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THEY AIMED THE DONKEYS’ noses toward the quarries. Under a clear sky and an eternal sun. For a while none of them spoke. None of them mentioned what had happened the night before. Or dawn before.
That didn’t last long. The endless desert was too much for Nick. He longed for human voices. He pulled up beside the other man and told him the story of their haunted bar back home. Told him about being chased by the demon with the crocodile head. The Ba-birds. After the recent visitation of spirits Nick thought Sharif might be interested in them.
Sharif listened attentively.
Then the two men talked, with Sharif contributing to the exchange. Several times Faye, who’d ridden beside them quietly, glanced over. Now Nick was telling Sharif about the attack on her at the bar, how she’d killed that man, been in a month-long coma.
Sharif kept stealing looks at her. What was he thinking? What did he think of her? She let Nick talk himself out and said nothing.
“You are a brave woman,” Sharif said to her later.
That was all. You are a brave woman. She didn’t know if he’d said it because of what she’d gone through during and after the attack on her in the States or because of what she was doing now. In Egypt.
They kept the donkeys moving.
“I thought the travel books were wrong,” she confided to Nick as they urged their mounts up and over a rough, shrub-studded hill.
“What did you think they were wrong on?” Nick played along.
“They said it never rained in Egypt.”
“Ah. Apparently it doesn’t.” Nick peered up at the cloudless sky, shading his eyes with a hand. He gazed at her in her Egyptian robe and straw hat, astride her donkey, and smiled broadly. “Someday, honey, you can tell your grandchildren about this great escapade of ours. How we globetrotted all across the Middle East after an elusive ghost. Across shark-infested seas in a plane, down the Nile teeming with crocodiles in a felucca, and over hot desert sands on foul-tempered beasts. We even climbed down into the bowels of ancient tombs, wearing traditional Egyptian garb. Oh, and we were chased by a horde of bloodthirsty haunts. Quite an adventure.”
“Yes, it is turning out to be.” It seemed strange. She couldn’t recall at what point Nick had stopped griping and had embraced their little odyssey. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Under her breath, she muttered, “And it’s not over yet. Not by a long shot.”
She prodded her donkey up alongside their guide’s. “Mr. al-Hakim, would you play your fiddle for me? That song, the one you first played last night, I want to remember it.”
“Steal it, you mean?” Sharif chided her. But he wasn’t serious, there was a smile on his face.
“Would I do that?” a touch of humor in her voice.
“Of course. All musicians steal melodies and arrangements. In fact, it is a compliment that you liked the song enough to take it. I don’t mind. It is an old song I learned at my mother’s knees. She had learned it at her mother’s. An Egyptian lullaby.” He dug his fiddle out of a saddlebag and began to play it, letting his legs and feet guide the donkey.
“Oh, your mother played the fiddle, too?” Faye smiled at him this time.
“No, but she had a lovely voice and she’d sing it to me.” The music faded to a whisper and then surged up again.
“It has words?” Sharif had been right, she had wanted to hear it again so she could steal it. The melody hadn’t stopped haunting her.
“Yes.” The fiddle quieted and in a melodious, but unprofessional, voice the man began to sing to her as Nick came abreast of them.
Faye’s eyes were wet when he’d finished. The song had beautiful lyrics. Now she wanted to make it her own more than ever. She’d sing it accompanied by Jim’s guitar and Dave’s harmonica, and it would make a great addition to her repertoire.
It seemed impossible that there wasn’t someone who loved and cherished this man. He was a rare human being. He had an artist’s soul.
“Do you have a wife, al-Hakim?” It’d just slipped out and now her face flushed. She shouldn’t be prying into this man’s life, but she couldn’t retrieve the words once they’d escaped. Nick was frowning at her.
The Egyptian twisted in his saddle and gave her a thoughtful look. She was surprised when he answered, “No wife.”
“Oh.” Sad for him.
“But I am seeing a woman. Nejla Khalil. She’s a teacher at the university. Very smart. Beautiful and worldly. She, too, spent time in America and has traveled to France to lecture.” A soft look touched his eyes, his lips went up in a faint smile. “She does not know it yet, but she will be my wife someday.”
Faye grinned; she couldn’t help it. She was happy for him.
