The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 77

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"Why not, indeed?" she laughed. "We will be able to make a more detailed

inspection of the quarry tomorrow early."

He stood up to start gathering firewood, but then stopped and looked up

at the sky. She heard it too, that now familiar fluttering whistle in

the air.

"The Pegasus helicopter once again," he said unnecessarily. "I wonder

what the hell they are up to at this time of day?"

They both stared up into the gathering darkness and watched the

navigational lights of the aircraft pass a thousand feet overhead,

flashing red and green and white as it headed southwards in the

direction of the monastery.

Nicholas built a small fire in the corner of the quarry nearest the

entrance, and as they sat around it he divided the pack of dry survival

rations into three parts. They nibbled them, and washed down the sweet

and sticky concentrated tablets with water from his bottle.

The fire threw ghostly reflections up the side of the ed the moving

shadows. When a quarry wall, and enhanc.

nightjar uttered it warbling cry from a niche high up the wall, it was

so eerie and evocative that Royan shivered and moved a little closer to

Nicholas.

"I wonder if somewhere on the other side Taita is aware of our

progress," she said. "I get the feeling that we have him a little

worried by now. We have untangled the first part of the conundrum that

he set for us, and I'll bet he never expected anybody to do that well."

"The next step will be to get to the bottom of his pool.

That will be really one up on the old devil. What do you hope we might

find down there?"

"I hesitate to put it into words," she replied. "I might talk it away,

and put a jinx on us."

"I am not superstitious. Well, not much anyway. Shall I say it for you?"

he offered, and she laughed and nodded.

He went on, "We hope to find the entrance to the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.

No more hints and riddles and red herrings. The veritable tomb."

She crossed her fingers. "From your lips to God's ear!" Then she grew

serious. "What do you think of our chances?

I mean of finding the tomb intact?"

He shrugged. "I will answer that once we get to the bottom of the pool."

"How are we going to do that? You have ruled out the use of an

aqualung."

"I don't know," he confessed. "At this stage I just don't know. Perhaps

we might be able to get in there with fullhelmeted diving suits."

She was silent as she considered the seeming imposs' ability of the task

ahead.

"Cheer up!" He put his arm around her shoulders, and she made no move to

pull away from him. "There is one consolation. If Taita has made it so

tough for us, he has also made it tough for anyone else to have got in

there ahead of us. I think that if the tomb is really down there, no

other grave robbers have beaten us to it."

"If the entrance to the tomb is at the bottom of the pool, then his

descriptions in the scrolls are deliberately misleading. The information

that has come down to us has been garbled by Taita, then by Duraid, and

finally by Wilbur Smith. We are faced with the task of finding our way

through this labyrinth of deliberate misinformation."

They were silent again for a while and then Royan smiled in the

firelight, her face lighting up with anticipation.

"Oh,  icky! It is such an exciting challenge." Then her voice descended

an octave. "But is there a way? Is it possible to get in there?"

"We will find out."

"When?"

"In due course. I haven't thought it out fully as yet. All I am certain

of is that it is going to take a prodigious amount of planning and hard

work."

"You are still committed, then?" She wanted his assurance. She knew that

she could never do it alone. "You aren't daunted by the project?"

Nicholas chuckled. "I will admit that I never expected Taita to lead us

on such a merry chase. I imagined simply breaking open a stone gateway

and finding it all waiting for us there, like Howard Carter walking into

the tomb of Tutankhamen. However, to answer your question, yes, I am

daunted by what it's going to involve - but hell nothing could stop me

now! I have the smell of glory in my nostrils and the gleam of gold in

my eye."

While they talked, Tamre curled up in the dust on the other side of the

fire, and pulled his shaninut over his head. His rest must have been

interrupted by dreams and fantasies, for he burbled and squeaked and

giggled in his sleep.

"I wonder what goes on in that poor demented head, and what visions he

sees," Royan whispered. "He says he saw Jesus here in the quarry, and I

am sure that he really believes that he did."

Their voices became softer and drowsier as the fire burned down and

Royan murmured, just before she fell asleep on Nicholas's shoulder, "If

the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose is below the level of the river, then surely

the contents will be water-damaged?"

"I can't believe that Taita would have built his dam and spent fifteen

years working on the tomb, as he says that he did in the scrolls, only

to flood it deliberately and despoil the mummy of his king and ruin his

treasure," Nicholas murmured, with her hair tickling his cheek. "No, t

would have precluded Pharaoh's resu he that rrection in other world, and

brought all his work to nothing. I think Taita has taken all that into

his calculations."

She snuggled closer, and sighed with satisfaction.

A little while later he said softly, "Goodnight, Royan," but she did

not' reply and her breathing was deep and even. He smiled to himself,

and gently kissed the top of her head.

Nicholas was not certain what had woken him.

He took a few moments to place himself, and then he realized that he was

still in the quarry. There was no moon but the stars hung down close to

the earth, as big and fat as bunches of ripe grapes. By their light he

saw that Royan had slipped down and was lying flat on the ground beside

him.

He stood up carefully, so as not to disturb her, and moved well away

from the dead fire to empty his bladder.

The night was deathly quiet. No night bird called, nor was there the

sound of any of the other nocturnal creatures.

The rocks around him still radiated the heat of the previous day's

sunlight.

Suddenly the sound that had woken him was repeated.

It was a faint and distant susurration that echoed along the cliffs, so

that he could form no judgement as to the direction from which it came.

But he was in no doubt what the sound was. He had heard it so often

before. It was the sound of faraway automatic gunfire, almost certainly

an AK-47 assault rifle firing, not long ragged bursts, but short taps of

three rounds, an art that took expertise and practice.

He was sure that the person doing the shooting was a trained

professional.

He tilted his wrist so that the luminescent dial of his watch caught the

starlight, and he saw that it was a few minutes after three 'clock in

the morning.

He stood listening for a long time, but the firing was not repeated. At

last he returned to where Royan lay and settled down beside her again.

However, he slept only shallowly and intermittently, and kept starting

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