Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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pull away from him. "There is one consolation. If Taita has made it so

tough for us, he has also made it tough for anyone else to have got in

there ahead of us. I think that if the tomb is really down there, no

other grave robbers have beaten us to it."

"If the entrance to the tomb is at the bottom of the pool, then his

descriptions in the scrolls are deliberately misleading. The information

that has come down to us has been garbled by Taita, then by Duraid, and

finally by Wilbur Smith. We are faced with the task of finding our way

through this labyrinth of deliberate misinformation."

They were silent again for a while and then Royan smiled in the

firelight, her face lighting up with anticipation.

"Oh,  icky! It is such an exciting challenge." Then her voice descended

an octave. "But is there a way? Is it possible to get in there?"

"We will find out."

"When?"

"In due course. I haven't thought it out fully as yet. All I am certain

of is that it is going to take a prodigious amount of planning and hard

work."

"You are still committed, then?" She wanted his assurance. She knew that

she could never do it alone. "You aren't daunted by the project?"

Nicholas chuckled. "I will admit that I never expected Taita to lead us

on such a merry chase. I imagined simply breaking open a stone gateway

and finding it all waiting for us there, like Howard Carter walking into

the tomb of Tutankhamen. However, to answer your question, yes, I am

daunted by what it's going to involve – but hell nothing could stop me

now! I have the smell of glory in my nostrils and the gleam of gold in

my eye."

While they talked, Tamre curled up in the dust on the other side of the

fire, and pulled his shaninut over his head. His rest must have been

interrupted by dreams and fantasies, for he burbled and squeaked and

giggled in his sleep.

"I wonder what goes on in that poor demented head, and what visions he

sees," Royan whispered. "He says he saw Jesus here in the quarry, and I

am sure that he really believes that he did."

Their voices became softer and drowsier as the fire burned down and

Royan murmured, just before she fell asleep on Nicholas's shoulder, "If

the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose is below the level of the river, then surely

the contents will be water-damaged?"

"I can't believe that Taita would have built his dam and spent fifteen

years working on the tomb, as he says that he did in the scrolls, only

to flood it deliberately and despoil the mummy of his king and ruin his

treasure," Nicholas murmured, with her hair tickling his cheek. "No, t

would have precluded Pharaoh's resu he that rrection in other world, and

brought all his work to nothing. I think Taita has taken all that into

his calculations."

She snuggled closer, and sighed with satisfaction.

A little while later he said softly, "Goodnight, Royan," but she did

not' reply and her breathing was deep and even. He smiled to himself,

and gently kissed the top of her head.

Nicholas was not certain what had woken him.

He took a few moments to place himself, and then he realized that he was

still in the quarry. There was no moon but the stars hung down close to

the earth, as big and fat as bunches of ripe grapes. By their light he

saw that Royan had slipped down and was lying flat on the ground beside

him.

He stood up carefully, so as not to disturb her, and moved well away

from the dead fire to empty his bladder.

The night was deathly quiet. No night bird called, nor was there the

sound of any of the other nocturnal creatures.

The rocks around him still radiated the heat of the previous day's

sunlight.

Suddenly the sound that had woken him was repeated.

It was a faint and distant susurration that echoed along the cliffs, so

that he could form no judgement as to the direction from which it came.

But he was in no doubt what the sound was. He had heard it so often

before. It was the sound of faraway automatic gunfire, almost certainly

an AK-47 assault rifle firing, not long ragged bursts, but short taps of

three rounds, an art that took expertise and practice.

He was sure that the person doing the shooting was a trained

professional.

He tilted his wrist so that the luminescent dial of his watch caught the

starlight, and he saw that it was a few minutes after three 'clock in

the morning.

He stood listening for a long time, but the firing was not repeated. At

last he returned to where Royan lay and settled down beside her again.

However, he slept only shallowly and intermittently, and kept starting

awake listening for more gunfire in the night.

Royan began to stir at the first lemon and orange flush of dawn in the

eastern sky, and while they ate the remains of the survival rations for

their breakfast he told her about the noise that had woken him during

the night.

"Do you think it could have been Boris?" she asked.

"He May have caught up with Mek and Tessay."

"I doubt that very much. Boris has already been gone several days. He

should be well out of earshot by now, even beyond the sound range of the

heaviest weapons."

