"Who are you?" a sharp, female voice whispered in the gloom. Two of the figures glided towards her, metal glinting in hand, swift-assured violence pregnant in their movements.
"Peace, friends," Shirin said softly, backing up the steps. She made the sign of the Archer with her free hand. The hunt to the swift, she realized. Starvation to the slow! Time for judicious truth. "I've come from the Roman temple, following those tomb robbers."
The lead figure paused, tugging a fold of her burnoose down, revealing a hawk-nosed, pox-scarred visage. Dark eyes blazed in the lantern light. "Show me your face."
Shirin matched the woman's movement, drawing aside her veil. The Egyptian sneered, one thin hand darting out to drag the rest of Shirin's scarf aside. Suppressing a sharp desire to strike the invasive hand away, the Khazar woman remained still, gaze adamant and unflinching.
"You're a pretty spy," the woman said after a moment of scrutiny, her jaw tightening. Shirin thought she saw weighed calculation in the glittering eyes. "You followed us?"
"I saw your tracks in the sand," Shirin responded, shaking her head. "They led me to the hidden door…"
"What is your name, Roman?" the Egyptian woman snapped, a grim light in her eyes. "Was the Hunter's door open? I'll flay someone alive if it was!"
"No," Shirin said, uneasy with the woman's careless threat. "It opened for me. Listen, a party of Romans has entered the tomb. I saw them break through the main door. Can they find these chambers by another path? And there are-"
The Egyptian interrupted with a harsh chuckle. She raised a short-bladed sword, hilt up and grinned at Shirin with a mocking smile. "Your Roman looters won't find this chamber. They might not even live to find the false tomb!"
Irritated by the woman's bravado, Shirin recovered her scarf, draping it around her shoulders. "I'm not a Roman," she said in a controlled, even tone. "My name is Shirin. What are you called?"
"Penelope," the woman said dismissively. "Stay out of the way. We have to find this device they seek. Be ready to leave."
Before Shirin could respond, the Egyptian spun on her heel and hurried back to the massive, bulky shapes of the coffins. Her eyes now adjusted to the torchlight, Shirin saw the other Daughters were busily levering slab lids from the sarcophagi, grunting and straining. A faded, three-part mural covered the entire rear wall, showing a sun-disk framed by hawk wings and dozens of protective gods.
Suddenly, as Shirin paced along the facing wall, trying to grasp the size and shape of the chamber, the stones under her feet jumped with a thud. Eyes wide, the Khazar woman shrank against the wall, groping for support. Dust trickled down around her in thin, corkscrew streams. The shock in the earth did not repeat and the Daughters-now sliding one of the coffin lids aside with great care-did not appear to have noticed.
That wasn't an earthquake! It was behind me. Shirin turned, hurried along the ledge, looking for a door, an alcove, anything at all. A dozen steps down, she came to the recessed opening and found, to her surprise, a pinhole of glowing light within deeper shadow. Looking over her shoulder, Shirin saw the Egyptian woman Penelope barking orders for her followers to break into the second coffin. From the puzzled, angry look on the woman's face, Shirin guessed there'd been no "device" in the sarcophagus.
Muffled noise came to her ears and she turned back to the point of light, suddenly worried. Inside the recess, there was a curved wall and a stone ledge. Kneeling down, Shirin put her eye to the tiny opening and found herself looking-through delicately painted gauze-into another funeral chamber. This space too was filled with painted round columns, wall mosaics and two stone coffins.
Sparking orange torchlight flared, momentarily blinding her. Shirin drew back. This close to the wall, she could hear sharp voices calling in the room beyond the spy hole. Roman voices. Feeling a chill on her neck, she swallowed and looked again.
Fellaheen in tan-and-white robes swarmed into the chamber, followed by an enormous Numidian and a familiar-looking Latin soldier. The Romans were busy poking and prodding in every crevice and container in the other tomb. Shirin froze. A shape moved across the pinhole, cutting off the light. From only a foot away, she heard a familiar voice.
"This wall is solid," Thyatis called out, rapping her knuckles across the surface of a drum column protruding from the wall of the tomb chamber. Clouds of painted, sparkling dust fell away from each blow. The air in the room grew hazy as the fellaheen, Mithridates and Vladimir made a rough sweep of the chamber. The dais holding the two coffins was raised on a series of steps, with pillars crowding close on either side. Nicholas stood beside the doorway, examining the triangular shape of the door barrier. As the Latin had posited, the slab was keyed to holes in the floor.
There was nothing in the chamber matching their description of the "device."
"How large is this thing?" Vladimir's accent seemed almost humorous in the thick air. He was crouched atop one of the coffins, long fingers tracing the chiseled outline of a king buried in stone. "Could it be inside one of these jenazah?"
Nicholas turned towards his friend, scratching the line of his jaw as he thought. "Well, the one in Rome is as tall as a man, but the bronze disks might be folded up, or packed together…"
Thyatis paused in her examination of the wall, nose twitching. Her sense of smell might not be a match for the Walach, but there was something in the air. A sweet, warm scent like drying roses. She stiffened, memory tugging at the hem of her cloak. Wait! I remember…
"Here!" one of the fellaheen shouted, distracting her. "Master, I've found a hidden door!"
Thyatis leapt down from the ledge, reaching the man's side in an instant. The Egyptian pointed fearfully. Like the column Thyatis had checked, the roundel seemed to be part and parcel of the stone, but some ancient tremor in the earth had split cunning plaster and paint away, revealing a cavity.
"Stand back," Thyatis barked, as the fellaheen crowded up. Mithridates and Vladimir pushed through the men, each man holding an iron-headed sledge. The Roman woman drew her blade, letting the mirror-bright metal rasp from the sheath. Nicholas took up a position on her left, his blade bare, and-for an instant, in the dim light of the torches-the length of metal seemed to gleam with an inner fire.
Thyatis nodded to Mithridates. "Clear the opening."
The African set his shoulders, muscles bulging under his tunic and the sledge whipped into the plaster lathes, shattering the ancient wood. More dust billowed forth, but Mithridates narrowed his eyes and the opening was entirely clear in three more blows.
Thyatis fanned the air with her straw hat. The light of the torches revealed a short passage and a startlingly normal-looking door. Surprised, she felt a breath of cold air brush her face.
"I'll go first," Nicholas said, eagerly shouldering Thyatis aside.
A loud crash echoed through the hidden tomb and Shirin scrambled out of the watch post. The Daughters had frozen in shock at the sound. They were staring in horror toward a second opening to the Khazar woman's left. Another crash followed, then a third. Shirin raised an eyebrow. Well, she thought, I guess the Romans did live to find us!
"Out!" Penelope hissed, harsh voice cutting through the silence and surprise. "Everyone out through the tunnel. Now!" The older woman drew back, her shortsword aimed at the sound.
The women around the second sarcophagus abandoned their tools and ran for the passage, cloaks flying out behind them. Shirin darted across the chamber to the opened coffins. Penelope was in the tunnel mouth, her face a furious glare, beckoning for the Khazar woman to hurry. Behind Shirin, she heard the clatter of men forcing a door open. Faint streaks of light painted the wall above the sarcophagi, thrown by Roman torches. In the poor light, Shirin paused, gazing curiously down upon the centuries-dead figures in the two coffins.