Ten
B eside Ellie, Mr. Al-Ahmed still frowned thoughtfully at the wooden box, seemingly oblivious to the chaos blooming behind him. With a muttered prayer, he set his thumb to the gold disk inlaid into the narrow front face—and pressed.
The gold sank into the cypress with a distinct click.
“We should prepare for battle!” Constance declared in a stout whisper.
“Battle?” Neil’s eyes widened with panic, even as he continued to keep his voice low. “There’s no battling in archaeology!”
A thin, dark gap opened along one of the edges of the interior floor of the box.
“Pick,” Mr. Al-Ahmed ordered automatically, holding out his hand. Ellie startled, then spotted his opened box of tools nearby. She plucked out a slender metal instrument with a hooked end.
Mr. Al-Ahmed accepted it, carefully sliding it beneath the base of the box.
“I’ve got an idea.” Adam grasped the rope to the shaft and started to climb.
Ellie hurried over to the opening in the ceiling, looking up at the bottom of Adam’s battered work boots. “Please tell me that your idea isn’t to try to fend them off single-handedly!”
“I’m not that crazy,” Adam muttered down to her. “But you might want to step back.”
He yanked the machete from his belt and neatly cut the rope.
Ellie took a quick stumble away as the severed length snaked down in front of her, coming to rest in the long coil of woven hemp. Adam followed, dropping from the tomb shaft and landing in a crouch.
“That’ll buy us a little more time,” he said, shaking off his recently wounded hand with a wince.
“But you… you cut the rope!” Neil stammered, paling. “How are we supposed to get out of here without a rope?”
“Tunnel,” Adam replied, shoving his machete back into its sheath.
“That tunnel,” Neil whispered desperately, stabbing a finger back at the precarious black opening in the wall behind him. “The one that is two thousand years old. The one that looks as though it is about to collapse. And which most likely leads to nowhere.”
Mr. Al-Ahmed paused in his careful work on the interior of the jewelry box. “That would… not be an entirely accurate statement.”
“Why not?” Neil demanded.
“A few months ago, one of the workers found an opening under a slab near one of the spoil dumps to the southeast of the temple complex,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied, keeping his voice low. “Which turned out to be a very simple late Twentieth Dynasty tomb shaft—entirely cleared out, of course, by looters or Frenchmen.”
“For all the difference there is between them,” Ellie grumbled.
“I mean to say that it was not a site of any interest,” Mr. Al-Ahmed hurried on. “But when I descended into it—”
“Descended?!” Neil cut in with a hiss.
“I could not know that it was not a site of value until I had seen it, could I?” Mr. Al-Ahmed protested uncomfortably, then went back to his work at the interior of the wooden box. “But while I was inside, it is possible that I might have seen an opening to a thieves’ tunnel in the northern wall, the orientation of which would roughly align with the location for the burial chamber in this complex.”
“But did you go into the tunnel?” Constance pressed excitedly.
“Absolutely not!” Mr. Al-Ahmed was clearly aghast at the notion. “It is almost certainly a death trap!”
“So’s going upstairs,” Adam pointed out.
“But Dawson won’t know there’s anything wrong—not yet,” Ellie reasoned.
He met her eyes, his expression grim. “And just how long do you think it’s gonna take him to figure it out once he sees us?”
With a soft click, the interior floor of the jewelry box came loose. Mr. Al-Ahmed looked down at it in surprise, as though he had nearly forgotten that he was still working at it. Carefully, he lifted the delicate wooden panel away, exposing a narrow compartment that lay hidden beneath it.
The compartment was not empty. It held a finely made loop of glimmering electrum, the alloy hued a subtle bronze. A flat bezel at the top was inscribed with a cluster of hieroglyphs.
“It’s a seal ring!” Ellie breathed wonderingly.
Mr. Al-Ahmed carefully plucked it from the box, shifting it toward the lamplight to illuminate the symbols.
“True servant, beloved of his lord,” he read off easily.
“ The king’s scribe, Ahmose, ” Ellie filled in, leaning over him for a closer look.
