Forty-Three
E llie sat down on a rock and stretched out her legs. They ached, along with most of the rest of her. Her skirt was torn at the knee, her white blouse smudged with dirt.
She felt battered and worn-out enough to sit back and rest while Neil, Sayyid, and Zeinab argued about ancient Egyptian spells.
They were searching for the right ritual words that would protect Neferneferuaten’s tomb from the very real possibility that Julian would return to loot its treasures. Any straightforward curse might have done the job, but as Zeinab pointed out, they didn’t want to prevent the tomb from ever being studied. In a future Egypt where Egyptians controlled the rights to their own heritage, the artwork and funeral goods could provide profound insight into one of the most fascinating periods of the country’s history.
Neil and Sayyid bickered over their memories of old inscriptions and papyri. Ellie could sense that something had changed between the two scholars after they fell into the quarry. The tension between them had eased, making space for them to slip back into the companionable banter that she had observed back in Saqqara.
Constance perched on a boulder just above the bedraggled Egyptologists, shamelessly eavesdropping. Ellie noticed how her eyes kept drifting over to Neil as he pushed his bent glasses back up on his nose and cited Lepsius.
Jemmahor cleaned the rifle she had claimed for herself from among the firearms left discarded on the ridge. “I always liked the plague of frogs,” she offered helpfully as she pulled a twisted rag from the barrel. “But it would be even better if instead of raining, the frogs actually built up inside of you until you choked on them.”
Sayyid and Neil gaped at her with horror. Umm Waseem chuckled darkly where she reclined against her black canvas bag. It looked less full than it had before, but Ellie still felt a quiet sense of awe that the cackling old smuggler was using a mound of TNT for a pillow.
Adam dropped down beside Ellie heavily, wincing at the aches and bruises that covered his body. His machete was back in the sheath at his belt.
“How are your ribs feeling now?” Ellie demanded.
“I mean—they’ve been better,” Adam admitted with a wince. “But I gave back worse.”
Ellie flashed him an admiring smile. “I am certain the Al-Saboor family will be cursing your name for generations.”
His gaze flashed with amusement before growing more serious again. “Pretty sure I tried to tell you to get off that damned ridge.”
Her thoughts flew back to the grim determination in Adam’s expression when he had ordered them to leave, then turned to face Julian’s thugs. He had known perfectly well what he was walking into and had done it anyway, throwing himself into the fire to give the rest of them a chance at escape. It had been a desperate, noble, and infuriatingly self-sacrificing move—just like the one he’d very nearly made when he prepared to toss himself into the path of Jacob’s bullet.
Ellie wasn’t certain whether she wanted to slap him for that or kiss him until they fell over.
Every time she closed her eyes, her mind burned with the image of Adam lying helpless on the ground with Jacobs’ rifle pointed at his chest.
“That isn’t fair,” she bit back, fear sharpening her tone. “I don’t get to order you to safety when I’m afraid of losing you. You can’t ask the same thing of me.”
“Maybe you could,” Adam countered, “if we were up against translating an ancient manuscript before someone drops a rock on us. Or if saving our necks depends on recognizing whether a piece of pottery is Hittite or Phoenician. But if it’s down to a knife fight, that’s on me.”
Ellie felt a quick burst of fury. “And would you honestly do it? Would you really just walk away if I had to stop an avalanche with a manuscript translation?”
Adam went quiet. His gaze burned into her as though he could capture her that way and keep her safe inside of himself forever.
“No,” he said finally. “Can’t say that I would.”
Something inside her seemed to crack, and both the fear and the fury shivered away, leaving in their place only an aching sense of vulnerability and a wash of desperate relief. She had come so close to losing him that night, but now he was here beside her. Filthy, battered, and wearing three-day-old socks—but here .
She raised her hand to his face. He had collected a few new bruises. Stubble gilded his cheek. Understanding warred with worry in his eyes as he looked down at her.
“There is an obvious solution to this problem, you know,” she pointed out, lightening her tone.
“And what’s that?”
“You could teach me to fight with knives.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Adam replied easily.
“Why not?” Ellie protested. “Constance does it!”
“Never said I thought that was a good idea, either.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”
“Pretty sure we will,” Adam agreed easily.