“I know it’s late for me to think of love and children, marriage. But I came late to the game.” He looked directly into Faye’s eyes. “My work has always meant more to me than any woman. Until I met Nejla. She is the other part of my soul that I have been searching for. I would be a fool to let her go.” Something in his voice touched Faye. He really loved this Nejla.
“She likes American pizza. Sausage with mushrooms.” He grinned. “Jazz. She loves to dance. Loves music. Though she dresses like a true Muslim, which she is.” That would help explain Sharif’s acceptance of everything Muslim.
“She has the most stunning brown eyes.” He gazed right at Faye again after looking out ahead of them. “As lovely as yours, madam. I am a blessed man.”
“And she’s lucky to have someone like you to love her.”
“That is a kind thing to say.” Sharif seemed flattered. “You are very much like her. In fact, you two would get along well, I suspect. She would be proud to meet you. She would appreciate your unique voice, your great talent. Your empathy and bravery.”
Nick was loudly clearing his throat. He caught his wife’s eye and Faye got the message. She didn’t think he was as jealous as before, but Sharif’s attention was making him uncomfortable.
“Al-Hakim,” she sighed, “your fiddle playing is so lovely. Would you play me something else, please?”
The three of them rode on in the heat, Sharif playing his fiddle. Sometimes Faye would take over and give him a rest by singing a song. Sharif was delighted with everything she sang. Cowboy songs he called some of them. Because Faye and Nick were from Montana. Though Faye understood that he knew they were more than that. She sang him blues and folk songs. Even a few Beatles ballads. Then Sharif played his again.
Faye admired the sweet sound of his fiddle. The way the varnish glowed warmly in the sunlight. “I’ve never heard such clear notes. It must be an expensive violin.”
“Ah, no, it is of humble lineage, my fiddle.” He caressed the paper-thin wooden box. “It was fashioned from maple, made by chisels, calipers, and miniature wood planes like any other fiddle. It is no Stradivarius.”
“It plays like one, though.” Faye held out her hands, still holding the reins. “Can I see it?”
“Of course.” Sharif handed over the violin. The bow. He was right. It was no Stradivarius. It was nicked, and worn almost to the maple in places. It had seen much use. Years. The body was delicate. The bridge beautifully made. She laid the sweet-smelling wood against her neck, tied the reins for a few moments to the pommel, and drew the bow softly against the strings, loving the sound it made, like a woman crying. Faye wasn’t an expert fiddle player, but she played an easy, quick song on it. Sharif grinned at her. As if he had expected her to be able to play.
Sighing, she gave the violin back to him and picked up the reins again. They were heading through a series of steep gullies. She didn’t want to topple off the donkey, nor did she want to hurt the violin. “Where did you get such an instrument?”
“A friend of mine, Otto, in Cairo, makes them. From scratch just as the Cremonese masters did in the seventeenth century. He uses the same painstaking techniques. Works months on one violin. Says he loves the woodworking part the best.”
“He’s good. That’s a fine fiddle.”
“He should be good, he learned his craft in Mittenwald, in Bavaria. From a master violin maker. He made this one years ago just for me. I did a great favor for him and this violin was my reward.”
“You seem to have many friends.” Faye was thinking of Mohammed, of the Alicia’s crewmen. Everyone they met seemed to be Sharif’s friend.
“It is good to have friends. You never know when you might need them.”
“That’s true. You never do.”
As the day rolled along, the fiddle and Faye both fell silent. The heat was too oppressive to do anything but cling to the saddle and stay on. Faye found herself yearning for cool raindrops on her face, for a storm. A kiss of a breeze. Anything but the placid skies and heat that plagued them.
Hat slouched low over her eyes, she rode her donkey, her body, her mind, her every sense on fire. The minute she’d stop talking and singing with Sharif, her mind had returned to her predicament.
She flushed every time she remembered the armless spectral thing that had pawed her in the inky tent. She’d asked herself why the thing hadn’t hurt her. It could have. She suspected that it had something to do with Sharif, or the arrival of dawn, or Ankhesenaton.
She fretted that she was on the verge of a heat stroke. She’d been in the desert too long. Seen too many ghosts. Reality was blurring into fantasy. More and more lately she felt as if she were in a dream. An endless, frightening dream.
