Eleven
E llie hauled on Adam as the tunnel caved in around them, dirt pelting down against her face. The dull thunder of another gunshot was nearly lost in the thick rush of falling earth—until the avalanche finally slowed.
She lay on her back with Adam sprawled halfway on top of her. Carefully, she drew in a breath. She was surprised to find that she could breathe.
The splintering pillars of another two-thousand-year-old wooden brace stood to either side of her head. The frame had somehow halted the progress of the collapse—though it creaked ominously above her, sending a little shower of dust down onto her forehead.
Ellie sneezed. At the sound, Neil let out a strangled gurgle of terror from behind her.
In the light of Mr. Al-Ahmed’s lantern, Neil’s face was streaked with dirt, his spectacles sitting crooked on his nose. Beside him, Constance’s curls were coming loose from the precarious bundle of her bun, her white lawn dress marred with mud.
Mr. Al-Ahmed crouched behind them, gazing at the blocked tunnel with wide eyes.
“Wh-what was that?” Neil demanded in choked tones, blinking at the new wall of earth that blocked off the tunnel and buried Adam to his knees.
“Afraid we had to make this a one-way,” Adam replied, attempting to wriggle his foot. “What with the gunshots and all.”
Neil gaped at the wall of dirt. “No, no, no,” he stammered wildly. “You must have heard that wrong. Mr. Forster-Mowbray would never have shot at us.”
“Because he’s your boss?” Adam drawled back.
“Because he’s the official Cairo liaison of the British Athenaeum for Egyptological Studies, and a well-bred gentleman!”
“Well-bred gentlemen do awful things all the time!” Ellie retorted.
“I heard three gunshots, at least,” Constance offered cheerfully. “This is all dreadfully exciting!”
Neil gaped at her with horrified dismay. “ Exciting ?” he echoed, and then threw up his hands—at least as far as he could within the confines of the tunnel. “Well, why not? Why wouldn’t you think someone shooting at you is exciting? You thought starting a fire in the back garden was exciting, too!”
“A fire in the back garden?” Ellie frowned. “I’m not sure I remember that one.”
“It was when we were playing The Sack of Troy,” Constance replied.
“Perhaps the more important question is whether we have actually escaped these men who may or may not have been shooting at us,” Mr. Al-Ahmed offered a little weakly.
“It would appear that we have,” Ellie returned uncertainly.
“At least until they start digging.” Adam addressed the words to the ceiling, as he was still lying across her lap.
“But the tunnel isn’t stable!” Mr. Al-Ahmed ran a frantic hand through his dusty hair. “If they disturb the fill, they could bring the rest of it down on us!”
“Mr. Forster-Mowbray wouldn’t—” Neil began.
“He most certainly would!” Ellie shot back crossly.
“In either case, it would seem prudent that we exit this place as soon as possible,” Mr. Al-Ahmed urged.
“I’m with him.” Adam sat up, freeing Ellie of his weight, and then looked down. “Just as soon as I dig out my legs.”
He started shoveling with his hands.
Ellie squirmed the rest of the way free—and cast an uneasy gaze past him at the cave-in. “I didn’t see Jacobs back there.”
“No,” Adam agreed grimly, digging at his left knee.
“Could he have stayed behind in British Honduras?” she offered hopefully.
“Would be pretty great if he had.” Adam yanked a leg loose. “But I’m betting that’s too much to hope for.”
He tugged at his still-buried right side. It stayed stuck. With a frown, he braced his free boot against the piled earth and shoved. He popped free, sprawling back into Ellie again and revealing a foot clad only with a very dirty sock. “Dammit. Lost my boot.”
He reached into the place where his leg had been, fishing around in the dirt.
“Ellie, maybe he could use a bit more light,” Constance suggested meaningfully.
“Oh!” Ellie jolted as she realized what Constance was talking about. She fumbled for her pocket and pulled out the cigar tube.
“Have you taken up smoking now as well?” Neil exclaimed with obvious dismay.
“Oh, do be quiet!” Ellie snapped, her nerves frazzled beyond the point of making a more tactful response.
She slipped the firebird bone out into her hand.
