She inhaled deeply. "Val," she croaked. A useless sound that elicited no response. Then she repeated, "Val. er. ee," imitating his gesture.

The apparition took no notice, xing his gaze on the dumbstruck American whose eyes were wider than she had ever seen. The glowing gure reached out a hand to touch him on the shoulder.

He inched away. His voice barely had tone. "What...is...it?"

Valerie replied in a soft monotone. "I...think it is his Ka. The...uh, spirit of the man entombed here."

* 63 *

"Riiight." His eyes riveted on the spectre, Derek knelt and picked up his ashlight. He held it out, pressing its broken On switch. He pressed it again and again, the dead thing wobbling uselessly in his hand.

The Ka spoke again. Several words. His voice was slightly detached, almost musical, as if on a gramophone record. Slightly staccato sounds, not unpleasant.

Valerie realized suddenly that she understood, and the realization was a comfort. Something about him t into her science. "He's speaking Middle Egyptian, Derek," she whispered. "For God's sake. I understand him."

"Uh-huh." He was still in a stupor.

"He's talking to you, Derek. I think he said...'Grandchild.'"

The Ka spoke again, slowly, as if taking pains to be understood, and Valerie struggled to separate out the sounds. He repeated himself, giving her time to comprehend.

When she grasped the sense of what she was hearing, she laughed softly. "I should have guessed. He's asking your name. Tell him."

The singer regained his composure. "My name. Yes. Uh..." He pointed at the center of his chest and said, "I am Derek."

The spectre repeated "Ayemderak" and nodded with satisfaction.

"Close enough," Derek murmured.

The spectre continued talking and Valerie listened, frowning in concentration, trying to match sounds to words she had only ever seen written. "I believe he said he is pleased that you are fat."

Derek nally tore his eyes from the spectacle and looked down at himself. "What? He said fat? I'm not fat. Tell him...I am considered handsome."

"I think he means prosperous. But why don't I ask him why he calls you grandchild?" She searched her memory and spoke in short, stiff phrases, recasting ceremonial language she had never heard into small talk.

The Ka listened, frowning slightly, and then replied.

Valerie listened in turn, reversing linguistic direction. "'You are...child of my child...foretold in the...prophecy of the jewel.

'No," she corrected herself. "'Of the amulet. You are the...hundredth generation.'" She realized what she had just translated and turned back * 64 *

to the glowing entity. "Prophecy? Amulet?"

"The gift of Meremptah." The Ka stepped to the opposite wall and laid his hand on the scene of Pharaoh bestowing an amulet on the kneeling gure. "At the New Year, the Great King made this gift to me."

Valerie nodded, remembering. The amulet. Of course. The only object on the tomb wall painted in gold. Her head throbbed, and she pressed her hand over her ear as she struggled with the unfamiliar words. "Where does your mummy lie?"

The Ka raised both his hands in apparent joy. He reached up to touch the image of the Ba at the top of the Balance. "Here within."

The transparent nger tapped on the wall. "Touch here," the Ka said, stepping aside.

Obediently, Valerie stepped forward and studied the human-headed bird. Seeing it close-up, she realized that it bulged slightly from the surface of the wall, like a blister. She tapped on it as the Ka had done. When nothing happened, she pressed harder with two ngers.

Suddenly, the image gave way, and within the wall they could hear the gritty sound of a sliding bolt.

With the rumble of stone against stone, the painted image of the mummi ed Osiris edged outward from the wall like a puzzle piece and slid toward them into the chamber. "Look, the God of the Dead is himself the door! These people had a sense of poetry."

She knelt down as soon as the opening permitted it and shone the ashlight beam into the darkness behind it. The two of them peered in together. Light sparkled back at them from a thousand places, like birds uttering.

"Pu...tain, " she whispered.

The two of them put their shoulders to the Osiris door, forcing it farther outward on its arc. Finally Valerie could press herself through the opening into the burial chamber. She crawled in, setting her ashlight in front of her, then stood up. "Reassure me I'm awake, Derek."

"No," he muttered, crawling in behind her. "I'm sure we're not."

The large pieces were set along the oor: chests and caskets, shrines large and small mounted on sledges, a cow's head in life size, a crouching leopard with agate eyes, seated human gures. Upright against the wall were oars, priestly standards, and fans that clearly once * 65 *

held feathers.