Sometimes Ankhesenaton would whisper things to her.
Father drove me out here one day in the rear of his chariot, to see the men at work in the quarries. Cutting the stones for the buildings of our city. He wanted me to see how beautiful they would be. The stones were huge and glittering in the sun. My servants had dressed me in my most fetching gown, my jewels; and my father paraded me past his troops and our people toiling in the pits. They bowed to me. Paid me tribute. I was eleven and coming into my beauty. My father said that day that I had her eyes and he touched my face and kissed my lips. In front of all. For all to see how pleased he was with me. And the heat of the desert was not warmer than the pride I felt in being his daughter.
He was a god, my father. A god.
Close. The truth was close. Soon Faye knew she’d complete what she’d come here to accomplish. She could feel it.
If they could get through it all safely. If she could find the truth before this whole mystery drove her insane or killed her.
“Our destination’s about four hours away.” Sharif slapped the reins against his donkey’s flank. “I must have miscalculated the distance. It is farther than I believed.”
Faye tipped the rim of her hat to acknowledge she’d heard him, then wiped the sweat from her face with the hem of her robe for the umpteenth time. She’d tried to clean herself up as much as she could that morning with a little water from a canteen, as had Nick, though, like most men he wasn’t a stranger to dirt and sweat. It didn’t bother him as much as it did her that they hadn’t been able to take a real bath in seven days. Her hair was filthy, the worst thing that could befall a woman, and her skin felt leathery from the sun and sand. She’d never felt less appealing.
“There’s a small spring along the way, an oasis between here and the quarries,” Sharif informed them. “You can bathe there.”
Faye looked at him. Reading her mind again, huh? “A spring? You mean water, real water? A real bath?”
To covet a bath more than anything else in the world seemed frivolous considering what they were there to do, but she couldn’t help herself. At that moment, a bath was what she most desired.
“The oasis is about a mile from the site of the ancient necropolis that served the tombs in these surrounding hills,” Sharif explained. “We can bathe tonight when we get there, refill the canteens. There will be plenty of water for the animals.”
The bit of news about the nearby oasis had cheered Faye immensely, but Sharif’s mention of the necropolis bothered her. She didn’t know why.
The donkeys smelled the water long before the humans. The last part of the journey the animals had proceeded almost at a dead run, their riders hanging on for dear life. The animals were hot and thirsty, too.
To make better time, they hadn’t stopped for a midday meal, but had forged on through the baking sand until they were at the fertile swatch amid the aridness. They dismounted as the sun was starting its descent. A spring trickled from a small cliff of rocks into a pool lined with palm trees. In the middle of the desert.
Faye had never seen anything as gorgeous as that pool of water.
Nick nearly fell off his mount. “Another few days on that cursed beast,” he mumbled, only for her ears, “and I won’t be able to walk. Ever again.” The donkey, as if hearing him, turned a lazy eye his way and nipped at him. Nick moved just in time.
“I hate donkeys,” he hissed.
“And they seem to feel the same way about you,” Sharif kidded.
There was no one else around, but fresh horse tracks gave away the fact that the oasis had recently been vacated.
Sharif slipped off his donkey and stooped down to study the hoof prints. His eyes were hard as he scanned the horizon. “Bedouins, most likely.”
Faye marveled that Sharif never seemed to tire. Never seemed to mind the heat or the sun. The endless hours riding.
“I know most of the tribes around here. It is not any of them.”
How could he know whose tracks they were? The man amazed her.
Faye got down from her mount. Released it. It followed the other donkeys to the pool to drink. Sharif seemed preoccupied, wary, as he stared at the land around them. She picked up on it. So did Nick.
“What’s wrong?” Nick was standing beside them now.
At first she wasn’t sure the Egyptian would reply. But he did.
“I might as well warn you and your husband,” he said to Faye. “It’s better if you know. It is probably Afshar’s people.”
“Who’s that?” Nick queried.
He turned to Nick. “Savages. We do not want to meet up with them.”
“Who is Afshar?” Faye wanted to know, too, though she had a premonition that she really didn’t want to find out.
“He’s a brute who passes himself off as a Bedouin.” Sharif’s tone was chilling, as were his eyes. The three of them were watching the donkeys fight for position at the pool. Sharif squeezed in between two of them and, bending down on one knee, filled his cupped hands with the water. Drank.
