Reflections in the Nile (63 page)

“Cheftu!” she murmured through her tears, through her kisses. “Oh, God, how can I leave you? Come with me, please, come with me. Do not make me be without you—” Her voice broke, and they held each other, tears and passion mingling… me hours drifting away.

Mara knocked on the door. “Those patients you mentioned are here, Cheftu,” she said in a low voice.

They were up immediately, dressing frantically. Chloe tied her sheath with shaking fingers as Cheftu slipped into his kilt and went to the window. “I cannot see the soldiers, but I hear them. Thank God for Mara's loyalty,” he said. Chloe tied her bag around her waist and took his hand, the ring he gave her pressing into their joined flesh.

With a swing and some deft steps they landed on the street, hiding in the darkness. Cheftu took her hand and they ran through the night streets of Noph, dodging the
rekkit
and racing through alleyways to avoid the soldiers.

Here we go again, Chloe thought as they pounded up the deserted street to the Temple-of-the-Ka-of-Ptah, home of the twenty-third doorway. Peace filled her. She was doing the right thing. It didn't feel good—actually it hurt damnably—but she knew it was right. Focus on facts, not feelings, she told herself.

The temple was empty, the superstitious cowering at home on this day, considered the unluckiest in the ancient Egyptian calendar. No wonder there had been no more births on this day—the women born were destined to serve the goddess and die. Chloe shivered. A year ago it had all been different. She'd been alone, looking forward to new things in life, and almost an agnostic. Now she stood with the man who was her soul, praying to a God she'd met, while soldiers swarmed through the city searching for them.

They huddled in the shadows, Cheftu with one hand on his short sword, a torch in the other. Chloe held the hieroglyphic note in her hand, the last legacy from Imhotep.

They must find the twenty-third doorway. She looked at the map, as she had done a hundred times or more, searching through the passageways for something that would clue them into the twenty-third doorway. “Any luck?” Cheftu breathed over his shoulder.

“Nay. I suggest we go to the room where I first saw the clues. Maybe there is more of a description there.”

“The sacred pools,
haii?
”

“Aye.”

He released his sword and doused the torch as they wove back and forth through the columned courtyard, listening for others. None. Cheftu led her down a short corridor, and they stepped into the cross-passageway. Clinging to the shadows, they crept down, freezing when they heard the cry of a cat. They stood, not breathing, waiting for the footsteps they feared. Nothing. Creeping, they stepped into the cavernous blackness that was the Chamber of Sacred Cleansing.

It was pitch dark; Chloe couldn't see the white of her dress, never mind the ceiling. She heard the scrape of tinder and then the torch flared, accentuating the strong lines of Cheftu's face. He looked at her, and she wondered if he could hear the pulse pounding in her throat. He walked around the mud pool and stood beneath part of the ceiling. He held the torch high, but the room was still shadowed.

Chloe's hands shook. “Can you read it?”

“Aye,” he said heavily. “In order to step through the doorway to the otherworld it says we have to be a priest or priestess of the order of RaEmhetep, on the twenty-third day, natal day twenty-three times three.”

“We have guessed that means not only the twenty-third day, but also the twenty-third hour and twenty-third minute,” Chloe said, excitement churning her insides.

“In the course of Ptah in the east,” he murmured. “The depiction above is what the night sky should look like.”

“Does it tonight?”

“Exactly,” he said, his voice thick. “The ‘prayerful obeisance in the twenty-third doorway,’ that I do not understand.” “Obeisance?” Chloe said. “I thought it read ‘prayer.’”

“Nay. This is an older dialect. The symbols are slightly different from those of today.” He squinted up at the ceiling. “This is also a different glyph from those usually used.”

“Cheftu!” Chloe squealed. “When you were in the chamber, in 1806, did you bow or anything before you crossed through?”

“Of course not. It was a pagan place, why would I… ?” He fell silent. “Wait There was a piece of silver on the floor….”

“Did you kneel to get it?”

“Aye. I put my hand to my heart. It was pounding with the thought of having found something.”

“That is it!” Chloe crowed. “I tried to keep my backpack from slipping as I knelt!” They both looked at the ceiling, at the stick-figure drawing of a man, kneeling on one knee, his arm crossing his breast, and his left hand outstretched. “That is exactly how I was positioned,” Chloe said breathlessly.