“The proper pronunciation is ‘Yahmoseh,’” Mr. Al-Ahmed corrected her distractedly.
A chill danced over Ellie’s skin despite the warm air. “But something has been done to one of the glyphs. The crescent moon symbol—it’s filled in with plaster.”
“That’s the glyph for Yah,” Mr. Al-Ahmed clarified. “The god of the moon.”
Neil whirled back toward them, his gaze sharpening with sudden interest. “Hold on—did you say the name of the god was deliberately filled in?”
The chill electrifying Ellie’s skin intensified, raising the hairs on her arms. “But if the glyph was filled, that sound wouldn’t have imprinted itself into the wax when the seal was used.”
Neil held out his hand. “Could I… please? ” he asked, the word tinged with desperation.
Mr. Al-Ahmed carefully passed him the ring, which Neil cradled reverently in his hand.
“The god’s name was intentionally removed from this seal…” Neil began urgently.
Ellie had already started talking as well. “But the elimination of the phoneme for Yah would have made the name…”
“…which means that this artifact must be…” Neil continued.
“Moseh,” Ellie finished.
“Atenist,” Neil blurted.
She and Neil turned to each other, eyes locking with a mirrored astonishment at the significance of their mutual revelations.
Mr. Al-Ahmed didn’t seem to hear any of it. His attention was locked on the jewelry box. “Do you know—I think there is an inscription under this false floor,” he observed with obvious delight. “It appears to be in a form of hieratic.”
“Sorry to cut in,” Adam said darkly, his hand moving to the hilt of his machete. “But I think we’re out of time.”
The muffled voices from above grew louder—and the outraged tones of Professor Dawson echoed clearly down the shaft.
“I thought you said this site was secure!”
“Of course, it’s secure,” came the easy, confident reply… in a voice that Ellie recognized from Lady Sabita’s dinner party the night before.
“But that’s Mr. Forster-Mowbray!” she hissed.
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose as though fighting the sudden onset of a headache. “The Mustache is the amir,” he muttered flatly. “Just my goddamned luck.”
“Lady Sabita did say he moved in Egyptological circles,” Ellie offered weakly.
“Mr. Forster-Mowbray is the local representative of the British Athenaeum,” Neil said distractedly, still intently studying the seal ring.
“I am shocked to find him involved in anything so interesting as your Athenaeum, never mind an international ring of magical artifact thieves,” Constance mused in a conspiratorial whisper.
“ Magical? ” Neil’s gaze snapped up to Constance and Ellie as he fumbled his hold on the artifact.
“Fiddlesticks,” Ellie muttered.
“Is that you, Fairfax?” Julian shouted down through the darkness of the shaft. “You all right down there?”
“M-maybe?” Neil stammered back, clutching the ring to his chest. “I mean—yes! Perfectly jolly! Ha ha ha!”
“Are you quite sure?” Julian pressed. “You seem to be short half a rope.”
Neil had begun to sweat. “Oh, that! Oddest thing, really. Just—ah—broke on us, you see. But we’re already working on a… er, solution to the, uh…”
His panicked gaze roved over the rest of them, leaping from a machete-wielding Adam to a dust-smeared Constance, and then Mr. Al-Ahmed, who was frowning over a three-thousand-year-old jewelry box.
His eyes finally slid to Ellie with a look of desperation.
“I must say, I’m surprised to find you down here.” Julian’s tone was lightly admonishing as it echoed down from the chamber above. “I had thought you were to notify me when you cleared the next entrance so that I could join you.”
Neil paled further and slowly closed his eyes.
“But no need to worry,” Julian finished cheerfully. “We’ll sort you out in a jiffy.”
The silence that followed felt like a ticking clock.
“That the true story be known…” Mr. Al-Ahmed read.
“What?” Ellie rasped, her throat dry.
“The inscription in the box,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied impatiently, as though the answer should have been obvious. “It begins, That the true story be known. ”
“The true story of what?” Ellie pressed urgently.