“You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?” Faye said.
Sharif glanced up at her, a queer look on his usually staid face. “Not I. But many are. And they have a right to be.”
“Why?” Faye wouldn’t let it die.
Sharif shook his head. He didn’t want to tell them, it was easy to see.
But she glared at him until he did.
Sharif rose up and faced them. “It’s rumored he is possessed of demons. He follows not Allah or any other god. He is a truly evil man. He terrorizes the villages around here. He and his men. Their camp is hidden up in the hills someplace. No one has ever found it, or his people, and come out alive. He captures men, and if he can get ransom for them, he returns them to their people. Tourists he loves to kidnap. He gets a lot for them. Especially Americans.” The warning wasn’t lost on Faye and Nick.
“He steals Egyptian women and girls away from their villages and sells them into slavery along the coast. If he does not decide to keep them for himself or his men.
“He has been known to deal with his enemies most cruelly. A man once crossed him—a thief, a competitor—and Afshar sealed him in one of these tombs. Buried him alive. No light, food, or water. The body was found months later. The man had died a horrible death. Had clawed his fingers down to the bone trying to get out.”
“And this man is a Bedouin?” Nick exclaimed. “I thought Bedouins were peace loving?” Apparently he’d read that in the travel books.
“True Bedouins, yes. He is not a true Bedouin. He was raised in the cut-throat slums of Thebes. They say an orphan. Fought to stay alive. There he learned well all his talents. Learned to steal, torture, and kill.
“His reputation is known and he is feared all over this area.”
“Well,” Nick rubbed his hands together, “let’s hope we don’t meet up with this unsavory character.”
“Yes, let us hope that.” Sharif was still staring out into the desert, as if he expected the fanatic Bedouin to come crashing down upon them at any moment.
“He hates all foreigners, but Americans the most. His mother, it is said, was brutalized, murdered by an American man. Drunk. Afshar was only twelve. But he did not rest until he had found the man and cut his heart out.”
“Nice guy.” Nick visibly shuddered.
“I am sorry if I have frightened you both,” Sharif apologized, “but this needed to be said. Those tracks are very fresh. We must use caution. Afshar and his men could be close by. I would strongly suggest that we make as little noise as possible.” He gathered up the donkeys’ reins and took them off a ways, to some scraggly bushes to hobble for the night. They’d had their fill of water.
“The desert is full of danger,” Nick whispered menacingly, raising his arms in a threatening gesture. “Now mad Bedouins.”
Faye didn’t think it was funny.
Sharif was kind enough to disappear for a while so she and Nick could take their baths first. They didn’t know where he’d gone or what he was up to, but Faye presumed he was out searching for Bedouins. Or standing guard.
As the sun dipped below the dunes she and Nick splashed water, quietly, and took turns soaping each other until the grit and dust of the journey were gone. In parts of the spring they were cloaked from prying eyes.
Among the rushes. There Faye felt like a new woman and forgot about Afshar.
“That’s a hell of a tan you’re getting,” Nick commented. “Never known you to be so dark...and your eyes....” He was close to her in the water. She smiled at him and ran her fingers across his chest softly.
“What about my eyes?” She batted her lashes at him in the twilight, moved nearer until her bare breasts pressed up against his chest. She could hear his breath catch. He forgot about her eyes, eyes she also knew had grown so dark in the Egyptian dusk. She felt like a different woman lately.
“It’s as if I’m married to a mysterious stranger, a woman who turns me on so much I don’t ask questions. Yet, you’re still my Faye. My wife.
“Honey, I could ravish you right here and now,” Nick growled as he caught her in his arms. They’d awakened and made love the night before in their tent in the middle of the night, before the banshees had shown up. Quietly so as not to disturb Sharif. Tenderly. That was one thing about Egypt; it had brought out Nick’s lust. Their mating, usually in stolen moments at night in their tent, was better than it had been in years. Faye didn’t question it, either, as Nick she just enjoyed it. Perhaps it was because they were strangers in a hostile land. In danger. The excitement of it all. Perhaps because Nick sensed the attraction between her and Sharif, he was marking his territory.
