The Skin Map (35 page)

The newcomer gave a nod of acknowledgement to the others and said, “Put Baby away. See she’s fed and watered.” As the men gingerly prodded the overheated beast to its feet and led it away, the man in the turban filled a cup from the water skin and offered it to Sir Henry saying, “Welcome, Lord Fayth. I have long been an admirer of yours.”

The nobleman accepted the cup without a word and offered it in turn to Cosimo, who refused it. Sir Henry then drained the cup in several deep gulps before handing it back. The black-turbaned one refilled it and passed it to Cosimo. “Mr. Livingstone, I presume,” he said with a smile.

“Very droll,” muttered Cosimo, his voice cracking. “You come crawling out from under your rock at last, Burley.”

“Lord Burleigh, if you please.”

“Whatever you say.” He tipped up the cup and drank deeply, feeling the life-giving liquid soothe his sticky dry throat. “Now that we’re here, what do you intend to do with us?”

“That depends entirely on you and your friend,” he said, passing the cup to his chief, Tav, who filled it and drank before passing the water skin on to the others. “You see,” Burleigh continued, “I believe in choices. So, I will always give you a choice. We can do this either of two ways—easy or difficult,” he explained, his tone mild, good-humoured even. “The first is gentle and profitable for all concerned. The second is slow, messy, and painful. If you’re open to a little advice, I’d recommend taking the first option. Believe me, it really is simpler all round and, anyway, it is too bloody hot for making fires to heat up the instruments of persuasion.”

He retrieved the skin from Dex and poured out another cup. “More water, gentlemen?”

Sir Henry nodded. “If you please.” He gulped it down.

“Finished?” said Burleigh when Cosimo had drunk his second cup. “There will be more later. I wouldn’t have too much all at once—it’s bad for the stomach.” He tossed the cup to Tav. “Now then, if you’re refreshed, come along. I have something to show you.”

“On your feet, you two,” said Con. They needed no prodding. Cosimo pulled his boots back onto his swollen feet and the two men followed the earl’s lead around the bend in the gorge to a hole at the base of the rock wall, over which someone had long ago erected a wooden shelter. Here Burleigh paused and, withdrawing a key from a hidden fold of his kaftan, disappeared down a flight of wooden steps into the hole. There was a clink and the grating sound of rusty hinges, and his voice came floating up from the ground, “One at a time, gentleman, and do watch your step.”

Cosimo and Sir Henry descended the wooden stairs into the dry darkness, squeezed through a heavy iron gate at the bottom, and found themselves in a very small and cramped vestibule of a chamber hollowed from the living rock. Tav followed, but no sooner had he joined the others than Burleigh sent him away again, saying, “The generator, Tav.”

“Aye, sir.” He disappeared again, and a few moments later the distant sound of a combustion engine coughed, then started to hum.

“You’ll want to see this in all its glory, believe me,” said Burleigh.

Cosimo glanced at Sir Henry as their captor bent down and fumbled with a black box on the floor. There was a click of a switch, and a warm yellow glow emanated from the chamber beyond. “This way, gentlemen.”

He led them into the next chamber, larger than the first—a simple rectangular box devoid of either furniture or feature, save a blue-painted ceiling covered with white spots of stars. “Through here,” said Burleigh, moving through a doorway into a farther room.

Cosimo, his trepidation having given way totally to unfeigned interest, followed willingly. The room was empty save for a large granite sarcophagus in the centre of the floor and three naked light-bulbs affixed to makeshift stands. The sarcophagus was missing its lid, and the lights wavered gently with the irregular pulse of the generator.

“Here we are, gentlemen,” Burleigh said, moving quickly to the far side of the room, which was covered every inch, floor to ceiling, with incredibly lifelike and colourful paintings of life in ancient Egypt.

Sir Henry, experiencing his first exposure to the science of electricity, could not take his eyes from the softly glowing bulbs.

“If you will allow me to direct your attention to this particular wall painting,” Burleigh said, “you will, I think, find something of inestimable interest.”

Cosimo nudged his companion. “Not now, Sir Henry. I’ll explain later. Let’s see what this drama is all about.”

Burleigh stood next to a nearly life-size painting of a bald Egyptian dressed in the traditional knee-length linen kilt and heavy gold-and-lapis necklace. Although the figure was heavily stylized in the iconic manner of all tomb art, it was clear the painters had tried to give him a modicum of personality: his round face positively beamed with beatific serenity and humour; even in a two-dimensional rendering he seemed a pleasant, good-natured fellow.

“Allow me to introduce you to Anen, the high priest of Amun, in whose tomb you are now standing.”

