The Sunbird Page 31

  She wore a long pale-coloured dressing-gown and her hair was let down in a dark cloud around her shoulders. She paused in the doorway of her own hut and looked around carefully, making sure that the camp was asleep. Then guiltily, quickly, she hurried across the open moonlit yard to the hut in which Louren was living. She opened the door and went in without hesitating and for me a long harrowing vigil had begun.

  I stood by my window for two hours, watching the moon shadows change shape, watching the patterns of the stars swing and turn across the heavens, stars as fat and bright as they are only in the sweet clean air of the wilderness. The beauty of it was wasted on me this night. I was watching Louren’s hut, imagining each whispered word, each touch, each movement, and hating myself and them. I thought of Hilary and the children, wondering what madness it is that makes a man gamble his all on a few hours of transient pleasure. In that darkened hut how many confidences were those two betraying, how many people’s happiness were they risking.

  Then suddenly I realized that I was assuming that this affair was merely play on Louren’s part, and I faced the possibility that he was serious. That he would desert Hilary and go to Sally. I found this thought intolerable. I could no longer watch and wait, I must have some distraction and I dressed quickly and hurried across to the repository.

  The night-watchman greeted me sleepily, and I unlocked the door and went to the vault in which the golden books were kept, I took out the fourth book of Huy. I carried it across to my own office, and before I settled down to read I went to fetch a bottle of Glen Grant. My two opiates, words and whisky.

  I opened the scroll at random and re-read Huy’s ode to his battle-axe, the gleaming wing of the bird of the sun. When I had finished I was taken by an impulse and I lifted the great axe down from its place of honour. I caressed the shimmering length of it, studying it with new attention. I was convinced that this was the weapon of the poem. Could there be another answering the description so accurately? I held it in my lap, wishing that I could draw from it the story of the last days of Opet. I was sure it was involved intimately in the final tragedy. Why had it been left abandoned, a thing so well beloved and yet thrown carelessly aside to lie uncared for and discarded for nearly 2,000 years? What had happened to the Axeman Huy, and his king and his city?

  I read and dreamed, disturbed less frequently by thoughts of Sally and Louren. However, at every pause in my readings they came to me with a sick little slide of jealousy and despair in my guts. I was torn between the present and the distant past.

  I read on, sampling those portions of the scroll which were still unknown territory while the level in the whisky bottle sank slowly and the long night passed.

  Then when midnight had flown and the new day was being born, I came upon a small piece of writing which touched a new depth of response in me. Huy makes a sudden heart-felt cry from the depths of his being. It is as though some long-suppressed emotion will no longer be contained and must come out in this appeal to have his physical form discounted when his value is assessed. From base earth flowers the purest gold, Huy cries, in his own poor distorted clay there were treasures concealed.

  I re-read the passage half a dozen times, making sure of my translation before I could accept that Huy Ben-Amon was like me. A cripple.

  Dawn’s first promise was tracing the silhouette of the cliff tops with a pale rose colour when I laid the golden book away in its vault and walked slowly back towards my hut.

  Sally stepped out of Louren’s doorway and came towards me in the darkness. Her gown was ghostly pale and she seemed to float above the ground. I stood still, hoping she would not see me. There was a chance, for I stood in the deeper shadow of her hut and I turned my face away, standing quietly.

  I heard the rustle of her skirts, the whisper of her feet in the dust very close in the dark, then her startled gasp as she saw me. I looked at her then. She had seen but not recognized me. Her face was a pale moon of fear and her hands were at her mouth.

  ‘All right, Sally,’ I said. ‘It’s only me.’

  I could smell her now. On the clean night air of the desert it was a perfumed smell like crushed rose petals, and mingled with it the warm smell of perspiration and lovet. My heart slid in my chest.

  ‘Ben?’ she said, and we were both silent, staring at each other.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Long enough,’ I answered, and again the silence.

  ‘You know, then?’ It was said in a small voice, shy and sad.

  ‘I didn’t mean to spy,’ I said, and another silence.