His arm slipped around her back, a band of warmth she could feel through the battered fabric of her waistcoat. His chin came down to rest against her hair, and he breathed in her scent. His grip on her tightened as his chest shuddered with some deep emotion.
“What about Jacobs?” Ellie asked quietly, her cheek resting against the solid heat of his shoulder. “Do you really think we’re meant to… help him somehow?”
“That’s kind of a hard sell,” Adam countered with a frown.
“But he must have seen something to that effect,” Ellie pushed back. “He very clearly would have preferred to do away with us, and he had ample opportunity to do so. I can’t imagine he would have held back from that and opened himself up to so much trouble on a whim.”
“‘It couldn’t possibly be,’” Adam recited.
Ellie glanced up at him. His expression was quietly thoughtful.
“That’s what he said after he got a face-full of that smoke,” Adam elaborated. “And it was just that—maybe a puff of the stuff. I can barely remember what it felt like myself. There was this sense of something old and twisted asking me what I wanted, and then knowing that if I threw my arm up at just the right angle, I’d find what I needed.”
“I was… told that greater desires required greater sacrifices,” Ellie offered carefully.
Adam didn’t ask her who—or what—had told her. She found herself a little grateful for that. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell him. She had alluded here and there to some of what had passed for her during her time in the mirror, and she supposed that she would share all of it with him eventually. Adam would never judge her for it, no matter how bizarre and un-scholarly it all sounded.
“There was only a drop or two of blood,” Adam mused thoughtfully. “Maybe all he saw were a few hints of how he could get whatever justice he thinks he wants.”
“And one of them involved… us,” Ellie filled in uneasily.
Adam’s mouth quirked into an uncomfortable smile. “Not sure whether that’s a relief or something to be even more nervous about.”
“Nor am I,” Ellie agreed.
“Hold on!” Neil straightened with the force of an epiphany. “What about that vignette on the wall of the funerary chapel back at Saqqara? That bit about the Flame of Isis from the Book of the Dead. Something about driving away enemies …”
Ellie frowned with recognition. “You mean—The Flame of Isis says: I surround the hidden tomb with sand and drive thy enemy away,” she recited automatically.
Neil startled. “How do you know that?!”
“I saw it on the chapel wall before we descended into Horemheb’s tomb,” Ellie replied easily. “I am quite certain it is from Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One of the Book of the Dead,” she added helpfully.
“And you have it memorized?” Neil protested. “How long did you look at it for—three minutes?”
“It might have been more like five,” Ellie admitted.
“You really do have a knack for that sort of thing,” Constance commented. “I always said you ought to try a turn on the stage.”
“Nonsense!” Ellie said. “That would be an entirely frivolous use of one’s memory.”
Zeinab’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “It sounds as though that spell might simply bury the tomb in sand.”
“But what if they just dug it out again?” Jemmahor protested.
“Presumably, that’s where the ‘drive thy enemy away’ part comes in,” Constance replied confidently.
Ellie felt a quick lurch of fear—and of guilt, as her memory was flooded by the image of collapsing temples and shattering white stone. “But what about in the future? We can’t possibly destroy it forever. It’s… It would be…”
Adam set a steady, warm hand to her back. The strength of it gave her enough fortitude to draw in a breath, forcing down the panic that threatened to choke her.
“‘Drive thy enemy away,’” Constance emphasized. “That doesn’t mean everyone. Just Sayyid’s enemies.”
“ Sayyid’s enemies?” Ellie echoed in confusion.
“Me?” Sayyid protested.
“Of course!” Constance returned. “You would be the one doing the spell. You’re still the only one among us who speaks Egyptian.”
“But who are Sayyid’s enemies?” Ellie pressed.
“I should say they include Julian Forster-Mowbray,” Constance replied dryly.
Adam stroked his hand along her spine. At the comforting feeling of his touch, Ellie’s panic steadied enough to allow her a little space to think. “And perhaps… they might also include anyone else who wished to take Egypt’s historical resources for reasons of greed or power,” she added tentatively, thinking of what she knew of Sayyid’s principles—as well as his anger and grief over the ravaging of his culture.
Sayyid had been looking a bit green at the notion of using the staff again, but at Ellie’s words, his expression grew more thoughtful.