“As was I.”

Chloe felt the hah rising on the back of her neck. “So where is the twenty-third doorway?”

“I need to get closer,” Cheftu said. “The drawing up there has more details on the lintel of the door. Can you boost me?”

“I'll try,” Chloe said, lacing her fingers together.

He stepped out of his sandals, and Chloe braced herself in the corner, groaning as his weight pressed down, while she pressed upward as hard as she could. He found a niche for his knee and leaned back to look up, holding the torch above his head. “I cannot hold you much longer,” Chloe said through gritted teeth as she felt her back muscles straining. She groaned in relief when he jumped down. “Anything?”

“Aye. The doorway has the horns and disk of HatHor and is painted red. I do not know if it is an actual doorway, but maybe there is a wall painted like that around here. Where did Imhotep say he saw the priest change?”

Chloe thought furiously. “In an underground room, close to the papyrus storage.” She looked at the map, wishing for a red tag reading “You are Here.”

In his perfect memory Cheftu was already holding the map; he looked at the floor. “The picture shows obeisance. Looking at the floor and reaching for something.” He knelt.

“A trapdoor?”

“I am not certain, but it is worth a search.” They scrabbled on the floor, fingers running around the edges of the stones, searching for a ridge. Chloe skimmed her fingertips across one of the stones and then, with a small cry, drew it back.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just a cut.”

“From what?”

“Holy Osiris! I think it is here!” Chloe said. “Hand me the torch!”

She took the torch in her trembling hands and searched. The metallic gleam was dim. Cheftu rubbed away the dirt; it was a flat lever of thinly hammered electrum, obviously not used for many, many years. “How does it work?” Chloe asked.

“Let us see,” he said, and pushed it, hard. Nothing happened.

They waited a moment, and men a great creaking echoed through the room, and Chloe felt the ground begin to shake. She leapt onto another stone and watched as the floor directly underneath the drawing moved back, revealing a stale darkness that made the chamber above seem light. The creaking stopped, and Chloe jumped at Cheftu's touch on her arm. “Shall we?” he said, and they shuffled forward, holding the torch over the edge. They could see the first two steps, spiraling downward. Nothing else.

Gritting her teem to keep them from chattering with fear, Chloe began to walk downstairs, Cheftu's warm hand on her shoulder, the other holding the torch high above them. “Is it going to stay open if we need to get out?” Chloe asked in a small voice, into the total darkness.

Cheftu paused. “I have no idea. Maybe you should wait above, while I search down here. That way, we're safe on both accounts.”

“Nay,” Chloe said firmly. “We do this together or not at all.”

Cheftu was silent above her. “Then wait a moment while I try to rig it so that we are not trapped down there,
haii?
”

“Five minutes, Cheftu.” She stood still as he walked up the steps. It was the plague of darkness all over. The stairs had spiraled so that the chamber above was hidden from view. She swallowed, hard. She had a feeling that something was not right. Cheftu had been odd, alternating between affectionate and withdrawn. They had managed too easily to elude Thut's best soldiers. As Cheftu would say, it didn't add up.

She heard footsteps above her.

“Chloe?”

“Still waiting,” she said as he walked down to her, the torch keeping her dark fears at bay. Then his hand was on her shoulder, and they descended. And descended, farther and farther into the darkness. The steps were slippery, with nothing to hold on to, except each other. Then Chloe couldn't go down any farther; they had reached the bottom. A gust of ah extinguished the torch.

Cheftu stopped next to her and drew her into an embrace, burying his face in her neck. “I love you,
ma chèriel
” he whispered. She reached around him, feeling the granite muscles that held her tight, the skin that was sticky with cold sweat. Something beyond what she had expected was wrong. In the darkness she could almost hear shuffling.

He pulled away, glancing over his shoulder at the staircase. “Let us go,” he said, thrusting her behind him as they walked across the chamber. It felt very small. She heard Cheftu fumbling around and then gasped as the torch illuminated the darkness.

The room was small but exquisite. They had come down the south wall, and to Chloe's right was a wall painted with the night sky, its constellations clearly marked. To the left was a wall covered in hieroglyphic writing, and Cheftu already moved alongside it, his lips moving as he read the message.

Directly across from Chloe was the doorway.