  ‘I believe you.’ She began to move away. Then she turned back. ‘Ben, I want to explain.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I do. I want to.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Sal.’

  ‘It does matter.’ And we faced each other. ‘It does matter,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t want you to think that I, well, that I am so terrible.’

  ‘Forget it, Sally.’ I said.

  ‘I tried not to, Ben. I swear to you.’‘

  ‘It’s all right, Sally.’

  ‘I couldn’t help it, truly. I tried so hard to fight it. I didn’t want it to happen.’ She was crying now, silently, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, and went to her. I took her gently to her room and put her on the bed. In the light I saw how her lips were swollen and kiss-inflamed.

  ‘Oh, Ben, I would have given anything for it to be different.’

  ‘I know, Sally.’

  ‘I tried so hard, but it was too much for me. He had me in some kind of spell, from the very first moment I saw him.’

  ‘That evening at the airport?’ I could not help but ask the question, remembering how she had watched Louren that first time she met him and how later she had ranted against him.

  ‘That’s why - later, with me - that’s why we—’ I did not want to hear her answer, and yet I must know if she had first come to me inflamed with thoughts of another man.

  ‘No, Ben.’ She tried to deny it, but she saw my eyes, and turned her face away. ‘Oh, Ben, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded.

  ‘I truly didn’t want to hurt you. You are so good, so gentle, so different from him.’ There were dark shadows of sleeplessness beneath her eyes, and the peach-coloured velvet of her cheeks was rubbed pink by Louren’s unshaven skin.

  ‘Yes,’ I said with my heart breaking.

  ‘Oh, Ben, what shall I do?’ she cried in distress. ‘I am caught in this thing. I cannot escape.’

  ‘Does Lo - has he said what he is going to do? Has he, told you he, well, that he will leave Hilary, and marry you?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Has he given you reason—’

  ‘No! No!’ She caught my hand. ‘Oh, Ben. It’s just fun for him. It’s just a little adventure.’

  I said nothing, watching her lovely tortured face, glad at least that she knew about Louren. Realized that he was a hunter and she the quarry. There had been many Sallys in Louren’s life, and there would be many more. The lion must kill regularly.

  ‘Is there anything I can do, Sally?’ I asked at last.

  ‘No, Ben. I don’t think so.’

  ‘If there is, tell me,’ I said and moved towards the door.

  ‘Ben,’ she stopped me, and sat up, ‘Ben, do you still love me?’

  I nodded without hesitation. ‘Yes, I still love you.’

  ‘Thank you, Ben,’ she sighed softly. ‘I don’t think I could have taken it if you had turned away from me.’

  ‘I’ll never do that, Sally,’ I said, and walked out into the lemon and rose glow of dawn.

  Louren and I descended the staircase beyond the sun image. We went first to the treasure vault. While Louren gloated over the stacks of golden fingers, I watched his face. I was lightheaded from lack of sleep, and I could taste the spirits I had drunk in the back of my
throat. Watching Louren, I tried to find hatred for him in my heart, I searched diligently without success. When he looked up and smiled at me, I could not but answer him with a smile.

  ‘This will keep, Ben,’ he said, ‘Let’s go and have a look at the rest of it.

  I had guessed what we would find beyond the junction of the tunnels, and once we had descended the last spiralling stairs and come into another short level passage I had my last doubts dispelled.

  The passage ended against another solid stone wall. Here, however, there was no attempt at concealment, for carved into the stone was an inscription. We stood before it, and Louren held the arc-lamp full upon it.

  ‘What does it say?’ he asked.

  I read it through slowly. Even with all my practice I read slowly, for in Punic there are no symbols for the vowels and each must be guessed from the context of the word.

  ‘Come on,’ Louren muttered impatiently.

  ‘“You who come here to interrupt the sleep of the kings of Opet, and to despoil their tomb, do so at your peril, and may the curse of Astarte and great Baal hound you to your own graves.”’