“Yes,” Constance agreed authoritatively. “I should say it would.”
“How do you know so much about all of this?” Jemmahor’s narrowed eyes were both skeptical and intrigued. “Are you an expert on curses?”
“I have read a great many books about them,” Constance explained.
“Novels,” Neil burst out with an edge of unease. “You’ve read novels.”
“I… do think a strict rhetorical analysis of the curse text aligns with Constance’s interpretation,” Ellie allowed.
“See?” Constance smiled triumphantly.
“You can’t apply modern Western rhetorical analysis to Middle Egyptian!” Neil protested. “You haven’t the foggiest idea of the social context!”
“Actually, I do not think it is far off, in this case,” Sayyid countered.
Ellie thought once more of a world that she had watched crumble into dust—the legacy of thousands of years and countless lives collapsing into rubble at her feet. Guilt snaked up from inside of her once more. “But to bury it all in the sand…”
Adam’s hand slipped over her fingers. He gazed down at her, his eyes shadowed with both sympathy and understanding. “We’re not in Tulan. And… maybe some stories have to be hidden for a little while, before they can live forever.”
The truth of his words washed over her. Adam was right, of course. The world wasn’t ready for everything history had to teach it—not yet.
But someday , she vowed to herself with a quiet, fierce determination. Someday, it would be. Ellie would do everything she could to make sure of that.
“It is the best choice.” Zeinab rose to her feet. “And it is nearly dawn.”
Ellie was surprised to realize that the eastern horizon was turning a soft pink that rose to merge with the deeper violet of the desert night.
“I’m afraid I don’t recall the actual Egyptian words from that excerpt,” Ellie apologized.
“‘I surround with sand…’” Sayyid mused, frowning. “Nuk ahu sai… teb ament?”
He glanced at Neil for confirmation. Neil flashed him a tired smile. “It sounds right to me, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Driving away,” Sayyid continued. “Xesef-a. And the enemy…”
“Xeft,” Neil offered.
“You always forget your pronouns,” Sayyid automatically corrected him. “ Thy enemy. Xeft-k.”
“It sounds splendid to me.” Constance hopped down from her perch with unfair energy. “But perhaps before we do any spells, we ought to cross the wadi. If we are trying to bury this tomb, we might not want to do it while we are standing on top of it.”
?
Dawn continued to climb the eastern horizon as they hiked across the canyon. Ellie’s legs ached as she picked her way along the narrow, winding track. The path was the same one that they had taken when they descended earlier that night, but it felt like a thousand years had passed since then.
By the time they reached the opposite side of the gorge, the sky was streaked with pink and gold, casting the wadi into hues of burnished red and purple.
Ellie glanced behind her to where the camels of the Ibn Rashid lingered in a sandy hollow. Most of them were sleeping, their long necks stretched out across the sand. Yusuf leaned against the rocks to watch contentedly over the flock. Mustafa gazed to the south, a soft desert breeze tugging at his quftan and headscarf as his hand rested on the pommel of his sword in a posture that would have given a Romantic painter convulsions of joy. The skinny yellow dog lay at his feet, its head resting on its paws.
“Might have been nice if they had helped out while we were being shot at,” Neil grumbled beside her.
“They only care about the camels.” Adam clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We’re just the baggage.”
Ellie turned back to the wadi. Beyond the shadowy cut that held the tomb, the ridge flattened into a broad plateau of undulating dunes that stretched out to the east, where the flame-red orb of the sun would soon slip over the horizon.
“It is time,” Zeinab declared solemnly.
The rest of them quieted, gathering near the edge of the cliff—except for Adam, who remained a few prudent steps back. Sayyid drew in a breath, steeling himself, and raised up the was-scepter in his hand.
“Nuk ahu sai er teb ament,” he called out in a clear, steady voice. “Xesef-a xeft -k.”
The canyon caught his words and echoed them softly back and forth against its rocky walls until they faded.
All of them waited in an instinctive, reverent silence. A breeze pulled gently at the bottom of Ellie’s skirt, sand rasping over the toes of her boots.
As the silence stretched, Ellie felt a pang of dismay. Had she remembered the words wrong? She didn’t think she had—but then, perhaps the call to the Flame of Isis hadn’t been a proper spell after all.