“Got it!” Adam announced.
He yanked a filthy boot from the dirt—and the walls around them fell in.
Constance grabbed the back of Neil’s shirt, yanking him with her as she launched herself deeper into the tunnel. Mr. Al-Ahmed caught Ellie by the arm, hauling at her as Adam scrambled back and the dirt cascaded down around them.
They burst past the crooked frame of another old support, where Ellie fell onto Mr. Al-Ahmed’s shoes.
Her ears rang with the delicate patter of loose earth as the newly collapsed section settled a few inches from her heels.
“I’ve just lost my job, haven’t I?” Neil asked mournfully from where he lay sprawled beneath Constance.
“Is that really your greatest concern right now?” Ellie pressed irritably from between Mr. Al-Ahmed’s ankles.
“I’m sure you can clear it all up with a nicely-worded letter,” Constance offered sarcastically.
“Do you think so?” Neil asked hopefully.
Constance rolled her eyes, then braced her hands against Neil’s tweed waistcoat and shoved herself up into a seated position.
She paused as she thoughtfully pushed against his chest. Her gaze down at Ellie’s brother shifted to one of dangerous interest. “Well, that’s a surprise.”
“What is?” Neil asked weakly, his eyes wide.
“If any other shoes have been swallowed,” Mr. Al-Ahmed begged, “let us please leave them where they are?”
“Fine by me,” Adam replied. He held his boot in one hand and very carefully pulled his feet free of the loose debris at the edge of the collapse.
Ellie sat up—and realized that her own hand was empty. With a worried jolt, she patted at her muddy blouse and skirt, then the ground around her. “I’ve lost it!” she burst out.
“What—your bone?” Constance lurched across Neil to grab the lantern, then pivoted to straddle him before crawling free.
Neil sucked in a whoosh of breath, staring after her with shock.
Constance held the light up to the wall of splintered wood and earth. “Here it is!” she announced cheerfully.
She reached for the white stick of the bone where it protruded from the pile.
“No!” Mr. Al-Ahmed and Ellie both shouted at once—but Constance had already plucked it loose.
Nothing happened.
“Here.” Constance handed the arcanum over.
Elle accepted it with a wash of relief and gave it a flick. The bone whispered with a subtle spark of illumination—and nothing more.
She tried it again, using the same practiced snap of her wrist. The arcanum stayed dark.
“What is she doing?” Mr. Al-Ahmed asked quietly, staring at her with worry.
“Maybe try it the other way,” Adam suggested sympathetically.
Ellie repressed a scowl at the thought of how ridiculous she was about to look—but shook the bone like an angry toddler.
Mr. Al-Ahmed’s eyes went wide. Constance’s lips pursed into a puzzled frown.
Neil stared aghast as though he had just concluded that his sister was, in fact, a lunatic.
“It isn’t working,” Ellie concluded desperately when the arcanum didn’t so much as flicker.
Adam took it from her and gave it a casually vigorous shake of his own.
Neil looked queasy.
“Huh.” Adam moved the bone into the light of the lantern. “Something dinged it—right here.”
Ellie took it back from him. She examined it urgently, and her stomach dropped. “It looks like a stone chipped off one of the Glagolitic characters.”
“Can’t you just draw it back on?” Constance suggested.
“I don’t know if that would fix it,” Ellie said woefully. “And my Glagolitic is terrible!”
“What does the bone in your cigar tube have to do with an early Slavic writing system?” Neil asked with an excessive, nervous care.
Ellie stared at him. How could she possibly explain to her skeptical brother that she was holding a piece of a legend in her hand—now that she’d lost her only means of convincing him that such things actually existed?
“How about we talk it all over once we figure out whether this tunnel really has an ‘out’ hole?” Adam cut in. “You know—before the bad guys dig us out of here or the whole thing comes crashing down on our heads?”
“We had best go… the only way we can, then,” Mr. Al-Ahmed concluded helplessly, then led them forward in a bedraggled, crawling parade.
?
A thankfully short time later, they spilled out into the narrow confines of another burial chamber. The light of the lantern revealed it to be a simple tomb without the rich ornamentation of Horemheb’s complex—a mere box carved from the ground, empty of everything but rubble and scattered bones, most of them animals. Ellie spotted a little Napoleonic graffiti on the walls.
