The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 85

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been lightly bitten by the bug, compared to others I could name. Those

other two on Duraid's list, for instance."

"Peter Walsh and Gotthold von Schiller," she reeled off the names.

"Those two are homicidal collectors,," he confirmed. "I -am sure neither

of them would hesitate to kill for the chance of having Pharaoh Mamose's

treasure to themselves."

"But from what I know about them, both of them are billionaires, at

least in dollar terms."

"Money has nothing to do with it, don't you see. If they laid hands upon

it, they would never ever dream of selling a single artefact from the

hoard. They would lock it all away in some deep vault, and not let

another living soul la eyes upon it. They would gloat on it in private -

it's a bizarre, masturbatory passion."

"What an odd word to describe it," she protested.

"But accurate, I assure you. It's a sexual thing a compulsion, like that

of a serial killer."

"I love all things Egyptian, but I don't think I can even imagine a

craving that intense."

"You must remember that these are not ordinary men whom we are

considering. Their wealth allows'them to pander to any appetite'. All

the normal, natural human appetites soon become jaded and satiated. They

can have anything they want. Any man or any woman. Any thing, any

perversion, whether legal or not. In the end they have to find something

that no one else can ever have. It's the only thing that can still give

them the old thrill."

"So in whoever is behind Pegasus we are dealing with a madman?" she

asked softly.

"Much more than that," he corrected her. "We are enormously wealthy and

powerful dealing with an maniac, who in his disease will stop at

nothing."

They picked the cold carcasses of the roasted pigeons for their

breakfast. Then, while the other one tactfully went to the back of the

cavern an  averted his or her gaze, they took turns to strip naked and

bathe under the waterfall.

After the heat of the gorge the water was icy cold. It battered them

with the force of a fire hose. Royan hopped on her good leg, gasping and

whimpering under the torrent, and emerged covered in goose-pimples and

shuddering blue with cold. However, it refreshed her, and even in her

filthy, sweat-stinking clothes it gave her heart to start out on the

last bitter climb to the summit.

Before leaving the cavern they examined each other's injuries again.

Nicholas's scalp wound was heating cleanly, but Royan's knee was no

better than the previous day. The bruises were starting to turn a

virulent puce, the colour of decomposing liver, and the swelling was

unabated. There was very little he could do for it, other than strapping

it again with the bandana.

At last Nicholas admitted defeat, and abandoned his burn-bag and the

roll of dik'dik skin. He knew that he was reaching the limit of his

physical reserves, and he realized that, light as these items were,

every extra pound that he carried today might mean the difference

between reaching the summit or breaking down on the trail. He retained

only the three rolls of undeveloped film, each in its plastic capsule.

These were their only record of the hieroglyphics' on the stele in

Tanus's tomb. He dared not risk losing them, so he buttoned them into

the breast pocket of his khaki shirt. He tucked both the bag and the

skin into a crack in the wall at the back of the cavern, determined to

retrieve them at some later date.

And so they started out on the last but most onerous leg of the trail.

To begin with Royan was on her own two feet, but leaning heavily on his

shoulder. However, before the first hour was over her knee could no

longer take the strain, and she subsided on to a rock on the edge of the

pathway.

"I am being an awful nuisance, aren't I?

"Come on board, lady. Always room for a small one." With Royan perched

on Nicholas's back, her injured leg sticking out stiffly in front of

her, they toiled upwards, but their progress was even slower than it had

been the day before. Nicholas was forced to pause and rest at shorter

and shorter intervals. On the easier pitches she dismounted and hopped

along on one leg beside him, steadying herself with one hand on his

shoulder. Then she would collapse, and he had to lift her to her feet

and pull her up on to his back once again.

The journey descended into nightmare, and both of them lost all sense of

the passage of time. Hours blended with hours into a single unremitting

agony. At one stage they lay beside each other on the path, sick and

nauseated with thirst and exhaustion and pain. They had emptied the

water bottle an hour ago, and there was no more on this section of the

path - nothing to drink until they reached the summit and were reunited

with the Dandera river.

"Go on and leave me here, she whispered hoarsely.

He sat up immediately and stared at her. "Don't be silly. I need you for

ballast."

"It can't be much further to the top," she insisted. "You can come back

with some of Boris's men to help carry me."

"If they are still there, and if Pegasus doesn't find you first." He

stood up a little unsteadily. "Forget it. You are coming along on this

ride, all the way."And he hoisted her to her feet.

He made her count aloud every step he took, and at every hundredth he

paused and rested. Then he started the next hundred, with her counting

softly in his ear, clinging with both arms around his neck. The whole

universe seemed to shrink in upon them to the ground directly at his

feet. They no longer saw the rock cliff on one side nor the deep void of

space on the other. When he lurched or jolted her and the pain shot

through her knee, she closed her eyes and tried not to let her voice

betray it to him as she kept counting.

When he rested, he had to lean against the cliff face, not trusting his

legs to get him up again if he lay down. He dared not lower her to the

ground. The effort of lifting her again would be too much. He no longer

had the strength for it.

"It's almost dark," she whispered in his ear. "You must stop here for

the night. It's enough for one day. You are killing yourself, Nicky."

"Another hundred, he mumbled.

"No, Nicky. Put me down!'

For answer he pushed off from the rock wall with his shoulder and

staggered on upwards.

"Cound' he ordered.

"Fifty-one, fifty-two," she obeyed. Suddenly the gradient altered so

sharply under his feet that he almost fell.

The path had levelled out, and like a drunkard he reached up for a step

that wasn't there.

He staggered and then caught his balance. He stood teetering on the

brink of the precipice and peered into the dusk ahead of him, at first

unable to credit what he was seeing. There were lights in the gloom, and

he thought that he had begun to hallucinate. Then he heard men's voices,

and he shook his head to clear it and bring himself back to reality.

"Oh, dear God. You have made it. We are at the top$ Nicky. There are the

vehicles. You did it, Nicky. You did it.

He tried to speak, but his throat had closed up and no words came. He

reeled forward towards the lights, and Royan cried out weakly on his

back.

"Help us here. Please help us." First in English and then in Arabic.

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