Faye didn’t know what had gotten into her, but she responded passionately as Nick kissed her. She couldn’t stop herself, risky though it was. With Afshar and his men out there. With Sharif close by somewhere.
Her legs grasped Nick around the waist as she slid into the position. He drew her tighter, his kisses becoming more fevered. Sharif could come back at any moment, yet she couldn’t help herself. They made slow, gleeful love in the pool as night settled on them. It felt good to be clean. Good to make love, to be alive.
When they were done, shivering, they toweled each other off and dressed quickly. They already had the tents up and a fire going at a short distance from the spring when Sharif returned.
“Coffee’s on,” Faye told him cheerfully.
“I was scouting out the area.” Their guide strode into the light of the campfire. Only Faye noticed the edginess in his voice, the way his eyes kept patrolling the darkened spaces around them. “Walking over the remains of the necropolis I told you about, about three miles away.”
Three miles? No wonder he’d been gone so long. “The necropolis?”
“Yes. Once it was a walled in village where the slaves who tended the tombs lived. Three thousand years ago.”
“The books I’ve read on such places claimed these people were never allowed to leave. Ever. They lived their lives prisoners, had their children within the walls, and later their children attended to the dead.”
“And the children of their children, and then their children,” Sharif said softly. His face was lit by the firelight as he crouched down next to them. Up close, she could see the weariness in his expression, the dirt on his cheeks.
“Imagine living your whole life among the dead, caring for them, their possessions, and their tombs. Never being free to leave the valley of the dead. To have your own life,” Faye muttered, and there was compassion in her tone as she looked into the fire.
“But the tombs were never occupied, from what we’ve seen, so why did they need a necropolis?” Nick was sprawled by Faye on the ground. The campfire played across his clean face.
Sharif answered him. “It was already in place. Had to be, as the tombs were being built. People lived in Amarna for almost thirty years, they now estimate, and probably that is how long the slaves were here.”
“What do you think happened to them, I mean, when the city fell?” Faye asked of the Egyptologist.
“So you believe the city was overtaken, then?”
“Yes,” Faye replied carefully. “I do.”
“By whom?”
Faye didn’t know where the words were coming from, but come they did. “My theory? I think Horemheb sacked the city and the necropolis before he stole the throne.”
Sharif laughed. “You are in good company then. Many an Egyptologist believes the same thing.”
“You included?”
“I don’t know. I have never found any proof. Did Ankhesenaton tell you this, too?”
Faye thought for a moment. “Yes, I think she did.” Then a look of puzzlement crossed her face. A sudden revulsion had swept out of nowhere and crept through her. The necropolis. That was a place she didn’t want to go to or even be anywhere near. But why? It was only a premonition, yet it was so strong it pounded against her mind. Something atrocious had occurred there, as in the city. Something truly heinous. Long ago. She had to turn her face away quickly so Sharif and Nick didn’t see what she was feeling. Both of them seemed to read her too easily.
The next time she saw her ghostly shadow, Faye would demand that she be told the whole truth. Next time.
Soon.
She remained quiet, deep in reflection, as the two men discussed the care of the donkeys for the night. Who would stand guard first. What they’d do if they were attacked.
Something else had occurred to her concerning the nearby necropolis. There was something she should remember about it, as if this was a place she had visited once long ago, but now couldn’t remember. Strange. Her nervousness increased.
“I wanted to see if anyone else had been digging out there recently,” Sharif was saying when she came back to the world of the living. The men were discussing the necropolis again.
“Was anyone?” Nick offered Sharif a cup of coffee. The guide waved it away gracefully as he stood up. He took the goatskin from his belongings and poured himself a cup of wine.
“Not that I could tell. Now, it’s my turn to take a bath. I will have that coffee, friend, and food when I am clean enough to enjoy it.” Sharif grinned and dissolved back into the darkness. They heard water splashing moments later and smiled at each other, remembering, over the flickering fire.
When the Egyptian joined them again his hair was wet and hung in his eyes. Nick handed him a cup of coffee. Then the three of them made supper. They talked a long time that night about their quest, Egypt, the past, their comradery natural and pleasant. They didn’t play and sing; they were bone tired.
Faye was uneasy the whole time. She went to bed with her husband, held him close. She didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t want him out of her sight. The desert whispered, and the night seemed hostile. Even the animals were disquieted. Something was waiting out there for them. Something they wanted desperately to avoid.