Two long tables that ran along the walls held rows of bowls, goblets, plates, and vases. At one end sat asks and unguent jars, in animal shapes. At the other were trumpets, sheathed daggers, sandals, and gurines, and before them in rows, elaborate pectorals, collars, buckles, bracelets, rings. The funeral trappings of a prince.

Valerie sensed the Ka beside her, then saw his soft glow.

"I was favored by His Majesty," he explained, matter-of-factly.

She looked up at the painting on the wall. Ten gods stood on a shore in a row, hands raised as if in horror toward two gures in a river barque. "The Barque of the Sun," she said, "but it is not the way I have seen it before."

"It is the Barque of our dark dreams." the spectre replied mysteriously.

She studied the ancient river craft, curved extravagantly upward at both ends, and searched for meaning. The solar disk that surmounted the boat's central shrine was painted red, and before it at the prow Seth the Defender raised his harpoon. In front of the boat, a huge serpent spiraled upward from the water, its jaws agape. The harpooner took aim at the adversary, but his long camel head uncharacteristically faced into the chamber. It seemed to Valerie that he glowered down at her, and the brightly painted eyes followed her wherever she moved.

"Seth and Apophis are so large. And look, Jehuti has his own text next to him. ' Rekhi renusen. Djedi medjatsen. ' That's not any Egyptian that I know."

"I also do not know them," the Ka replied. "The words were dreamt by my lord Meremptah."

"Meremptah. Of course. I knew it was nineteenth dynasty." She directed the light beam toward the great dark object at the center of the chamber and heard her own sudden inhalation.

An undisturbed sarcophagus, the fervent dream of every Egyptologist. And she was the rst to set eyes on it, after thousands of years. She shone her light on the four clay jars at its foot, on the carved jar heads of man, baboon, jackal, and hawk. "And the canopic jars are intact too."

They approached the object reverently, and Valerie ran her ngers lightly along the upper edge. It was wood, she noted, nely nished and painted on all sides with the spells of the Cof n Texts.

* 66 *

"You may open it. It was thus prophesied." The Ka directed his reply to the uncomprehending Derek, who stood at the foot of the sarcophagus. Valerie translated for him and set the ashlight down to free both hands.

The sarcophagus lid lifted easily from its base, revealing an inner mummiform cof n. The seam between the upper and lower portions of the cof n was clear, and Valerie inserted her knife blade. "It goes against all my training to break into a cof n this way," she said, tilting the blade gently upward, "but so does talking to a Ka."

The tiny aperture gave forth a faint pffft, and she suddenly smelled a mix of resin, camphor, and mold. Taking hold of the cover with both hands she slid it downward along the axis of the cof n, just enough to expose the head. She expected gauze or a desiccated face and was prepared for the horrors of decomposition. She laughed.

The face of Derek Ragin looked up at them from the cof n with wide kohl-rimmed eyes. Only the painted side lock of braided hair showed that the mask was an Egyptian priest, three thousand years dead. Narrow strips of linen held the mask in place around the head.

Wider strips encircled the throat and were wrapped in geometric patterns down to cover the rest of the mummy's body.

Derek looked over her shoulder. "I'm dreaming, for sure, and seeing my own self dead."

The Ka pointed a glowing hand toward the wrapped cadaver. "The prophecy is there, on the king's gift. The words of the Scribe."

Valerie slid the cof n cover a few centimeters farther down and peered inside. Below the Derek-mask a stunning jeweled pectoral lay on the gauze of the mummy's chest.

The Ka clasped his hands, as if to suppress his own excitement.

"Take it up. It is for you to read."

She reached down carefully, fumbled for a moment unhooking the chain from around its neck, and raised the heavy gold plaque to the light.

"It is the Judgment Hall scene, the same image as in the painting in the anteroom." Perplexed, she turned the object over. "There are a few hieroglyphs here. ' Djamu nu thau-shet mekhet. ' The hundredth generation. Then, ' nefer renepet. ' The glorious new year." She laid the ornament respectfully back on the mummy, tucking it under a layer of gauze.

