not bored now. His mind was full to bursting. This thought process was a sorting process. A way of discarding the irrelevant, focusing the relevant, and much more importantly for the situation they now found themselves in, inserting vital ancient memories into the narrative. It offered clarity, if he could achieve it!

  Alex had been lying on his back for a good ten minutes in the darkened room. The only light to enter was that which crept in around the door. During this time he had experienced nothing, absolutely nothing. Then it dawned on him, his hands were in the wrong position. He now remembered Dr Margretti saying that the placement of the hands was of paramount importance. It had something to do with the flow of energy around his body. Crossing his arms over his chest and placing his palms flat down he hoped nobody looked in right now, because he would look as though he was pretending to be a mummy. Imagining Kate’s hysterics at the sight of him stopped anything else from going through his mind. He got up quickly, turned the key in the bedroom door, and went back to the bed.

  This was a great improvement. He soon felt himself reach the point he had once reached whilst under the instruction of Dr Margretti. Just as it had been then, it was a really strange sensation. He was totally aware that he was looking up from the bed with his eyes wide open, yet his brain showed him a moving image where he was looking down upon himself – and not where he now was. He saw himself sitting alone in a darkened cinema. He descended to his seated body; as he passed through the light of the projector he entered a full out-of-body experience. He was no longer on the bed, no longer looking down upon himself, he was sitting in the cinema. He could feel the hard uncomfortable seat pushing into him. It was a small, classically designed cinema, with heavy red velvet curtains silently drawing apart.

  Back when he had been under the supervision of Dr Margretti, this was as far as he had ever taken the experience. On that occasion the curtains had opened to reveal nothing more than a bright white screen, which quickly faded to black, before disappearing altogether as he returned to being in the classroom.

  This time Alex had progressed to the next step. Having lost any thought of where he actually was, every sense told him that he was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden framed seat in a cinema, about to watch a movie which he had wanted to see for some time. He was so convinced of this that he was wondering if he had time to go and get some popcorn before the film started. It did not even cross his mind that he had no idea how he got to where he was, or that he also had no idea of what he had come to watch. It was not even worrying him that he was contemplating buying popcorn, when he really disliked popcorn. The screen in front of him drew his attention as it was now anything except blank.

  Chapter 34

  -

  She Lives Down There, Kid!

  Alex looked up. He followed the beam of light, and its multitude of dancing dust particles, from the projector to the screen, only to find that the film had already started.

  The scene before him was one of a room, a library, though a personal one. Each of the three walls in view were full of books, with just a few exceptions. Here and there, there were spaces. Alex deduced that the spaces had been created by the books which sat in two piles, one each side, on an antique office desk in the foreground. A brass reading lamp illuminated the centre of the desk and the leather cornered blotting pad thereon.

  Space contracted around him. He did not move. It was the table which extended out from the screen to be right in front of him. The library followed. Alex was now sitting at the table. The column of misaligned books either side of him looked as though they may crash onto the table, or the floor, at any second. The paper in the blotting pad was the typical green colour, though it was unmarked, unused. A dip pen and inkwell sat to his left. Alex was left-handed, so this table had been set for him. It certainly felt like a table he was comfortable at. Even the seat was much more comfortable than the cinema one had been: leather with padded wooden arms.

  He attempted, one after the other, to look into the drawers, three to each side of him, but found them all to be locked. Casting his eyes over the spines of the books upon the table offered no enlightenment. Each title was out of focus, only slightly, though enough to make them unreadable.

  Noticing a corner of paper protruding from underneath the blotting pad he slipped it out. Written upon it, in a handwriting style he did not recognise, were all the thoughts he had tried to collate just a short while earlier. It was high quality paper. It had the weight and feel of being handmade and the penmanship, obviously written with a dip pen such as the one beside him, was immaculate.

  He started to read that the stolen gold was being mostly taken from his dad’s digs in Luxor and shipped to Tanis. It was being reworked under the supervision of Cleopatra’s sister, actually her half-sister, Arsinoe IV, who at Cleopatra’s instigation, and upon Marc Antony’s orders, was murdered on the steps of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Now, in the full knowledge of this, she was willing to work for Cleopatra in the afterlife. His ancient memories were already slipping in to fill some of the blanks.

  The next sentence had been clearly written, though the words were in such an order that they did not make any sense. Alex immediately took this to mean that somewhere, possibly in his deep subconscious, he was aware that the assumption Cleopatra was having her name placed on all of the items was incorrect.

  He looked up at the stacked books and three of the spines were now legible. Carefully he took hold of those books and placed them on the desk in front of him. One book, the largest and the thickest, was entitled Cleopatra VII Philopator, Cleopatra’s full title, another, Arsinoe IV, and the third book, much to his surprise, Aryamani. Aryamani was an ancient Nubian king who lost everything, not only his power, but also his country, all because of his love for Cleopatra, the Cleopatra, a Greek!

  Upon opening the book entitled Cleopatra VII Philopator, again to his surprise, he found the pages to be blank. Alex flicked through to make sure and yes, every page was blank. Putting that book to one side for the moment, he picked up the one on Arsinoe. Again he opened the book to a blank page, though as he flicked through the book he found a few chapters here and there which he read with interest. The further to the back of the book he went the more there was that astounded him. It was the same with the book on Aryamani. He married up what he had read in both books and was somewhat shocked. Not totally shocked, but his head hurt. It felt as though a distant memory had fought its way to the front of his mind, with total disregard for any of his other thought processes.

  Eagerly he returned to the book on Cleopatra. Now, as he read the small snippets which
had appeared throughout the previously blank book, he became ever more shocked. Even though he was now well aware of knowing all he had read at some distant time in the past, it was all new to him right now. He closed the book and thought some more.

  Without Alex even being aware of it, the three books had left the desk and were already back in their places on the bookshelves, their spines glowing brighter than the books around them. He went to carry on reading the sheet of paper with his thoughts on it, and the sentence which was jumbled up now made sense. It was shocking, it was a much longer sentence than it had been, but it made sense. He now knew why Cleopatra wanted him dead. As he looked at his notes, that sentence, the sentence where he had asked himself why Cleopatra wanted him dead, and also if she wanted to kill Kate, disappeared from the page, those questions having now been answered by this most shocking revelation.

  Many questions were on their way to being answered. Alex wanted to know why Ramses would really not come this far north with his army and get involved, because the reason he had given appeared to be somewhat implausible. Alex scanned down the spines of the books on the desk. He could read four titles. Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great, Ramses II, Cartography – Egypt in the Ramesside Era, and Cartography – Egypt in the Greek Era.

  He opened the book on Alexander the Great. At first he thought the book to be completely blank, though on his second flick through the pages a single sentence caught his eye.

  He had just got to the end of the sentence before he was abruptly awakened and found himself to be on the bed in the darkened room. The bedroom door was being rattled and his name was being called. He had been missed. Kate, Emmy and Cairo were all looking for him. He could not be annoyed and quickly joined them back in the bedroom.

  Sitting around the breakfast table eating freshly baked Egyptian flatbread, locally grown tomatoes, and feta cheese with their fingers, whilst drinking black tea out of small chipped glasses – no two were the same – might not be everybody’s idea of the perfect breakfast, but not one of them was complaining … not even Kate.