****
FAYE WAS SO RESTLESS it was a long time before she fell asleep, and then her rest was abruptly brought to an end. It seemed she was never going to get a full night’s sleep undisturbed. Not as long as she was in Egypt.
Ankhesenaton was sitting in her tent in the dark, haloed in faint light. No horses this time, no black cats. She was alone.
Faye sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Ankhesenaton, I found the scroll. What am I searching for in the Hatnub quarries?”
The specter didn’t answer. Her face, as Faye’s eyes focused on her, was as haunted as a ghost’s face could be.
“Ankhesenaton? What’s wrong?”
The spirit stared at her for the longest time, sighing like a child who’d lost her best doll. She was dressed as she’d been the last time. Simply.
My father wanted a son so badly, the voice was in Faye’s mind, but it was as if the ghost were talking aloud to her. Egypt wanted a son of him. The people demanded a son. Another pharaoh. There was only me and my five sisters. She spread her arms, dropped them to her sides.
Stories again? Faye wanted Ankhesenaton to just tell her what she needed to know. What am I looking for? Show me and let’s have it over and done with, she wanted to say. But something held her back, perhaps the way Ankhesenaton was behaving. She’d tried being forceful before; it’d never worked. The ghost wouldn’t be rushed. She’d waited thousands of years to tell her tale. She would tell it, in her way, in her own time.
Faye played along. She’d ask her questions when the night’s story was done. “Five sisters? Oh, yes, that’s right, Meketaton, died so young.” And another of the six died later.
The spirit nodded, accepting the sympathy. Yes, Meketaton. But she and my other sister who died were the lucky ones. We who remained were the ones who suffered. My father in the earlier days, before his religion fevered his mind, was desperate for a male heir. My mother couldn’t give him one.
“And?”
The ghost met her eyes, her voice soft as velvet. When I was twelve, I had a child, a girl, also named Meketaton. My father’s child.
Faye wasn’t shocked. Among the royals incest was accepted in ancient Egypt. Even expected. There had been rumors of the child, inklings Ankhesenaton had been mated to her own father. And later even to her grandfather, Aye.
But, alas, only another girl child. After that, when my father’s throne became threatened, it was feared the people would no longer accept any child of his as ruler. Then my father died mysteriously and I was married to my uncle, my father’s half-brother, Tutankhamun. He was so young. In the eight years we ruled together I had two stillborn babies...girls both. The priests were not happy. The people were not happy.
“The famous King Tut,” Faye said, for the first time not speaking in a whisper. Nick was so exhausted he was sleeping like the dead. Little would wake him on this night. He’d rolled over in the sleeping bag and was snoring loudly again. “Everyone knows about King Tut. His tomb was found years ago. Intact. Full of riches. All the other tombs discovered had been looted.”
Yes. You modern people cannot resist taking our treasures, can you? There was only a little accusation in her voice, as if she really didn’t care one way or another.
“I’m sorry for that, too.” Faye actually felt a stab of shame.
The ghost went on with her story. My new husband took me and my daughter back to the old capital, Thebes, while my mother and remaining sisters were virtually prisoners in the golden city. Tutankhamun made amends with the Priests of Amon, and restored worship of the god Amon. I had no choice in the matter. I never did. I obeyed my husband, the priests. My name was changed. I had seen what disobedience brought. Heartache and exile. I pretended to embrace all the old gods again. It was that gesture that saved me in the end—saved me from my sisters’, mother’s, and my own daughter’s fate. It is the only reason I am here, that I can help them. I was spared, so that my Ba has had a home all these centuries. So that, through you, I can seek the justice that was denied them for so long.
But the truce did not last long.
“So you went back to Thebes and ruled with Tutankhamun?”
Yes, but he was a sickly boy who grew into a sickly man. He died at seventeen. Many believe of poison. I believe that. He had enemies because of me. Things might have been different, if he had lived. He appeased the priests and the people. He could have been a wise ruler. He would have led the army to fight the Hittites, if he had lived.
After he died the priests plotted with my father’s general, Horemheb, for power. Horemheb was so ambitious. He pretended he cared about the peoples’ gods, but he did not. He lied to please the greedy priests. He wanted the double crown so badly. Not clever enough to take it on his own, he gathered traitors about him. They plotted against us.