* 67 *

The Ka looked from one mortal to the other. "The scribe said I would be taken from my tomb by my descendant." He gestured toward Derek. "That I would witness the Balance, the Book, and the bearing of the Child. Then Aton would rise in the west."

"Balance, Book, Child? What does that mean? How can the sun rise in the west?"

"I do not know more. But Pharaoh knew, for the god had given him the dream. He wrote it on papyrus and told the wrong that must be righted."

She peered again into the sarcophagus, directing her light to the four corners. "I don't see any papyrus."

"It is given to the good gods and lies beneath the Sun God Ra.

Apophis is the key. I have read it and it is written in my heart. It tells of the great shame that caused the fall. ' Khetet, ' it says. 'Before my burning eyes, the beasts, the winds and waters, and the hills cried out.'"

The Ka paused suddenly and listened, as if detecting some distant sound. "I must go. Cover me again, please. Protect my mummy from the touch of Seth."

The priest lost opacity and began to fade, from the feet up, smiling all the while, until there was only empty space where he had been. In the silence, a small pebble fell from the opening of the chamber and Valerie jumped.

"Oookay." Derek, who had been silent the whole time, nally spoke. "Are you going to tell me what just happened?"

Valerie pressed her hand to her ear. "I'm not sure. In the dark, you know, and in all the dust. You saw it too, right? It said...he said...he had been waiting for you, his descendant." She shone her ashlight again on the four walls, where the images were two-dimensional and motionless. "And that it was all written down on papyrus someplace."

"Do you think anyone is going to believe us?"

"I don't believe it myself. It's just too crazy." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm exhausted. I need to get out of here."

Derek looked around. "I...don't know. It seemed real to me.

But maybe you're right. There's not enough air. Let's go back up and talk."

They made their way out of the burial chamber to the anteroom. "I think we should keep the burial chamber hidden a while longer. Until we can gure this all out." She pushed the Osiris block back into the * 68 *

closed position. "Right now I'm having doubts about my own sanity."

Valerie packed dirt once again into the crack to conceal the separation and moved one of the chests directly in front of it. "If any of the men come down here, they should overlook this. At least for a while. Now let's get out of here and just think about this."

They began the ascent, laboriously, toward the entrance. A circle of radiance at the top of the tunnel revealed it had become morning. As they plodded slowly upward, a gure stepped into the light and stood in blurry silhouette. A gure wearing boots and trousers.

"Putain," Valerie muttered.

They stepped together out into the harsh light to face him.

"Dr. Vanderschmitt."

* 69 *

* 70 *

CHAPTER X:.

HYENA.

The pale scientist stood at the top of the narrow channel that had been cut in the desert oor. As the two emerged from the dark, he stepped down onto the ramp and they could see his full lips pressed together, his unshaded eyes half closed. A small dark man, obviously his guide, stood behind him.

"You should not have evaded me, Miss Foret," he said in a quiet monotone. "I might have recommended that you stay with the excavation, perhaps in an administrative capacity. But I am afraid this speaks for your removal from the project." Valerie heard a quiet satisfaction in his voice.

The Arab workmen watched from a distance. Except for Ahmed, none could speak English well enough to follow the stranger's remarks, and Valerie sensed that their silence revealed a single common concern.

Who was now in charge?

She glanced around the site for a moment and seemed to consider what to say. She forced herself to smile. "You are right, of course, Dr.

Vanderschmitt. I acted hastily. I didn't want you to come out here until we were certain that we really had something." She shot a glance at Derek, whose faint nod reassured her he understood.

"But of course you found your way out on your own. I am pleased to tell you there is indeed a tomb, as you can see, which we have just now opened, and it is full of artifacts. It is a stupendous nd the team has made, a great coup for the university. You can be very proud."

She gestured toward the tomb entrance. "Let me show you around."

Effecting a smooth transition from adversary to agent, she started down the ramp. The new chairman followed without speaking.

* 71 *

She continued cheerfully in the tunnel, showering him with data, measurements, digging schedules, to keep him from repeating his ultimatum. Finally they were at the antechamber.

He stepped, obviously awestruck, into its center and turned in a circle as Valerie herself had done, sweeping his ashlight over the four walls. She knew exactly what he felt, and for a moment she regretted hating him. They could have shared the discovery as colleagues. Then she remembered it was not hate but fear that he had called up in her.