In actuality it was a large alcove, the paintings outside it identifying it clearly. She walked toward it, her heart in her mouth, and began to read the signs. It told a story, a story of a priestess who was blessed by an unnamed god who brought her from the otherworld to view his
neter
power and send her … hmm … somewhere? … to describe what she had seen. The design was typical two-dimensional Egyptian, but Chloe's skin crawled when she saw that the dark-skinned, black-haired priestess had green eyes.

Peace engulfed her… the same peace that had drawn her here, to be used yes, but as a tool, with every freedom to refuse.
Destiny,
a voice breathed through her consciousness.

Cheftu now stood behind her, and she could hear his strangled gasp. “It is you. All of this speaks of you,” he said.

The goose bumps on her body were the size of peas. “Yes,” she said in English. “I am supposed to return.” She heard it again, the stealthy steps somewhere above them. “Come with me,” she said. “I know you believe you have nothing, but in the twentieth century we can be together. Maybe you have a new destiny!”

“Non,
I cannot go back. Jean-Francois Champollion
le jeune
faded with me in the nineteenth century.”

Chloe spun around, choking. “Jean-Francois Champollion!” For a moment she stared incredulously at his bronze features. “That… that… that is not your name, is it? Are you, were you, Jean-François Champollion?”

“Je suis,
” he said with a credible bow. “My brother betrayed me. He discovered the key to the hieroglyphs, as you said.”

“No!
” Chloe screeched. “I told you
a
Champollion did it! Jean-Francois!
He
is the father of Egyptology. You!”

Cheftu's face was gray, even in the blazing torchlight. “It is not possible,” he whispered. “How do you know these things?”

“I read a book the day before I crossed through! It was about Napoleon's coming to Egypt. It mentioned the older Champollion, and how he brought his little brother,”
who was already a linguist in his own right,
she recalled Cheftu's own words. “He became very ill on the trip, right; after Karnak. He was sent home with Jean-Jacques, and it was a while before he was healthy again.” Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, the words she had read now scorched into her mind's eye. “After that, everyone who met him said he seemed like an ancient Egyptian, he was so in tune with the culture!” She continued, staring. “He spent his life deciphering the hieroglyphs! He claimed they were not just religious pictures, but that they also represented sounds and an alphabet. He wrote books outlining the pharaohs and: how they lived. He spent his whole life on Egypt”

Cheftu sagged against the wall. “You are serious? He accomplished this in my name? I did not fade into disgrace?”

Her mind fumbled to believe this. “Dead serious,” she said. “The boy you saw … you must have changed places, and he … well, was Champollion.” She stared at her husband. “He must have been, because you look only vaguely like Champollion's picture.”

“Mon Dieu,
” Cheftu said, sinking to the floor.

She knelt beside him. “Champollion?” she whispered, laying an icy hand on the knees she knew so well. “I don't know what to say,” she said. “It's odd to discover your husband? is a … a historical figure!”

“Aii,
history,” he said, his cold hand over hers. Sounds came to them, muffled but definite.
“Haii, mon Dieu,
what have I done?” he whispered as he looked toward the stairs.

“What?” Chloe asked, suddenly aware that Cheftu was listening for someone.

“Go into the doorway, beloved,” Cheftu said, rising and pushing her forward. “You must leave.”

Chloe walked over and stood in the alcove, her knees knocking. “I cannot leave without you,” she said.

“Go with God, beloved,” he replied, his voice cracking.

She swallowed as soldiers stepped out of the darkness, their bows trained on Cheftu. “What is this?” she cried.

“Go!” cheftu yelled.

“Aye,
kheft,
” Thut said, stepping forward. “Leave before more evils are heaped on Egypt. Do not cheapen the gift of life your lover has bought you.”

Chloe looked at Cheftu, stunned. “Bought me?”

Cheftu stared at her, his eyes bright with tears.

“Once you leave,” Thut said, “which was the former
erpaha
's request, this room will be dismantled. Then Cheftu will lead me to the golden glory
that woman
stole. With the gold she took from Egypt I will rebuild, and become the greatest pharaoh Egypt has ever known. Then I shall conquer. After I have finished reclaiming Egypt's resources, I shall eradicate memory of her dishonorable rule. Not even one cartouche of her shall remain!”