Neil’s eyes widened happily at the sight. He stopped short, gazing around the humble, narrow space with obvious admiration. “This is actually an excellent example of Ramesside administrative tomb building! Note the positioning of the sarcophagus pit, and that cut portion of the wall was almost certainly a funeral stele—”
“The sarcophagus pit is very nice.” Constance hooked a hand through Neil’s elbow. “And I’m sure you can come back and examine it in detail when we are no longer being pursued by people who mean to kill us.”
She hauled him up the steep ramp that led out of the burial chamber. Ellie trailed behind them. It really was a very fine example of Ramesside administrative tomb building, even if it had been entirely cleared out.
At the top of the ramp, she joined the others in a claustrophobic antechamber. Another square black tomb shaft was cut into the ceiling. Ellie peered up at it.
“It looks blocked,” she noted uneasily.
“That’s because I set a pair of pavers over it,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied. “They ought to be simple enough to push aside—assuming that we can get up there.”
“I can do it,” Adam announced as he tugged on his loose boot. “So long as one of you guys can play ladder.”
Ellie looked to her brother, but he was gazing back down the ramp to the burial chamber. “Some of those pot shards might allow for a more precise dating…” he said forlornly.
With a sigh, Mr. Al-Ahmed handed Ellie the lantern. He pulled his tool case from his waistcoat as though afraid to see what damage it had sustained, but the slender leather box appeared to be intact.
Ellie held out her other hand for it. Mr. Al-Ahmed passed it to her carefully and then planted himself under the mouth of the shaft.
“Oh drat,” Ellie blurted as she realized what Adam intended. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s fine,” Adam assured her as he stepped onto Mr. Al-Ahmed’s knee.
“But that shaft must be—” Ellie began.
Adam cut her off with a quickly raised hand. “—Nice and dark,” he finished for her pointedly. “Which makes it real hard to see how high it is. And that means it’s probably not so high at all. Right, Sayyid?”
“Er…” Mr. Al-Ahmed began awkwardly.
“There you go,” Adam concluded.
He stepped from Mr. Al-Ahmed’s knee to his shoulder and boosted himself into the opening of the shaft—the foreman coughing out a mouthful of Masri as he lurched under Adam’s weight.
The opening was roughly three feet across. Adam wedged himself into it, planting his boots against one wall with his back braced against the opposite side. The coil of rope that he had salvaged from Mutnedjmet’s burial chamber was looped around his neck.
Constance joined Ellie and Mr. Al-Ahmed under the opening as they watched Adam’s ascending form.
“Is your gentleman always this… vigorous?” Mr. Al-Ahmed asked.
“It really is quite impressive,” Constance agreed with obvious and slightly wicked appreciation.
“He’s not my…” Ellie began, and then sighed. “Well—yes. But you might also wish to move, in case he realizes how high up he is.”
“I might not have to realize it at all,” Adam called down with forced cheer, “if you’d stop bringing it up.”
“What happens if he realizes how high up he is?” Constance asked.
The scuffling noises of Adam’s ascent paused. “Hoooh boy,” he said, his voice distinctly queasy.
Mr. Al-Ahmed’s eyes widened with understanding, and he took a quick, substantial step back from the opening in the ceiling, courteously bringing Constance with him.
“Do you need assistance?” Ellie called up through the tomb shaft—though at a careful pace away.
“Nope,” Adam said tightly. “Just… gonna breathe here for a minute.”
With a string of muttered curses that raised Constance’s eyebrows and made Mr. Al-Ahmed blush, the sounds of Adam’s ascent resumed.
“Made it up,” he reported back, his breath a little tight. “Just… need to clear the slabs.”
A loud scrape indicated the movement of the paving stones laid over the shaft’s mouth. Ellie risked another look and saw Adam haul himself through the new-formed gap—and immediately flop over out of view.
“Told you I wasssn’t gonna puke,” he called down triumphantly from above, the words a little slurred. “Imma man of m’word.”
