The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 58

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She pointed to the name of the dead man carved into the stone above the

shelf on which his coffin lay.

"This is not the tomb of a Christian saint. Centuries ago some old

priest must have stumbled upon it and, in his ignorance, usurped it for

his own religion." She drew another shaky breath. "Look there! That is

the seal of Tanus, Lord Harreb, the commander of all the armies of

Egypt, lover of Queen Lostris and the natural father of Prince Memnon,

who became the Pharaoh Tamose."

They were both silent then, lost in the wonder of their discovery.

Nicholas broke the silence at last.

"It's all true, then. The secrets of the seventh scroll are all here for

us, if we can find the key to them."

"Yes," she said softly. "The key. Taita's stone testament." She turned

back towards the tabot stone and approached it slowly, almost fearfully.

"I can't bring myself to look, Nicky. I am terrified that it's not what

we hope it is. You do itV

He went directly to the column, and with a magician's flourish jerked

away the damask cloth that covered it. They stared at the pillar of pink

mottled granite that he had revealed. It was about six feet high and a

foot square at the base, tapering up to half that width at the flat

pedestal of the summit. The granite had been polished, and then

engraved.

Royan stepped forward and touched the cold stone, running her fingers

lingeringly over the hieroglyphic'script in the way a blind man reads

Braille.

"Taita's letter to us," she whispered, picking out the symbol of the

hawk with a broken wing from the mass of close-chiselled script, tracing

the outline with a long, slim forefinger that trembled softly. "Written

almost four thousand years ago, waiting all these ages for us to read

and understand it. See how he has signed it." Slowly she circled the

granite pillar, studying each of the four sides in turn, smiling and

nodding, frowning and shaking her head, then smiling again as if it were

a love letter.

"Read it to me," Nicholas invited. "It's too complicated for me - I

understand the characters, but I cannot follow the sense or the meaning.

Explain it to me."

"It's pure Taita." She laughed, her awe and wonder at last giving way to

excitement. "He is being his usual obscure and capricious self." It was

as though she were talking of a beloved but infuriating old friend.

"It's all in verse and is probably some esoteric code of his own." She

picked out a line of hieroglyphics, and followed them with her finger as

she read aloud, "'The vulture rises on mighty pinions to greet the sun.

The jackal howls and turns upon his tail. The river flows towards the

earth. Beware, you violators of the sacred places, lest the wrath of all

the gods descend upon you!"'

"It's nonsense jargon. It does not make sense," he pretested.

"Oh, yes, it makes sense all right. Taita always makes sense, once you

follow the way his oblique mind is working." She turned to face him

squarely. "Don't look so glum, Nicky. You can't expect to read Taita

like an editorial in The Times. He has set us a riddle that may take

weeks and months of work to unravel."

"Well, one thing is certain. We can't stay here in the maqdas for weeks

and months while, we puzzle it out. Let's get to work."

"Photographs first." She became brisk and businesslike.

"Then we can lift impressions from the stone."

He set down the camera bag and knelt over it to open the flap. "I will

shoot two rolls of colour first, and then use the Polaroid. That will

give us something to work on until we can have the colour developed."

She stood out of his way as he circled the pillar on his knees, keeping

the angle correct so as not to distort the perspective. He took a series

of shots of each of the four sides, using different shutter speeds and

exposures.

"Don't use up all your film," she warned him. "We need some shots of the

walls of the tomb itself."

Obediently he went to the grille gates and studied the locking system.

"This is a bit more complicated than the outer gate. If I try to get in

here, I might do some damage.

I don't think it will be worth the risk of being discovered."

"All right," she agreed. "Work through the openings in the grille."

He filmed as best he was able, extending the camera through the openings

at the full stretch of his arms, and estimating his focus.

"That's the lot," he told her at last. "Now for the Polaroids."

"He changed cameras and repeated the entire process, but this time Royan

held a small tape measure against the pillar to give the scale.

As he exposed each plate he handed it to her to check the development.

Once or twice when the flash setting on the camera had either

overexposed or rendered the subject too dull, or for some other reason

she was not satisfied, she asked him to repeat the shot.

After almost two hours' work they had a complete set Of Polaroids, and

Nicholas packed his cameras away and brought out the roll of art paper.

Working together, they stretched it over one face of the pillar and

secured it in place with masking tape. Then he started at the top and

she at the bottom. Each with a black art crayon, they rubbed the precise

shape and form of the engravings on to the sheet of blank paper.

"I have learned how important this is when dealing with Taita. If you

are not able to work with the original, then you must have an exact

copy. Sometimes the most minute detail of the engraving may change the

entire sense and meaning of the script. He layers everything with hidden

depths. You have read in River God how he cons' ers himself to be the

riddler and punster par excellence id and the greatest exponent of the

game of bao that ever lived. Well, that much of the book is accurate.

Wherever he is now, he knows the game is on and he is revelling in every

move we make. I can just imagine him giggling and gether with glee."

rubbing his hands to

"Bit fanciful, dear girl." He settled back to work. "But I know what you

mean."

The task of transferring the outline of the designs on to the blank

sheets of art paper was painstaking and monotonous, and the hours passed

as they laboured on hands and knees or crouched over the granite pillar.

At last Nicholas stepped back and massaged his aching back.

"That does it, then. All finished."

a She stood up beside him. "What time is it?" she asked, and he checked

his wristwatch.

"Four in the morning. We had better tidy up in here.

Make certain we leave no sign of our visit."

"One last thing," Royan said, tearing a corner off one of the sheets of

art paper. With it she went to the altar where the abbot's crown lay.

Quickly she taped the scrap of paper over the blue ceramic seal in the

centre of the crown, and filled it with a rubbing of the design of the

hawk with a broken wing.

Just for luck," she explained to him, as she came back to help him fold

the long sheets of paper and pack them back in the bag. Then they

gathered up the shreds of discarded masking tape and the empty film

wrappers that he had strewn on the stone slabs.

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