  ‘Read it again,’ Louren commanded, and I did. He nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and stepped to the stone door. He began to seek the pivot point which we knew would trigger the mechanism. Here we were not so fortunate as we had been at the threshold of the sun door. After two hours, our way was still barred by that solid slab of uncompromising stone.

  ‘I’m going to blow the bloody thing open,’ Louren warned, but I knew he would not commit such an atrocity in this sacred place. We rested and discussed the problem, before returning to the door. It had to be another simple leverage system, but the trick was to find the pressure point and the angle of movement.

  When we found it at last, I cursed my own stupidity. It should have been my first attempt. The symbol for the name of the sun-god Baal was once more the pressure point.

  The door swung open, ponderous and slow, and we went through into the tomb of the kings of Opet.

  There is only one other place I have known with the same atmosphere. That is Westminster Abbey which contains the tombs of so many of the kings of England. There was the same hushed cathedral sense of time past and history reborn.

  Neither of us spoke as we went to the centre of the long narrow vaulted tomb. The silence was an oppressive weight upon my ear drums. Utter silence, so complete as to be sinister and threatening. Here again the air was long disused, but with an even heavier musty quality to it. I thought I detected the faint, stale smell of dust and mushrooms.

  Along each wall, parallel to it, stood the sarcophagi of the kings of Opet. They were carved of massive granite. Solid, squat and grey. The lids were held in place by their own immense weight, and the upper surface had been polished and engraved with the name and style of the body that lay within. The mighty names that had echoed through the golden books of Huy. I recognized them, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hycanus. Forty-seven great coffins, but the last was empty, its lid propped against the wall beside it. Its interior cut-out into a man’s shape, ready to swallow the last king of Opet.

  At the foot of the great stone coffin a man lay stretched upon his back on the floor of the tomb. His helmet was missing and his red-gold hair and beard formed a soft frame for the wizened mummified features. His breastplate had been removed exposing the dried parchment skin stretched over the gaunt skeletal rib-cage. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded from a long-dead chest. He wore a kilt of leather, studded with bronze rosettes and on his shins were greaves of bronze, on his feet light sandals.

  His arms lay at his side, his heels were together. The dead body had been laid out with care and obvious love.

  Over him stooped another figure, kneeling like a man in prayer. A figure in full armour, with only the war helmet and breastplate discarded on the floor beneath the empty sarcophagus. Long black hair hung forward to conceal his bowed face. Both hands clutched at his chest at the level of the diaphragm. From his chest a blade of steel protruded, a reversed sword, with its hilt securely anchored against the stone slabs of the floor, the point driven up under the ribs and lodged in his vitals.

  Here was a man in the attitude of final escape from the shame of defeat, a man who in despair had fallen upon his own sword. The weapon had supported his weight these many centuries, propping him up in that kneeling position.

  Neither Louren nor I could speak, as we drew closer to this tableau of ancient tragedy. For me there was no doubt as to the identity of these dried-out human husks.

  Lannon Hycanus, the last King of Opet, lay stretched on the cold stone floor. Above him knelt his friend and high priest Huy Ben-Amon.

  I felt choked with a sense of destiny, with a cold aching dread - for Huy Ben-Amon, the Axeman of the Gods, was a hunchback.

  I had to see his face. I had to see it! I ran forward, and knelt beside him.

  I touched his gaunt bony shoulder, covered by a tunic of brittle yellow linen. It was the lightest touch, a breath almost, but it was enough to shatter that delicately poised mummy.

  The corpse of Huy Ben-Amon slid forward and crashed down on the body of the king. Steel and bronze rang on the stone floor, and echoed about the vaulted tomb of Opet.

  The two figures burst into dust at the impact, a soft yellow explosion of mustard-yellow dust, swirling like smoke in the arc-light. There was nothing left of them but the metal of armour and sword, and two hanks of gold and sable hair in the puddle of talcum-soft dust.

  I stood up, choking with the yellow dust. My eyes were swimming with tears of wonder and burning with the dust. The dust smelled of mushrooms.