“You most certainly are,” Ellie said in return. “Now could you send down the rope?”
“Sure,” Adam promised. “Just as soon as the sky stops spinning.”
?
Adam hauled each of them up in turn. Constance went first, Ellie following to emerge into a splendid desert twilight. The sky had turned to a deep purple, casting the rubble-strewn plain of the necropolis into gloom and shadows. Ellie could just make out the lumpy silhouettes of a few small Old Kingdom pyramids and the ragged walls of funerary temples.
She had only a moment to take it in before Constance tugged her down behind the knee-high remnants of a Twentieth Dynasty chapel wall. Her white lawn dress was smudged with dirt, as was her face. Her hair had come mostly unraveled, dark curls falling around her shoulders.
“Looks like they’re on the hunt,” Constance reported in a slightly gleeful whisper.
Neil’s excavation lay about forty yards to the north. The pit that held Horemheb’s funerary temple sparked with escaping flares of lantern light. Voices called out urgently as more lights fanned out across the surrounding ruins.
Neil squirmed from the tomb shaft with an awkward groan and staggered free of it, half slumping against another pile of rubble. Mr. Al-Ahmed ascended last, Adam lending an arm to lever him free. The foreman brushed at his trousers in a futile attempt to tidy himself, but he remained as hopelessly disheveled as the rest of them.
Adam worked to shove the slabs back into place over the opening.
Neil staggered to where Ellie and Constance hid. He stared out at the lights of the dig with a forlorn expression. “I had recommendations from four Cambridge deans.”
“What’s that?” Ellie prompted, confused.
“One even wrote to his cousin at the Royal Geographical Society to put in a word for me,” Neil continued mournfully. “How is anyone from the Royal Geographical Society going to put in a word for me after this?”
Constance rolled her eyes. Ellie felt a dart of guilt.
“I’ve lost all of it, haven’t I?” Neil said, a note of panic entering his voice. “My position. My reputation. My prospects for future employment. It’s all gone.”
“I am sorry, Neil.” Ellie’s heart sank like a lead weight. “I promise you that was never my intention. The timing just turned out to be awful in a way none of us could have predicted.”
“Wouldn’t have happened,” Adam cut in with a grunt as he shoved the final slab into place, “if I still had my lucky rock.”
Ellie barely suppressed her huff of frustration. “Your lucky rock must’ve weighed eight pounds,” she pointed out impatiently. “Were you going to carry it around the whole of Egypt with you?”
“It still would’ve worked if I’d left it with my stuff,” Adam returned authoritatively as he came over to join her.
Ellie threw up her hands. “How does that make any sort of sense?”
“But why do you know about Bates’s lucky rock?” Neil asked helplessly.
Ellie went still—and Neil’s eyes widened with a dawning and terrible understanding.
“You… you didn’t just arrive at my tomb at the same time. Did you?” he demanded. “You came here together! Why did you come here together? How… How did you come here together?!”
Constance popped down to sit on a block of limestone, making herself comfortable. “I won’t say I haven’t been looking forward to this,” she admitted conspiratorially to Mr. Al-Ahmed.
“Mr. Bates and I have been traveling together,” Ellie replied carefully, her pulse fluttering nervously, “after a series of unforeseen circumstances necessitated that I undertake a journey to British Honduras, where by pure chance—”
“British Honduras?” Neil’s face paled. “Why were you in British Honduras?!”
Ellie fought to maintain her equanimity. “Rather a lot has happened since we last exchanged letters, but I believe you will agree that we handled the situation as rationally and reasonably as possible, given the circumstances, once I have had a chance to fully explain—”
“But how long has this been going on?” Neil’s gaze shot wildly between them.
“Six weeks,” Adam replied flatly, meeting Neil’s gaze.
“Six weeks?!” Neil squawked, his voice rising. “The two of you have been traveling together for six weeks?! ”
“As I said,” Ellie pressed on firmly, “circumstances were—”
“It’s not Ellie’s fault,” Adam cut in sharply.
“But were you alone together?” Neil squawked.
“Well, I was hardly going to drag a chaperone into the wilds of the Cayo District…” Ellie’s tone sharpened as her patience thinned.