"Who do you suppose it was, then?"

"I have no idea. But I don't like it. We should start back to camp as

soon as we have had another look around the quarry. After that there is

nothing further that we can do at this stage. We should make tracks for

home and mother."

As soon as the light was strong enough, Nicholas shot a spool of film to

make a record of the quarry. For ison of scale, Royan posed beside

compar the wall in which the embryonic blocks still lay. As she warmed

to her role as a model she started to clown for him. She climbed on to

the biggest of the slabs and hammed it up for the camera, pouting with

one hand behind her head in the style of Marilyn Monroe.

When, finally, they went off down the valley towards the monastery they

were both exultant and garrulous after their success. Their discussion

was animated as they bounced ideas back and forth, and laid their plans

for the further exploitation of these wonderful discoveries.

By the time they reached the pink cliffs at the lower end of the chasm

it was late morning. There they met a small party of monks from the

monastery coming up the trail.

Even from a distance it was obvious that something dreadful had happened

during their absence: the sorrowful ululations of the monks sent chills

down Royan's spine.

It was the universal African sound of mourning, the harbinger of death

and disaster. As they approached they saw that the monks were picking up

handfuls of dust from the track and pouring it over their heads as they

wailed and lamented.

"What is it, Tamre?" Royan asked the boy. "Go and find out for usP Tamre

ran ahead to meet his brother monks.

They stopped in the middle of the path and fell into a high-pitched

discussion, weeping and gesticulating. Then Tamre ran back to them.

"Your people at the camp. Something terrible has happened. Bad men came

in the might. Many of the servants are dead," he screamed.

Nicholas grabbed Royan's hand. "Come on!" he snapped, "let's find out

what is going on here."

They ran the last mile to the camp, and arrived to find another circle

of monks gathered around something in front of the kitchen hut.

Nicholas pushed them aside and elbowed his way to the front. There he

stopped and stared with a sinking feeling in his gut, and the sweat on

his face turned cold with horror. Under a buzzing blue pall of flies lay

the bloodsplattered corpse of the cook and three other camp servants.

Their hands had been bound behind their backs, and then they had been

forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the head at close

range.

"Don't lookV Nicholas warned Royan as she came up.

"It's not very pretty."

But she ignored his advice and came to stand beside him. "Oh, sweet

heavens. They have been slaughtered like cattle in an abattoir," She

gagged.

"This explains the sound of gunfire that I heard last night," he

answered grimly. He went forward to identify the dead men. "Aly and Kif

are not here. Where are they?" He raised his voice and called in Arabic,

turning to face the crowd. "Aly, where are you?"

The tracker pushed his way forward. "I am here, effendi." His voice was

shaky and his face was haggard. "Mere was blood on the front of his

shirt.

"How did this happen?" Nicholas seized his arm and steadied him.

"Men came in the night with the guns. Shufta. They shot into the huts

where we were sleeping. They gave us no warning. They just started

shooting.

"How many of them? Who were they?" Nicholas demanded.

"I do not know how many of them there were. It was dark. I was asleep. I

ran away when the shooting began.

They were shufta, bandits, killers. They were hyenas and jackals – there

was no reason for what they have done.

These men were my brothers, my friends." He began to sob, and the tears

streamed down his face.

Royan turned away, sickened and horrified. She went to her hut and

stopped in the doorway. It had been ransacked. Her bags had been turned

out on to the floor.

Her bedding had been stripped, and the mattress thrown into the corner.

As though she were a sleepwalker in a nightmare, she crossed the floor

and picked up the canvas folder in which she kept her papers. She turned

it upside down and shook it. It was empty. The satellite photo graphs

and the maps, all her rubbings of the stele, the Polaroids that Nicholas

had taken in Tanus's tomb – everything was gone.

Royan picked up the bed and set it the right way up.

She sat down on it, and tried to gather her thoughts. She felt confused

and shaken. The image of those bloody, bullet-ripped corpses laid out in

front of the kitchen haunted her, and she found it difficult to

concentrate and to think clearly.

Nicholas burst into her hut and looked around quickly.

