Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [196]
Emerson mumbled a protest, but wild horses could not have kept me away. As he had done so often before, Daoud took my wrists in his big hands and let me down, slowly and carefully, till my feet rested on the rough stone that floored the shaft. The opening at the bottom, on the right side, was less than five feet high. I could see nothing of what lay beyond.
“Mr. Kuentz, I require a source of illumination,” I called. “You made me discard my torch.”
“Yes, to be sure. Selim, give her yours.”
Daoud handed it down. I had to bend over to traverse the short passage. When it ended I rose cautiously to my feet.
It was not a tomb. It was a shrine. Against the far wall, wrapped in folds of time-browned linen, stood the god. The light of the torch reflected in the subtle golden curves of the face; eyes inlaid with crystal and obsidian returned my unbelieving stare with calm indifference. He was crowned with twin plumes of gold, and lapis lazuli outlined his brows, and at his feet lay a tumble of golden vessels containing the dried remains of his last offering: Amon-Re, Ruler of Karnak, King of the Gods, Lord of the Silent.
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Eighteen
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From Manuscript H
It is difficult to think clearly when you are hanging head down across a surface that is in jarring motion, with a rough cloth covering your face. Nefret made the mistake of trying to struggle. She knew it was a mistake even before her head was seized and slammed against a hard object.
When she came back to consciousness the second time, she was still dangling head down, still muffled in fabric from head to foot. Not a horse this time, a man’s shoulder. After a few steps he lowered her onto a lumpy surface that smelled of mildew, and unwound the cloth.
She had no idea where she was, but she recognized her captor from Sethos’s description. His mouth drew up in a grotesque smile, distorted by the scars that had slit his cheeks. The smile and the hand that stroked the hair away from her face made her skin crawl. “Lie still,” he said softly. “I will come back.” He went out the door, leaving it open.
Her wrists and ankles were tied, and a gag covered her mouth. She began twisting her hands, trying to loosen the ropes as Ramses had taught her. Please let him be alive, she prayed. God, Allah, Amon-Re, who hears the words of the silent, anyone . . . Please.
Remembered images flashed through her mind, recapitulating the events that had led up to the disaster. Jumana’s deadweight numbing her arm, the horrified faces of the family when she rode into the courtyard, Emerson snatching the girl from her, her mother-in-law’s crisp orders . . . watching them ride off, knowing she couldn’t leave until she was sure Jumana didn’t need her . . . Margaret Minton’s fixed, white face. Margaret understood the danger but she didn’t feel the sickening terror that had seized Nefret. She knew what it meant, she had felt it before: the knowledge, inexplicable but sure as sight, that he was at that very moment in deadly peril. As soon as she was at ease about Jumana she had left the Castle, driven by the need to go to him, unable to wait another moment. She had eluded Cyrus, but not Margaret; they had been together when Jamil appeared from behind a pile of rocks, waving and calling piteously for help. His galabeeyah was ripped off one shoulder and there was blood on his face.
She only hesitated for a moment. They might have been wrong about the boy; he might have had an innocent reason for seeking Kuentz out, or he might have failed to realize how dangerous his ally was. If he had tried to remonstrate or had threatened to confess . . .
It was not blood on Jamil’s face, only dirt, but by the time she realized that, it was too late. She managed to draw her pistol and heard Jamil yowl as she fired, blindly, but the other man, the man