  Louren Sturvesant and I stared at each other without speaking. We had witnessed a miracle.

  I awoke from a screaming nightmare of blood and flame and smoke, a horror of shining black faces and sweat-polished bodies lit by crackling roaring flames and the scream of the dying and the animal roar of blood-crazed voices. I woke panting and choking from the memory, and the terror and horror of it stayed with me long after I had found myself alone in my quiet hut in the silent night.

  I switched on the bedside light and looked at my watch. It was still early, a little before eleven. I threw back my sheets and stood up, surprised to find my legs shaky and my breathing ragged. There was a twinge of pain at each breath I drew, and a dull tight sensation behind my eyes. My body felt hot, fever hot. I went to the washstand across the hut, and shook three aspirin from the bottle. I swallowed them with a mouthful of water, and then the tickling sensation in my lungs grew stronger. I coughed as though I was on sixty cigarettes a day, and the effort left me sweaty and trembling. My skin seemed to be aflame.

  Without really knowing why, I took my dressing-gown off the hook behind the door, pulled it on and went out into the yard. There was half a moon in the sky, horned and yellow. The shadows under the trees and around the buildings were very dark and ugly. I felt the lingering dread and horror of my nightmare still upon me as I hurried across towards my office, and I glanced about me nervously. I could smell the tinge of smoke on the night air, and it troubled me also. I sniffed at it, feeling the faint sting deep in my lungs.

  I reached the door of my office, and there was something waiting for me in the deep shadow beside the building. I saw it rush at me from the corner of my vision, a big dark thing, rounded and shapeless and deadly silent. I spun to face it, falling against the wall of the hut, weak with terror. A scream bubbled and died in my throat for there was nothing there. It was gone, I had imagined it, but now the pain in my head beat like hammer blows on the anvil.

  I pulled the door open, and fell into my office, slammed the door behind me, locked it, gasping with unnamed and baseless fear. Something scratched against the door from the outside, a terrifying clawing animal sound that ripped my quivering nerves.

  I backed away from the door towards my desk, crouching there, trembling, shaking and weak.

  The sound came again, but from the wall beside me, I spun to
face it, and heard myself whimper.

  I needed a weapon, I looked around desperately and the great battle-axe of Huy hung on the wall above my desk. I snatched it down and backed into a corner, holding it ready, at the present position across my chest. I coughed.

  There was a thick sheaf of white paper on my desk. It moved and I felt the gooseflesh crawl all over my hot body. The white square of paper quivered and wavered, it changed shape, crawled across my desk, and spread white bats’ wings. Then suddenly it launched into flight, wings whispering, and it flew at my face. I saw the wide open mouth ringed with needle vampire teeth, heard the shrill squeaks as it attacked. I shouted with horror, and struck with the axe. The white thing fluttered and squeaked against my throat and face, and I fought and shouted, striking it down onto the floor where, it crawled and slithered loathsomely. I struck with the edge of the axe, and inky black blood spurted from the thing and puddled the wooden floor of the hut.

  I backed away from the thing, and lay back against the wall. I felt weak, and terribly afraid. I began to cough. The cough took hold of my whole body and shook it, rocking me, doubling me against the wall. I coughed until my vision burst into bright lights, and there was a salty sweet taste in my mouth.

  I sank to my knees against the wall, my mouth was filled with warm wetness and I spat a thick gob of bright blood onto the floor. I stared at it, not understanding what was happening to me. I lifted my hand to my mouth and wiped my lips. My hand came away smeared with blood.

  I knew then what it was. Louren and I had passed beyond two sealed doorways into the depths of a tomb closed for 2,000 years - and we had breathed air loaded with the spores of cryptococcus neuromyces, the curse of the Pharaohs.

  It was too late now for me to berate myself for overlooking the precautions. I had believed that because the archives were safe, the rest of it was also. In my eagerness and excitement I had not given another thought to the fungus danger, even when Louren and I had discussed the door seals and even when I had smelled the mushroom odour in the tomb of the kings.