But those remaining loyal to my family, what was left of us, rallied together one last time to keep the commoner from stealing what was ours.
Again I was married off. This time to my grandfather, Aye. The only man Horemheb and the priests feared. My grandfather had great magic. He had lived far longer than most normal men, and the people respected and loved him, but he was very old when we married. I at twenty-one and he was nearly eighty. His time on earth was short. Yet he taught me much. A pause, and Faye understood what the ghost was trying to tell her.
Aye had taught his granddaughter, his wife, his magic. She’d used it to wait for Faye. To appear to Faye and protect her.
He gave me this beautiful blue gemmed ring as a betrothal gift, she said proudly, holding her small hand out for Faye to see. The ring glittered on her third finger. As the spirit hung her head, Faye wondered what she was remembering.
He was good to me and my daughter. Not a husband as a husband should be, he was too old, but he was kind. He protected us. I was even allowed to visit my family back in their city.
Faye listened. The historians had always speculated about Aye and Ankhesenaton, knowing they’d shared co-regency but not knowing anything else about the relationship. All records had been destroyed.
Then Aye, too, died, and I was alone in a world that hated me. The Hittites were flooding down from the mountains, ravaging the edges of our empire, killing our people.
Faye sensed Ankhesenaton’s pain. Though she could say nothing that would ease it. After all it had happened so long ago.
I and my daughter escaped back to Amarna, took sanctuary with my mother and sisters in the palace where our people had exiled us. Alone to fight our enemies. No one cared any longer for our fates.
The apparition’s voice turned hateful.
Then Horemheb came. In the night. Like a criminal. A thief.
The ghost’s eyes glowed in anger. She stood up, moved to the entrance, her slight body quivering with emotion. A glowing figure silhouetted against the darkness outside. For a long time she didn’t speak.
Horemheb the butcher, she raved. Her fists clenched against her robe. May his soul rot in the afterlife, and those of his descendants, for eternity. May the evil god Ammit devour his black heart. I hate him! And when the words faded away, so did the spirit.
Faye, her head spinning with all she’d been told, waited. Waited for Ankhesenaton to return so she could have her turn, ask her the questions she’d been waiting to put to the spirit. No such luck. Ankhesenaton didn’t reappear.
“Damn, when am I going to learn exactly why I’m here? What I am supposed to find in the quarries? Where in the quarries?” she asked the emptiness Ankhesenaton had left behind. Then she exhaled, lying back down beside Nick. Frustrated. So close. So close.
“When is she going to stop playing games? Take me where I have to go? Help me do what I have to do? Why is she making this so hard for me?”
The cool night didn’t answer, and eventually Faye fell asleep again. She knew she’d need her strength tomorrow. They were going into the quarries to look for a pebble in a rock garden.
****
FAYE HAD BEEN WRONG, and Ankhesenaton did visit her again that night. She’d been asleep for a brief time when the Queen stood above her and her voice rustled in Faye’s mind as lightly as the wings of a butterfly.
Ankhesenaton beckoned Faye from the tent, her command almost a wordless sigh. Come, I have something to show you. Something important.
Faye rose from the sleeping bag and followed the shadow out into the night. Past the dying embers of the campfire. Past the donkeys hobbled on the line. In her mid-length American nightgown with tiny flowers all over it, shivering, Faye walked barefoot across the sand, oblivious to everything. In a sort of trance. She thought about being undressed, unshod, but had no will to remedy that situation. Her body was drawn along through the night by the wraith in front of her, as if she were a tiny wave pulled along by a stronger larger current. Lost and helpless.
Faye tracked the ghost in the glimmering diamond sprinkled crimson robes. A shining ruby star leading the way.
Ankhesenaton looked every inch the Queen this time. Her every finger glittered with stones, her arms were circled in golden bracelets, and the double vulture and asp crown of Upper and Lower Egypt sat upon her coal black wig. Her neck was encircled in a collar of turquoise, carnelian, and lapis lazuli, her face so made-up she was hardly recognizable. In the Queen’s hands were grasped the crook and flail, the Egyptian symbols of power.
