Pankh pressed his back against a small obelisk, faced directly west and counted paces. He need only kick aside a few rocks, breaking the plaster that held them together, and shift a few large flat stones. According to the plans, these were not slabs requiring a team of men or ropes.
The torches on the causeway had been doused by the priests themselves to provide secrecy for the reburial of Hetepheres. Pankh felt his way through the gloom and shadows toward the entrance to the second shaft. He had almost finished the pace count when he saw on the ground a darker dark. A hole.
Somebody else had gotten to the second shaft before him. His hand flew to the hilt of his dagger. That gold is mine, he thought. I will kill them!
He was already making plans: better, perhaps, to shove the stones back over the hole, entrapping the robbers, and wait a few weeks, when both tomb robbers and girls would have died! Or perhaps he should just join the ongoing robbery. At least he would get some of the gold.
Although Pankh did not share well, and still meant to have it all.
But a hand stopped him.
Pankh whirled, ready to slash, and found himself facing two puzzled tomb police. If they were part of the robbery, they would have knifed him from behind. So they were simply doing their jobs, wondering who was wandering around in the dark, and why.
Luckily, he was wearing his best clothing and his finest jewelry. His uniform would give him some control. “Good evening,” he said, smiling, and guiding them away from the half-visible hole. “What good luck that you have appeared,” he told them. “Perhaps you would spend a moment or two to help me.”
He managed to draw them around the corner of an old mastaba, with flat roof and sloping sides. To face him, the police would have their backs to the shaft opening. “I dropped an amulet of Sekhmet during Pharaoh's night ceremony, the one finished only an hour or two ago, in which I was honored to participate. I hoped to see my amulet still lying here.”
Pankh sneered at amulets and religious symbols. When men or women hung such things about their necks, or built little shrines in their gardens, or more comical still, erected temples, Pankh laughed. Tomb robbers were atheists and knew what the common run of people did not. Nothing mattered except possessions.
“Why don't we wait for the sun to rise,” said one policeman, “so we can see better?”
In the east, the sand had brightened. In a moment, dawn would explode over the desert. Surely Pankh was not too late to get the gold! “Let's go over to the causeway,” he suggested, herding them. “I'm sure my precious amulet is lying on the stones.”
“Then why were you coming from the desert?” asked one policeman pleasantly.
“The Lord of the Two Lands required a sacrifice to the jackals and to Anubis, jackal god of the dead, because of the urgency of Pharaoh's prayers and the need for celestial guidance.”
The guards were unconvinced. He did manage to jostle them onto the causeway, however.
“Here it is!” exclaimed the other policeman, astonished. “Such a tiny ornament on such a vast surface! You are very lucky, sir.” He stooped to retrieve an amulet which he first drew over his lips to obtain its blessing and then handed to Pankh.
It was a miniature Sekhmet, so perfectly carved it seemed the handwork of a god, not of man. Pankh had never owned such a thing, much less dropped it. Its slender chain was woven of tiny gold plackets, but the Sekhmet herself was made of a material he did not at first recognize.
He rubbed the tiny goddess between his thumb and forefinger. It was ivory.
From his palm, the little Sekhmet snarled at him. Under his heavy wig, Pankh's shaved scalp quivered.
Then he remembered he had no patience with religious superstition, and he put the necklace on. “I owe you,” he said to the policeman. “I will see that you are well paid for your prompt assistance.”
The necklace was surprisingly chilly against his skin. Nor did the heat of his body warm the slender chain. Although the chain was long and did not press up against his throat, he felt strangled by it, and he rubbed his windpipe, straining for air.
“Look there,” said the first guard softly. “What are those two doing?”
In the growing light, Pankh made out two people a hundred yards away, admiring the Pyramid. The man, dressed in the ludicrous trousers of northerners, vaulted onto the stone wall that enclosed the Pyramid, built to keep just such people from touching its sacred sides. Little boys had proved particularly annoying in this regard, scrambling over the wall and then with their bare toes trying to find cracks between the Pyramid slabs, so they could crawl upward. They fell and broke bones and their mothers sobbed.
“Tourists even at this hour,” said the second guard, shaking his head. “Amazing. And behaving badly, of course, since they're foreigners.”
The foreigner stretched out his hand, that he might help his woman up onto the wall with him, and as she was drawing onto her toes, Pankh saw her white gown and long black hair, and recognized the girl of ivory.
Impossible.
But true. This foreigner had opened the second shaft. How could a foreigner have known the location? Who could the man be? Some crafty slave, perhaps, or escaped criminal. And what of Renifer? Where was she?
And who had the gold?
For had the girl of ivory still been clothed in gold, he would easily see it from here.
Giving their names to Pankh, so they could be rewarded, the policemen ambled off to deal with the tourists. Pankh had no more time to waste. Slipping around the mastaba, he strode up to the hole. Even in the few minutes that had gone by, there was enough light to see quite well. He descended the long ladder in two steps, crossed the empty treasure room and knelt beside the open trapdoor.
“I will have my gold!” he whispered. “I care for nothing but the gold!”
Pankh stroked the little Sekhmet as if beseeching her.
He forgot that there was one other thing he cared about.
Life.