"They did the same thing to me. Ransacked the place. My rifle has gone,

and all my papers. But at least I had the passports and travellers'

cheques in my day-pack-' He broke off as he saw the empty canvas folder

lying at her feet. "Have they taken the-'

"Yes!" she forestalled his question. "They have cleaned out all our

research material, even the Polaroids. Thank God you had the undeveloped

rolls of film with you. It's the same as happened to Duraid and me all

over again. We aren't safe from them, even here,'even out in the

remotest part of the bush." There was the edge of hysteria in her voice.

She jumped up from the bed and ran to him.

"Oh, Nicky, what would have happened if we had been in camp last night?"

She threw her arms around him, and clung to him. "We would be lying out

there in the sun now, all bloody and covered with flies."

"Steady on, my dear. Let's not jump to any conclusions.

This could just be a chance raid by bandits."

"Then why did they steal our papers? What value would ordinary shtifta

place on rubbings and Polaroids?

Where was the Pegasus helicopter heading just before the raid? They were

after us, Nicky. I feel it so strongly. They wanted to kill us just as

they did Duraid. They could return at any time, and now we are unarmed

and helpless."

"All right, I agree with you that we are pretty vulnerable here. It

would be wise to get out as soon as possible.

There isn't any point in staying on here anyway. There's nothing more we

can do at this stage." He hugged her and shook her gently. "Brace up! We

will salvage what we can from this mess, and then get moving back to the

vehicles right away."

"What about the dead men?" She stood back, and with an effort forced

back her, tears and brought herself under control. "How many of our

people survived?"

"Aly, Salin and Kif escaped. They dived out of their huts and ran off

into the darkness as soon as the shooting started. I have told them to

get ready to leave right away. I have spoken to one of the senior

priests. They will take care of the burial of the dead, and will report

to the authorities as soon as they are able. But they agree that the

attack was aimed at us, and that we are still in danger, and that we

should get away as soon as possible."

Within the hour they were ready to start. Nicholas had decided to leave

all the camping equipment and Boris's personal gear in the charge of

Jali Hora. The mules were lightly loaded, and he planned to make a

forced march out of the gorge.

The abbot had given them an escort of monks to accompany them to the top

of the escarpment. "Only a truly Godless man would attack you while you

are under the protection of the crosss' he explained.

Nicholas found the dried hide and head of the striped dik-dik still in

the skinning shed. He rolled it into a bundle and strapped it on to the

load atop one of the mules, and then gave the order for the attenuated

caravan to move out.

Tamre had insinuated himself into the group of monks who were escorting

the party. He kept close behind Royan as they set off up the trail, with

the lamentations and farewells of the monastic community following them

for the first mile.

It was hot in this brutal midday. There was no movement of air to bring

relief, and the stone walls of the valley sucked up the heat of that

awful sun and spewed it back over them as they toiled up the steep

gradients. It dried their sweat even as it oozed through their pores,

leaving patterns of white salt crystals on their skins and clothing. The

muleteers, spurred on by fear, set a killing pace, trotting behind their

beasts and prodding their testicles with a sharpened stick to keep them

moving at their best pace.

By midafternoon they had retraced the morning's travel and once more

reached the putative site of Taita's dam wall. Nicholas and Royan took a

few.minutes'breather to dip their heads in the river and sluice the salt

and sweat from their faces and necks. Then they stood together above the

falls and took a brief farewell of the chasm in which lay all their

hopes and dreams.

"How long until we return?"she asked.

"We cannot afford to leave it too long," he told her.

"Big rains are due soon, and the hyenas have got the scent and are

crowding in. From now on every day will be precious, and every hour we

lose may be crucial."

She stared down into the chasm and said softly, "You haven't won yet,

Taita. The game is still afoot."

They turned away together and followed the mules up the trail towards

the escarpment wall. That evening they did not stop at the traditional

campsite beside the river, but pressed on several miles further until

darkness forced a halt. There was no attempt to build a comfortable

camp.

They dined on cakes of injera bread dipped in the wat pot that the monks

had carried with them. Then Nicholas and Royan spread their bedrolls

side by side on the stony earth and, using the mule packs as pillows,

fell into exhausted, dreamless sleep.

The next morning, while the mules were being loaded in the pre-dawn

darkness, they drank a bowl of strong bitter black Ethiopian coffee.

Then they started out along the trail again.