“Yes,” Adam replied.
Ellie shot him an uncomfortable look.
“Have you…” Neil flapped a hand helplessly, then coughed out the word. “… Touched each other?”
“Really, this is getting quite patriarchal!” Ellie protested stoutly.
“Ellie…” Adam started, his look pleading.
“But did you…” Neil frankly choked on the rest—not that he needed to say it.
“Neil Fairfax!” Ellie scolded.
“It’s not like that,” Adam shot back.
Neil’s shoulders slumped with relief. He rubbed a tired hand over his features. “So you two haven’t kissed?” he offered hopefully.
Ellie’s mouth clamped shut. Her cheeks burned.
Adam turned his gaze to the sprawling evening sky as he let out a long, low breath.
Neil’s face was drawn into lines of horror. He tried to speak. All that came out was a strangled gurgle in the back of his throat.
“That was very nearly a khaa ,” Mr. Al-Ahmed observed helpfully from where he had joined Constance to watch the show.
“You should challenge him to a duel, Stuffy,” Constance gleefully suggested.
Mr. Al-Ahmed looked both alarmed and intrigued. “Do Englishmen still do that?”
“I’m not English,” Adam quickly pointed out.
“And what do they do in America when you dishonor someone’s sister?” Mr. Al-Ahmed prompted mercilessly.
“We, uh…” Adam began uncomfortably, “maybe talk it all over. Give them a little time to explain things, and…”
Ellie put her hand on his arm to silence him. “We don’t have time for any of this! In case you have forgotten, the better part of your own workforce is currently hunting for us at the behest of your murderous employer!”
Neil put his face in his hands. “Thiff iff the worft day of mwy wiffe!” he moaned, the words muffled by his palms.
“We need to find someplace safe to regroup and make a plan,” Ellie declared.
Adam nodded toward the dig site. “What about Mr. M? Is he gonna need a rescue?”
“Mr. Mahjoud? Need a rescue?” Constance scoffed. “I am quite certain he is capable of skewering the whole lot of them if he chooses.”
“Is he?” Ellie frowned, thinking of the exceptionally well-dressed and tiredly disapproving dragoman.
“He’s Sudanese,” Constance said as though the answer were self-explanatory. “So where do we go? Mariette’s House is out of the question, as is any public accommodation in Badrashin—those are the first places they will think we have gone.” Her eyes glittered excitedly. “Perhaps we can find a troop of river pirates and convince them to join our cause!”
Mr. Al-Ahmed rubbed his face. The gesture only made it even more dirty. He let out a sigh. “I know where we can go.”
Without waiting for a response, he trudged toward the shadowy line of distant date palms that marked the edge of the inundation zone.
Constance gave Ellie a surprised look, then hurried after him, her footsteps light.
Ellie glanced back at her brother.
Neil was staring once more at the lights and noise of his former excavation. With a slow and eloquent sigh of dismay, he turned and slumped wearily after Mr. Al-Ahmed and Constance like a man condemned.
Adam lingered behind, his posture stiff as he gazed out over the shadowy expanse of the desert.
“Adam?” Ellie prompted softly.
He tore himself from his silent study to join her, but remained unusually quiet. Through the shadows of the evening, his expression looked like a closed door. “We should catch up.”
Silence fell after his words, thick and uneasy. Ellie realized that he was waiting for her—that even in this odd, brooding state, he still wouldn’t go unless he knew she was coming with him.
“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” she pressed stubbornly.
He finally looked down at her. His expression was pained. “I…” He stopped, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as though fighting a headache. “This isn’t a good time.”
Ellie’s heart twisted nervously in her chest, tight with unexpected fear. Part of her flinched back in response, wanting to close up—to protect herself before she could get hurt.
She drew in a careful, deliberate breath—and reached out to take his hand instead.
His expression softened as he looked down at the place where her fingers clasped the handkerchief wrapped over his wounded palm.
“But you will tell me,” Ellie insisted.
For just a moment, his warm, strong grip tightened around her own. He gave her an uncertain nod, then let her go.
“Come on, Princess,” he said solemnly and led her after the others.