“I haven’t gotten far enough to say,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied with a quelling look that reminded Ellie of one of her old professors. “There are a significant number of ligatures and abbreviations, which likely means that it is a more informal variety of hieratic.”
“Princess…” Adam said warningly from where he stood ready below the dark mouth of the tomb shaft.
Ellie let her eyes roam over the mountains of unexamined debris piled against the walls of the room.
A box with an Atenist ring. The name Moseh. An ancient text that promised a true story.
That was all she had. She prayed it was enough.
At the top of the shaft, Julian Forster-Mowbray laughed again.
Ellie set a hand on Mr. Al-Ahmed’s shoulder, capturing his attention. “I know it is not at all in keeping with proper archaeological practices, but if we should find ourselves needing to make an immediate removal from this chamber—say through an unstable two-thousand-year-old thieves’ tunnel—what would be the safest way to transport that box without damaging it?”
Mr. Al-Ahmed’s eyes widened. He looked from Ellie to the box with the air of a frightened parent. Then his shoulders sagged. “Might I have your scarf, Miss Tyrrell?” he asked politely.
“Oh!” Constance returned. “Certainly.”
She tugged the length of frothy fabric from her neck and handed it over. Mr. Al-Ahmed gently wound it around the box.
“Hold this—carefully!” he ordered as he passed the bundle to Ellie.
With a sigh of grim resignation, he dumped out the contents of his slender leather tool case.
“What are you doing?!” Neil looked urgently from the mouth of the shaft overhead to the place where his foreman knelt on the floor.
“I am not entirely sure,” Mr. Al-Ahmed calmly admitted, holding out his hands.
Ellie set the box into them, and Mr. Al-Ahmed carefully placed it in his case. He snapped the lid shut. After a moment’s hesitation, he shoved the whole thing down the front of his waistcoat.
He trudged to the hole in the tomb wall, where he paused to glance back at her. “I look forward to hearing the full story behind your business here, Miss Mallory,” he said significantly.
“I promise you that I will provide it, Mr. Al-Ahmed,” Ellie vowed.
He gave her a nod. Picking up one of their two lanterns, he drew in an unhappy breath—and crawled into the tunnel.
“Sayyid, where are you—!” Neil exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You can’t possibly be—!”
“Neil,” Ellie said calmly, holding out her hand. “The ring.”
Neil looked from her to the gold-hued relic he still held in his palm, his expression twisted with conflict. “But we haven’t recorded the context!” he protested forlornly.
“I know,” Ellie said sympathetically. “And I am sorry for it. But we need to go.”
“No!” Neil burst out. He caught himself, containing his volume with obvious effort. “Why should we throw ourselves into a potentially deadly tunnel when the only thing at risk here is that I am about to lose my job? ”
“Afraid it might be a bit more than that,” Adam cautioned as he watched the entrance to the shaft, his knife still ready in his hand.
Ellie grasped her brother’s shoulders, forcing him to face her. “I understand that this is all terribly hard to accept, but if you have ever had any faith in my intelligence and judgment, I am begging you to do what I am asking.”
Neil gazed at her helplessly. “I… I’m not… I don’t…”
Something inside of Ellie started to crack like a delicate fault in the surface of an old vase.
“Bugger it,” Constance declared.
She tossed up the light froth of her skirts. Neil’s eyes snapped to the exposed skin of her knee, his jaw dropping.
His expression turned to a different sort of shock as Constance whipped a neat little dagger from a sheath at her thigh.
“Into the tunnel, Stuffy,” she ordered, pointing the blade at him.
“You can’t seriously mean to—yeek!” Neil’s words dissolved into a truncated shriek as Constance gave him a little jab.
He looked desperately to Ellie and Adam—neither of whom made any move to intercede.
“Quickly, now,” Constance cheerfully urged.
With an expression of horrified betrayal, Neil shoved the ring into his pocket and scrambled into the tunnel. Constance agilely followed behind him.
“Your turn,” Adam ordered with a pointed look back at Ellie as he wound the long coil of their severed rope around his shoulder.