As the rising sun lit the sheer walls of the escarpment ahead of them

they seemed close enough to touch, and Nicholas remarked to Royan, as

she swung along longlegged beside him, "At this pace we should reach the

foot of the escarpment this afternoon, and there is a good chance that

we might sleep tonight in the cavern behind the waterfall."

"That means we could cut a couple of days off the journey and reach the

trucks some time tomorrow."

"Possibly," he said. "I'll be glad to get out of here."

"It feels like a trap," Royan agreed, looking at the rocky, broken

ground that rose on either hand, hemming them into the narrow bottom of

the Dandera river. "I have been doing a bit of thinking, Nicky."

"Let's hear your conclusions."

"No conclusions, only some disturbing thoughts. Suppose somebody at

Pegasus who can understand them is now in possession of our rubbings and

Polaroids. What will their reaction be if they know how much progress we

have made in the search?"

"Not -very happy thoughts," he agreed. "But on the other hand there is

not much we can do about any of that until we get back to civilization,

except keep our eyes wide.

open and our wits about us. Hell, I haven't even got the little Rigby

rifle. We are a flock of sitting ducks."

Aly, the muleteers and the monks seemed to be of the same opinion, for

they never slackened the pace. It was midday before they called the

first brief halt to brew coffee and to water the mules. While the men

lit fires, Nicholas took his binoculars from the mule pack and began to

climb the rock slope. He had not covered much ground before he glanced

back and saw Royan climbing after him. He waited for her to catch up.

"You should have taken the chance to rest," he told her severely. "Heat

exhaustion is a real danger."

I don't trust you going off on your own. I want to know what you are up

to."

"Just a little recce. We should have scouts out ahead, not just go

charging blindly along the trail like this. If I remember correctly from

the inward march, some of the ound lies just ahead of us. Lord knows

what we worst gr may run into."

They went on upwards, but it was not possible to reach the crest for a

sheet of unscalable vertical cliff barred their way. Nicholas chose the

best vantage point below this barrier, and glassed both slopes of the

valley ahead of them.

The terrain was as he had remembered it. They were approaching the foot

of the escarpment wall and the ground was becoming more rugged and

severe, like the swell of the open ocean sensing the land and rising up

in alarm before breaking in confusion upon the shore. The trail followed

the river closely. The cliffs hung over the narrow aisle of ound that

made up the bank, sculpted by wind and gr weather into strange, menacing

shapes, like the battlements of a wicked witch's castle in an old Disney

cartoon.

At one point a buttress of red sandstone overhung the trail, forcing the

river to detour around it, and the trail was reduced so much that it

would be difficult for a laden mule to negotiate without being pushed

off the bank into the river.

Nicholas studied the bottom of the valley carefully through the lens. He

could pick out nothing that seemed suspicious or untoward, so he raised

his head and swept the Cliffs and their tops.

At that moment Aly's voice came up from the valley below, echoing along

the slope as he shouted, "Hurry, effendi! The mules are ready to go on!'

Nicholas waved down to him, but then lifted the binoculars for one more

sweep of the ground ahead. A wink of bright light caught his eye – a

brief ephemeral stab of brilliance like the signal of a heliograph. He

switched his whole attention to the spot on the cliff from which it had

emanated.

"What is it? What have you seen?" Royan demanded.

am not sure. Probably nothing," he replied, without lowering the

binoculars. It may have been a reflection from a polished metal surface,

or from the lens of another pair of binoculars, or from the barrel of a

sniper's rifle, he thought. On the other hand, a chip of mica or a

pebble of rock crystal could reflect sunlight the same way, and even

some of the aloes and other succulent plants have shiny leaves. He

watched the spot carefully for a few more minutes, and then Aly's voice

floated up to them again.

"Hurry, effendi. The mule-drivers will not wait!

He stood up. "All right. Nothing. Let's go." He took Royan's arm to help

her over the rough footing, and they started down. At that moment he

heard the rattle of stones from further up the slope, and he stopped her

and held her arm to keep her quiet. They waited, watching the skyline.

Abruptly a pair of long curling horns appeared over the crest, and under

them the head of an old kudu bull, his trumpet-shaped ears pricked

forward and the fringe of his dewlap blowing in the hot, light breeze.

