“You’re right, though, Jumana,” she went on. “He’d want some place away from people. Not toward the cultivation, but back that way, along the base of the cliffs. A place he could trick them into entering without exposing himself.”
“But then,” said Daoud, “they would come out again. How could he prevent them? Unless…”
Quick wits were not Daoud’s most notable characteristic, but every now and then he confounded them all by reaching a conclusion that had escaped everyone else. They waited for him to continue.
“Unless it was a very narrow space,” Daoud went on, his brow wrinkling. “With no other way out. Then, when they tried to come out, crawling or bent over, he could prevent them – standing to one side with a long heavy stick. If he was quick and lucky, one blow might be enough.”
The simple words had created a vivid and very ugly picture. “You’re talking about a tomb,” Ramses said slowly. “Or a cave. Surely they wouldn’t be stupid enough to enter an obvious trap – not both of them…” He caught Nefret’s eye and threw up his hands. “Hell and damnation! They would, wouldn’t they? Especially Mother. Daoud, you reason well, but there are hundreds of such places in the cliffs. We wouldn’t know where to start looking. I’m going back and talk to Yusuf. There’s an outside chance -”
“Wait – wait!” Jumana was bouncing on her toes, her face flushed with excitement. “I have remembered something – something Jamil said when we first met at Luxor. He was talking about the tomb of the princesses and how he had been cheated, and then he talked very fast and very angrily, saying that he had discovered two rich treasures and had nothing to show because everyone had cheated him of what was rightfully his, and -”
She paused to draw a long breath. Ramses was about to express his impatience with her dramatic, long-drawn-out narrative when Nefret said softly, “Let her tell it her way.”
“I am trying to remember exactly what he said,” Jumana explained. She hadn’t missed Ramses’s signs of impatience either. “These are the words, the exact words. ‘They took it, the Inglizi, but I have taken it back; the dwelling place of a god is not too good for me, and they will never find me there, and someday… ’ It was then he threatened to kill you, Ramses, and I forgot what he said before because it made no sense and I was very worried and -”
“Ah, yes.” Daoud nodded. So far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. “The shrine of Amon-Re. I should have thought of it.”
“The place certainly fits your specifications,” Ramses said. He was afraid to let his hopes rise. “I suppose it can’t do any harm to have a look.”
“Shall we go back for the horses?” Nefret asked.
“They went on foot,” Ramses said. “We may find some trace of them along the way.”
They took the most direct path, straight toward the western cliffs, over rising rocky ground interrupted by occasional outcroppings. Remembering the shrine chamber they had cleared the previous year, Ramses had to admit it would make an ideal spot for an ambush, assuming Jamil could trick them into entering the place. It might not have been difficult. They had thought they were following Jumana, and if they had believed Jamil was inside the man-made cavern, Emerson would not have hesitated to go down after him. And his mother would have followed, of course – “to protect him!” If they had found the place empty they would have returned to the shaft, which was perpendicular and not very deep. If he was standing on the bottom, Emerson’s head would be less than two feet below the surface. The picture that formed in Ramses’s mind was even uglier than the first: a long, heavy club crashing down on his father’s bare head.
Their precipitate pace aroused the curiosity of the people they encountered. Several of them followed along, in case something of interest might occur. Questions assailed them. “Had something happened? Where were they going?” Ramses didn’t answer; he wanted to swat at them, as he would have swatted flies. Receiving no replies, one of them suggested, “Are you looking for the Father of Curses, then? He was -”
The word ended in a gurgle as Selim spun round and caught him by the throat. “You saw him? When? Why didn’t you say so?”
Plucking at his fingers, the luckless man gasped, “You did not ask, Selim.”
Selim loosened his grip and Ramses apologized in the usual way. Clutching a handful of coins and swelling with pride at being the center of attention, their informant explained that he had seen the Father of Curses and the Sitt Hakim early that morning, when he was on his way to work. They had been wearing Egyptian dress, but, the fellow added, the Father of Curses could not be mistaken for any other man. He had been tempted to follow, but he was late for his work and they were going too fast. Yes, that way, toward Deir el Bahri.
He and several of the other men trailed along, speculating and discussing the matter. The sun was low and the shallow, well-remembered bay was deep in shadow. Ramses thought he saw a darker shadow, slim and supple as a snake, move rapidly along the broken ground to the south. He might have imagined it, and just then it was the least of his concerns.
One look into the shaft told him they had come to the right place. It was four feet deep in rubble – not the drift of sand and random bits of rock that might have accumulated naturally, but new fill, broken stone. Not far from the opening lay a rough wooden ladder and a crumpled basket.
“My God,” Nefret gasped. “He was filling in the shaft. They must be… Mother! Father, can you hear me?”
The uneven surface of the fill moved, shifted, subsided. Using language he had never before employed in their presence, Selim fell flat on the ground, reached down and snatched a handful of chips. “They are under it! They are still alive, they are moving! Hurry – Daoud -”
“Hold on,” Ramses said, ducking to avoid the chips Selim had flung frantically over his shoulder. “There’s the basket Jamil must have used. Leave it to Daoud.”
“Yes,” said Daoud placidly. “There is no hurry. Look.” Another shift of the stone surface resulted in a further subsistence – no more than an inch, but now Ramses saw what Daoud’s calmer mind had grasped. Someone was digging the stone out from below, a little at a time.
“They will be in the passage,” Daoud went on, climbing down into the shaft and taking the basket Selim handed him. “We will soon have them out.”
There wasn’t anything they could do to help Daoud except empty the basket as soon as he handed it up. Ramses fought the urge to join him in the shaft, but only one person could work efficiently in the narrow space. It was not long, though it seemed an eternity to the anxious watchers, before a break in the solid wall of the shaft became visible – the squared-off lintel of the entrance to the side passage.
It was filled to the top with broken stone.
Ramses lost the last remnants of his calm. “Father!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Mother, for God’s sake -”
Daoud stopped digging. In the silence Ramses heard sounds of activity behind that ominous blockage. An irregular gap, less than two inches deep, appeared, and an eerily distorted, very irritated voice was heard.
“Ramses, is that you? I trust you did not allow him to escape. Is Daoud with you? He will have to empty the entire shaft, the cursed stones keep trickling down into the passage. Though ‘trickle’ is perhaps an inappropriate word.”
After Ramses had drawn his first full breath in what felt like hours, he persuaded his garrulous mother to retreat farther down the passage. She continued to shout instructions and questions, and they shouted questions back at her – a fairly futile exercise, since Daoud had gone back to work with renewed energy and the crash and rattle of stone drowned out most of the words. Ramses shouted along with the rest of them. He had been utterly taken aback by the intensity of his relief when he heard his mother’s voice, and a distant bellow from Emerson. This wasn’t the first time they had been in trouble, not by a long shot, and he had always worried about them, but for some reason he had never fully realized how much he loved and needed them. The very qualities that sometimes irritated him were the qualities he would miss most: his mother’s infuriating self-confidence and awful aphorisms, his father’s belligerence and awful temper. After all the adventures they had survived with their usual aplomb, it would be horribly ironic if they met their final defeat (he couldn’t even think the other word) at the hands of the most contemptible opponent they had ever faced.