She tried to think of an alternative. Perhaps something else from the Book of the Dead? There were quite a few protective spells in its earlier chapters, though most of them referred to the decay of the body. But surely if she wracked her brain, she could think of something …
She was filing through her memories of the Spell of Going Forth By Day when the ground began to rumble.
Little stones bounced and rattled beside her feet. Ellie danced back, struck by a sudden terror that the cliff was about to collapse from beneath her.
Zeinab’s hand clamped around her arm, stopping her short. “La ilaha illa Allah,” she croaked, her voice raw with astonishment.
Ellie looked up—and realized that the desert was moving.
The sands beyond the wadi shifted like the waters of an impossible golden sea, rising and falling in the fiery light of the moment before dawn. With a sibilant hiss, a wave lifted from the plateau and rolled toward them.
It grew as it approached—and grew . The shadow of it fell across Ellie’s boots, then rose to cover her entirely as it raced at the wadi, roiling and building like an impossible tsunami.
Adam’s arm tightened around Ellie’s waist. He pulled her back against him, and she knew that he was also wondering if this was the last moment they would have together before the desert itself ruthlessly devoured them.
The wave fell.
A roaring cascade of sand spilled into the wadi, spraying up against Ellie and the others with a stinging heat. Adam whirled, shielding her with his body as the air filled with a maelstrom of dust and grit.
She braced herself for the impact—for the hot, suffocating crush.
The wind softened. Clouds of sand drifted down around her boots.
The air was filled with a shifting, deafening hiss. Ellie twisted in Adam’s grip, far enough to look back.
The sun had crested the horizon, blazing from red to gold. It spilled a clear, wild light out over the scene that lay before her.
The wadi was gone. Where the deep cut of the canyon had once lain was only a river of dawn-gilded sand. Nothing remained of the crown of high cliffs that had cradled Neferneferuaten’s tomb, save for scatter of jagged rocks that poked up here and there from the settling, drifting mass of sand.
Ellie took a careful step forward to where the ridge ended. Instead of a steep fall into the ravine, the ground dropped only a single step onto a softly whispering dune.
Neil gaped at the transformation, adjusting his spectacles as if that would make it more believable. Constance had a hand clapped to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock and wonder.
Sayyid swayed.
“I believe I might be sick,” he announced flatly as his knees gave out.
Adam darted forward to catch him, softening Sayyid’s collapse into an abrupt sit.
Sayyid promptly leaned forward and put his head between his knees. He held out a shaking hand, which was still holding the was-scepter. “Could someone please take this from me?” he asked a little desperately.
Zeinab stepped forward and gently removed the staff from her husband’s grasp.
Gravel crunched behind them. Ellie glanced back to see Mustafa climb up from his place by the camels.
The early sunlight highlighted the perfect angles of his cheekbones. His hawk-like eyes took in the impossible change to the landscape, then dropped to the arcanum Zeinab held in her hands.
“We must return the camels,” he announced imperturbably. “It is time to depart.”
He left without any further to-do. The breeze tugged at his elegant layers of robes as he returned to the place where Yusuf waited with the saddled beasts, the bells of their harnesses jingling softly.
Zeinab gazed solemnly down at the relic. With a neat twist of her wrist, she plucked the bronze head from the ancient tamarisk.
She tugged the tail off as well, slipping both ends of the was-scepter into the voluminous pockets of her abaya. Her eyes lingered on the unadorned stick of ancient wood—and then rose to the newborn desert that sprawled before her.
Zeinab took three neat steps out onto the gilded river where the wadi had once been and drove the tamarisk rod into the sand.
Jemmahor carefully joined her. Without speaking, she unwrapped a black scarf from around her waist and tied it to the top of the staff.
She stepped back.
A breeze drifted over the ridge, brushing across the newly minted dune and twisting up little eddies of sand. It picked up the fine, soft fabric, setting it dancing as it pulled toward the west.
Ellie’s chest tightened with grief as she realized what she was looking at—the only surviving monument to the final resting place of a woman who through love, loss, and principle had helped reshape the world.
A place now deeply, safely concealed beneath an impossible river of sand.