Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [173]
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Sixteen
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He was waiting for me at the top of the cliff as I climbed, moving with the effortless ease found only in dreams. I took the hand he extended, and he drew me up to stand beside him.
“I came,” I said.
“You were slow in coming,” said Abdullah.
I sat down on the ground and wrapped my arms around my raised knees. The morning air was as refreshing as cool water against the skin, but it was still a little chilly, and I was not wearing a coat. “I had some difficulty convincing Emerson,” I explained. “You know how stubborn he is.”
“No, that is not the reason.”
Tall and straight, black-bearded and finely dressed as he always was in these visions, he towered over me. He had covered his mouth with his hand to conceal a smile.
“No,” I admitted, smiling back at him. “I was on the wrong track, wasn’t I?”
“Yes. If you had come before, you would have saved yourself and those you love trouble and danger.”
“Not more of your enigmatic hints, Abdullah!” I exclaimed.
“Trouble and danger are your constant companions, Sitt. It would serve no purpose to warn you of what lies in store, even if I were allowed; in avoiding one peril, you would run straight into another.”
“Hmph,” I said. “What about the tomb, then? You must know where it is.”
“Tomb? Which tomb? I know them all—three more in the Biban el Moluk, six in the Queens’ Valley, seventeen—”
“Three in the Valley of the Kings?”
“Two of a richness hitherto unknown,” Abdullah said meditatively. He sat down beside me. “But they are not what you seek now.”
“Never mind that!” I exclaimed. “Two rich tombs in the Valley of the Kings! Where?”
This time he did not bother to hide his smile. “They will be found in the fullness of time, by those who are destined to find them. Do you know why I summoned you to Luxor?”
“Obviously it was not to help me find lost tombs,” I muttered. “Why, then?”
“Because this is your place. Look about you.” He gestured.
The rim of the sun showed above the eastern cliffs, a crescent of fiery red. The valley lay in shadow, from the dim outlines of the Theban temples across the river to the pale porticoes of Hatshepsut’s temples, directly below us. Slowly the crescent widened into a glowing orb, and the light spread, sparkling on the water, brightening the luxuriant greenery of the fields, turning the silvery sand to pale gold. The world had wakened to life after the sleep of darkness.
“How beautiful is your rising,” I murmured. “The living Aten who—”
“The lord Amon-Re,” Abdullah corrected somewhat snappishly. “Your Aten was a short-lived god, invented by a heretic.”
I had always suspected Abdullah was a pagan at heart. Since I did not care to engage in a discussion about religion with a man who was presumably in a position to know more about it than I, I said mildly, “They were both sun gods. Aspects of the same divine force.”
“Bah,” said Abdullah. “Amon-Re was the great god of Egypt. Ruler of Heaven, Lord of the Silent.”
“Yes,” I said dreamily. “Abdullah, you were right to bring me back. I wonder if I could persuade Lord Carnarvon to give up his concession in the—”
Abdullah interrupted me with a shout of laughter. “I should not have spoken of rich tombs,” he said, rising and taking my hand to lift me to my feet. “I was boasting, Sitt; but there is no danger that you will break the thread of the future, for the lord will not let you have the Valley. I must go now. Think on what I have told you.”
“You haven’t told me anything useful,” I grumbled.
He turned my face up and kissed me on the brow, as a father might have done. “God go with you, Sitt. May all the gods go with you.”
The dream was clear in my mind when I woke in the morning, and I am sure I need not tell the Reader what part of it was clearest. Emerson was still asleep, flat on his back with his arms folded across his chest, like a mummified pharaoh. I leaned over him.
“Emerson! There