Ellie knew better than to argue. She quickly crawled into the dark mouth in the wall, uncomfortably conscious of the dusty age of the timber supports that framed it.
A new rope unfurled through the tomb shaft. It hit the floor of the burial chamber with a soft slap… and immediately started to twitch.
Adam’s look darkened. “And get ready to yank on me.”
“Yank on you?” Ellie echoed. “Why on earth would I need to—”
Before she could finish, a stranger dropped into the room—a lanky Egyptian fellow in a turban and galabeya, his narrow chin marred by the white slash of a scar. At the sight of Adam and the machete, he grinned and swung a rifle from his shoulder up into his hands.
Another intruder descended behind him. He looked remarkably like the first man, with the same pointed chin and beak-like nose, except that he was stouter in build and sported an enormous black beard.
He hefted a big cudgel in his hands, eyes glinting threateningly.
Behind them, Julian Forster-Mowbray slid into view. He straightened and brushed off his tailored khaki suit. Dust settled onto his gleaming jodhpurs. “Goodness! Mr. Bates and Miss Mallory? I hardly expected to see you here.”
“Mr. Forster-Mowbray,” Ellie cautiously acknowledged from where she crouched in the mouth of the tunnel, conscious of Constance, Neil, and Mr. Al-Ahmed hiding in the darkness behind her.
The rope jerked again, more awkwardly and frantically, and Professor Dawson fell into the tomb. He landed roughly on his rear, scrambling back up and tugging to adjust his tweed suit and pith helmet.
“Please tell me we haven’t any more climbing to— What?! ” he exclaimed, eyes bulging at the sight of Ellie and Adam. “Not you two again!”
“Miss us?” Adam drawled, his tone deceptively lazy.
“Shoot them!” Dawson dashed behind the bearded thug. “Shoot them before they collapse this entire tomb on us!”
“Wasn’t planning on collapsing any tombs,” Adam noted casually. “Were you, Princess?”
“I hardly planned on collapsing anything back in British Honduras,” Ellie retorted. “Sometimes one is confronted with unexpected circumstances where an explosion simply becomes inevitable.”
Dawson made a strangled noise of terror from his hiding place behind the confused-looking Egyptian.
“Hold on!” Julian said with a look of surprise, jabbing a finger toward Ellie and Adam. “ This is the couple you were telling me about?”
“Less talking!” Dawson squawked. “More shooting!”
“Surely we can discuss this like reasonable people,” Julian pressed uncomfortably. “It seems a bit much to go straight into tossing bullets around.”
“You have no idea what sort of menace you are up against!” Dawson pleaded.
“I’m actually feeling kinda flattered,” Adam said with a hint of surprise.
“You will be feeling less flattered if they actually shoot you,” Ellie retorted tersely.
Julian put his fingertips to his temple, looking harried. “I suppose needs must,” he concluded tightly. He flapped a hand at the two Egyptians. “Get on with it, then.”
The scarred man and the bearded one exchanged a confused look.
“Remember what I said a minute ago?” Adam muttered back at Ellie without looking away from the cluster of men by the shaft.
“That bit about the yanking?” Ellie pressed back uncertainly.
“Go on!” Julian ordered impatiently, then huffed out a sigh. “Right. Dashed Arabic. Al-Saboor!” he shouted up the shaft.
“Yes, Amir!” an Egyptian-accented voice called down.
“Tell your cousins to shoot the people in the tomb!” Julian shouted up irritably.
A line of Masri echoed down from the opening to the tomb shaft. The bearded Egyptian pulled a pistol from the sash of his belt as his cousin leveled his rifle.
Adam leapt into the tunnel, landing halfway across Ellie’s lap.
A pair of gunshots thundered into the opening. Clods of loose earth rained down onto her face from the impact of the bullets.
Flipping nimbly onto his back, Adam set his boots to the half-rotted wooden supports to either side of the tunnel mouth.
“Time for that yank,” he informed her—and kicked.
As another gunshot cracked across the silence, the ancient beams exploded into dust—and the mouth of the tunnel collapsed.