He stopped on the edge of the cliff just above where they crouched, but

he had not seen them. The kudu turned his head and stared back in the

direction from which he had come. The sunlight glinted in his nearest

eye, and the set of his head and the alert, tense stance made it clear

that something had disturbed him.

For a long moment he stood poised like that, and then, still without

being aware of the presence of Nicholas and Royan, he snorted and

abruptly leaped away in full flight.

He vanished from their sight behind the ridge and the sound of his run

dwindled into silence.

"Something scared the living daylights out of him."

"What?" enquired Royan.

"Could have been anything – a leopard, perhaps," he replied, and he

hesitated as he looked down the slope. The caravan of mules and monks

had set off already and was following the trail Up along the river bank.

"What should we do?" Royan asked.

"We should reconnoitre the ground ahead – that is if we had the time,

which we haven't." The caravan was pulling away swiftly. Unless they

went down immediately they would be left behind alone, unarmed. He had

nothing concrete to act upon, and yet he had to make an immediate

decision.

"Come on!" He took her hand again, and they slid and scrambled down the

slope. Once they reached the trail they had to break into a run to catch

up with the tail of the caravan.

Now that they were again part of the column, Nicholas could turn his

attention to searching the skyline above them more thoroughly. The

cliffs loomed over them, blocking out half the sky. The river on their

left hand washed out any other sounds with its noisy, burbling current.

Nicholas was not really alarmed. He prided himself on being able to

sense trouble in advance, a sixth sense that had saved his life more

than once before. He thought of it as his early-warning system, but now

it was sending no messages. There were any number of possible

explanations for the reflection he had picked up from the crest of the

cliff, and for the behaviour of the bull kudu.

However, he was still a little on edge, and he was giving the high

ground above them all his attention. He saw a speck flick over the top

of the cliff, twisting and falling – a dead leaf -on the warm, wayward

breeze. It was too small and insignificant to be of any danger, but

nevertheless he followed the movement with his eye, his interest idle.

The brown leaf spiralled and looped, and finally touched lightly against

his cheek. He lifted his hand as a reflex, and caught it. He rubbed the

brown scrap between his fingers, expecting it to crackle and crumble.

Instead it was soft and supple, with a fine, almost greasy texture.

He opened his hand and studied it more closely. It was no leaf, he saw

at once, but a torn scrap of greased paper, brown and translucent,

Suddenly all his early'warning bells jangled. It was not just the

incongruity of manufactured paper suddenly materializing in this remote

setting. He recognized the quality and texture of that particular type

of paper. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it. The sharp, nitrous

odour prickled the back of his throat.

"Gelly!" he exclaimed aloud. He knew the smell instantly.

Blasting gelignite was seldom employed for military purposes in this age

of Semtex and plastic explosives, bu was still widely used in the mining

industry and in mineral exploration. Usually the sticks of nitrogelatine

in a wood Pulp and sodium nitrate base was wrapped in that distinct tive

brown greased paper. Before the detonator was placed in the head of the

stick, it was common practice to tear off the corner of the paper

wrapper to expose the treacle brown explosive beneath. He had used it

often enough in the old days never to forget the odour of it.

His mind was racing now. If somebody was expecting them and had mined

the cliff with gelignite, then the reflection he had picked up could

have been from the coils of copper wiring strung between the explosive

in the rock, or it could have been from some other item of equipment.

If that was so, then the operator might even at this moment be lying

concealed up there, ready to press the plunger on the circuit box. The

kudu bull might have been fleeing from the concealed human presence.

"Aly!" he bellowed down to the head of the caravan, "Stop them! Turn

them back!'

He started to run forward towards the head of the caravan, but in his

heart he knew it was already too late. If there was somebody up there on

the cliff, he was watching every move that Nicholas made. Nicholas could

never hope to reach the head of the column and turn the mules around on

the narrow trail, and get them back to safety before ... He came up

short and looked back at Royan.

Her safety was his main concern. He turned and ran back to grab her arm.

"Come on! We have to get off the track."

"What is it, Nicky? What are you doing?" She was resisting him, pulling

back against his grip on her arm.

"I'll explain later," he snapped at her brusquely. "Just trust me now."

He dragged her a couple of paces before she gave in and began to run

with him, back in the direction from which they had come.

They had notcovered fifty yards before the cliff face blew. A vast

disruption of air swept over them with a force that made them stagger.