The ghost flew across the night sands. Her hair floating out behind her. She didn’t look back.
“Ankhesenaton where are you leading me,” Faye finally cried out. “We’re going too far. It’s dangerous out here in the desert for a mortal like me. Snakes and night creatures. Why did you come back? Talk to me!”
You wanted the truth. You wanted to know what really happened to Nefertiti, my mother, and her children, my sisters? I will show you. The translucent creature before her wouldn’t stop. On and on through the night she floated, skimming above the sand like a phantom ship caught in a swift current. Faye, stumbling and panting with the exertion, ran behind her. Farther and farther from the camp. Cutting her bare unprotected feet until they bled. Soon she’d be hopelessly lost, but she couldn’t halt the ghost or herself. She was bewitched.
“Ankhesenaton ! We’re going too far, I tell you. Wait. Stop!”
The ghost wouldn’t stop.
Finally, like a prisoner released from shackles, a puppet whose strings had been cut, Faye collapsed into the sand, her beaten body unable to go another foot. The spirit, a pulsating light, vanished from sight over a steep hill.
The night was curtained into the deepest black Faye had ever seen. No lights, no reflections from anywhere. Only the stars glinting millions of miles above her in a cold sky.
“Ankhesenaton, where are you? Come back! I don’t know how to get back.”
It was true, lying there, staring around her at nothingness, Faye realized she was lost. Had no idea how to find their camp again. She’d been running so long. Aimlessly. No signposts, no neon lights, no coat or shoes. The ghost had left her in the middle of the desert. Alone.
Why would Ankhesenaton do such a thing to her?
Then it came to her; it hadn’t been Ankhesenaton. The priests hadn’t been able to get the scroll, so they’d arranged the next best thing. Abduct her and then what good would the scroll do them? Strand her out in the desert to die and their problems would be solved. And she could die out here. Of starvation and lack of water. Heat stroke when the sun returned. A large animal might eat her. Afshar and his men could get her. Rape or murder her. Anything. She shoved the morbid thoughts away, afraid she’d really panic. Don’t think about it now. Not now, she told herself. Survival is all you must dwell upon.
Exhausted, Faye curled into a ball, shivering from the cold, fully aware of her dangerous predicament. There was no sense in wandering around in the dark. She couldn’t see a thing anyway.
Best to stay here, sleep if she could, and in the morning when the sun came up try to find her way back to camp. Pray that no wild animals came along and ate her. No snakes slithered along and bit her. Thank God snakes hibernated at night when the temperature plunged. Except that reminded her of how cold it was again. Since the ghost had left her, the enchantment had ended, her flesh-and-blood body was feeling again. And she was so cold. She had no food, no water. Nick and Sharif would have no idea what had happenedto her. She’d left no note. Nothing.
Oh, God.
The last thought on her terrified mind before she willed herself to sleep was: How could I have been so stupid? How could I have done this? Run off in the night and gotten lost.
Stupid.
Yet she knew she hadn’t had a choice. She’d been kidnapped. Abducted by a force stronger than herself. Pure and simple.
Maybe this was all a nightmare? She thought hopefully right before unconsciousness claimed her.
****
BUT WHEN SHE AWOKE in the morning, her skin broiling in the sweltering sunlight, she was still in the middle of the desert. Alone.
And more afraid than she’d ever been.
She pulled herself to her feet and stared around her, slowly spun in a circle. Nothing but sand and churning waves of heat everywhere she looked. No trees, no bushes. Just a solid sea of tawny grains.
“Oh God. Now what am I going to do?” she screamed aloud. No one answered.
She took a chance and headed toward a rising hill. Maybe, at the top, she’d be able to see something.
She dragged her bare feet through the burning sand. They hurt so badly from her wild run last night, were so torn up, they left smudges of blood behind her like red bread crumbs. She took strips of cloth from the bottom of her skimpy nightgown and wrapped them around her wounded feet. No sense in leaving tracks for a hungry predator to follow, even though that left more of her skin exposed to the damaging rays. She wished she would have listened to Sharif and worn her chadar to bed. At least her body would have been better covered.
Oh, Nick...Nick. You’re gonna just die when you wake up and find me gone. Sorry, my love. Sorry. There was nothing I could have done.
She walked on. Toward the hill.