It clapped painfully in their skulls and threatened to implode the

delicate membranes of their eardrums. Then the main force of the blast

swept over them, not a single blast but a long, rolling detonation like

thunder breaking directly overhead. It stunned and battered them so that

they reeled into each other and lost the direction of their flight.

Nicholas seized her in a steadying embrace, and looked back. He saw a

series of explosions leap from the crest of the cliff. Tall, dancing

fountains of dirt and dust and rubble, pirouetting one after the other

in strict choreography, like a chorus-line of hellish ballerinas.

Even in the terror of the moment he could appreciate the expertise with

which the gelignite had been laid. This was a master bomber at work. The

leaping columns of rubble subsided upon themselves, leaving the fine,

tawny mist of dust drifting and spiralling against the clear blue of the

sky, and for a moment longer it seemed that the destruction was

complete. Then the silhouette of the cliff began to alter.

Slowly at first the wall of rock started to lean outwards.

He saw great cracks appear in the face, opening like leering mouths.

Sheets of rock collapsed and in slow motion slithered down upon

themselves like the silken skirts of a curtseying giantess. The rock

groaned and crackled and rumbled as the entire cliff began to fall into

the river far below.

Nicholas was mesmerized by the awful sight, and his brain seemed to have

been numbed by the explosion. It took a huge effort to force himself to

think and to act. He saw that the centre of the explosion had occurred

further down the trail, near the head of the mule caravan. Tamre was up

there, beside Aly. He and Royan were at the tail of the caravan. The

bomber up on the cliff had obviously been waiting for them to come

directly into the epicentre of his explosive trap, but had been forced

to trigger it when he saw them running back down the trail and realized

that they had been alerted and were about to escape.

Yet they were not clear – they were about to catch the peripheral force

of the landslide that was developing above them. Still holding Royan,

Nicholas stared up the falling cliff face and made a desperate

calculation.

He watched in petrified fascination as the vast tide of falling rock

swept over the trail ahead of him, picking up men and mules and carrying

them with it over the edge and down into the river bed. It swallowed

them, lapping them up like the tongue of some fearsome monster and

chewing them to pulp with razor fangs of red rock. Even above the

rumbling roar of the rock tide he heard the terrified screams of men and

animals as they were ploughed under.

The wave of destruction spread towards where he and Royan stood upon the

trail. If they had been directly under the explosion they would have

stood as little chance as those others, but as it ran down the cliff its

destructive momentum was dissipating. On the other hand, Nicholas

realized that there was no hope that they would be able to outrun it,

and what was about to fall upon them would still be devastating.

There was no time to explain to Royan what they had to do – he had only

seconds left in which to act. Sweeping her up in his arms, he leaped

over the bank towards the river. He lost his footing almost immediately

and they went down together, rolling end over end, but thirty feet down

there was a spur of rock the size of a house. As they came up against

the upper side of it, it broke their fall.

They were half-sturined, but Nicholas dragged Royan to her feet and

guided her into the lee of the rock wall.

"Mere was a cut-back here, and they crept into it and crouched flat.

Pressing themselves hard against the wall, they both held their breath

as the first chunk of cliff came bounding and bouncing down towards them

like a gigantic rubber ball, picking up speed with gravity, until it

smashed in to their shelter with a force that made the solid rock

against which they were cringing vibrate and resound like a cathedral

bell, and the hurtling missile leaped high over their heads, spinning

massively in flight before it dropped into the river. It raised a tidal

wave from the surface that broke like storm surf on both banks.

This was merely the forerunner of the maelstrom that now poured over

them. It seemed that half the mountain was falling upon them. As each

slab crashed into their shelter daggers and splinters burst from its

leading edges, filling the air they breathed with fine white dust and

the sulphurous stink of sparking flint. This immense cascade flew over

their heads or piled up in front of their shelter, and loose chips and

pebbles rained down upon them.

Nicholas crawled over the top of Royan, and covered her with his body. A

stone struck the side of his head a lancing blow that made his ears

ring, but he gritted his teeth and fought the impulse to lift his head

and look up.

He felt something warm and ticklish snaking through the short hairs

behind his right ear. It crept down his cheek like a living thing, and

it was only when it reached the corner of his mouth and he tasted the