“High Priest Anen, you say?” wondered Sir Henry. “I don’t believe I have ever heard of him—have you, Cosimo?”

“Oh, he’s a very interesting chap, as it happens,” continued Burleigh. “Brother-in-law of Pharaoh Amenhotep the Third and who, at the time of his death, had scaled the heights to become second prophet of Amun. He enjoyed an extremely powerful and influential position in Pharaoh’s court, as I think you can appreciate.”

“Very impressive, to be sure,” said Cosimo, “but what does any of that have to do with us?”

“Patience,” replied Burleigh with a smile. “We are getting to it.”

“Go on then.”

“Take a good look at him, if you will,” said Burleigh, indicating the somewhat stocky figure in the painting. “You’ll see him again just here.” He moved on to the next floor-to-ceiling panel, which depicted the priest Anen standing next to a pale-skinned man dressed in a long striped robe of many colours. The man’s robe was open at the chest to reveal a cluster of tiny blue symbols on his chest. Behind the two figures a vast building project was proceeding—the raising of a palace or temple of some sort—the site swarming with hundreds of half-naked workers. “Mark the man in the coloured robe?” said Burleigh.

“Incredible . . . ,” breathed Cosimo.

Burleigh moved to a third panel. “Now then,” he said, “things grow more interesting. Here is our man, Anen—older now, as you can see, and what is that in his hand?”

“Good lord,” said Cosimo, stepping closer to the wall and squinting his eyes against the shadows. “Is that . . . ? It can’t be!”

The picture showed the priest standing alone in the desert under a brilliant blue twilight sky. One hand was raised skyward, forefinger extended; in the other hand he grasped what looked like a ragged banner shaped roughly like a truncated human torso. This curious banner was decorated with the same symbols that had appeared on the man in the striped robe of the previous painting.

“Gentleman, I give you the Skin Map!” announced Burleigh in triumph.

“Good lord, indeed,” breathed Sir Henry. “Of all places . . . here!”

“As if there could be any doubt,” said Burleigh, obviously relishing the effect of his revelations, “I direct your attention to this particular cartouche.” He indicated a small lozenge-shaped panel decorating the border of the painting.

Cosimo bent near and, in the glow of the gently wavering electric light, examined the hieroglyphs contained in the cartouche, working out the meaning. “The man . . . who is . . . map.”

“Precisely,” confirmed Burleigh. “The Man Who Is Map—none other than Arthur Flinders-Petrie.”

“He was here,” breathed Cosimo in astonishment. “Graphic evidence that Arthur was here.”

“Moreover, the map was here,” said Burleigh.

“How do you know that?” asked Cosimo.

Burleigh gave him a sly smile. “Because I was here with Carter and Carnarvon when this tomb was opened. I held it in my hands.” He gave his turbaned head a rueful shake.

“You knew Carter?” said Cosimo.

“Oh, yes,” replied Burleigh. “In a former life, you might say.”

Stepping to the stone sarcophagus, he reached in and pulled out an ancient wooden chest and presented it to Cosimo. The pale yellow lacquer was dry and cracked, but the rounded top, on closer inspection, was seen to be covered with the same blue symbols as those represented on the wall painting. “The map was in one piece, and it was in here,” said Burleigh, tapping the lid with a finger. “Unfortunately, at the time I did not know what it was that I held.”

Cosimo carefully opened the chest. “
Was
here,” he said, examining the dusty interior. “Once upon a time.”

“Yes,” replied Burleigh, “but that is beside the point.”

“Then, pray, what
is
the point?” demanded Sir Henry, accepting the empty chest from Cosimo. “Come to it, man!”

“Patience,” chided Burleigh lightly. “We must tread lightly, for here we confront the elemental mystery.”

Moving again to the last painting, he said, “Consider what our friend Anen the high priest is doing in this picture.”

“Certainly, he’s holding the map,” volunteered Cosimo.

“Yes, as we’ve already established. But what is he doing with his other hand?”

Cosimo followed the raised right arm of the priest to the extended forefinger. “Why, he’s pointing into the sky. . . .”

“He seems to be pointing at a star,” added Sir Henry.

“Indeed, he is!” replied Burleigh. “But not just any star.”

“No?” wondered Cosimo.

“Think where we are, gentlemen,” coaxed the earl. “Egypt—the southern sky, yes? And what is the brightest star in the southern sky?”

“Sirius,” answered Sir Henry. “The Dog Star.”

“Bravo!” Burleigh applauded, his hand claps ringing loud in the empty chamber. “High Priest Anen is holding the Skin Map and pointing to the Dog Star.” He turned a keen and questioning gaze upon his two captives. “Now, why is that, do you think?”

CHAPTER 31
In Which the Quality of Mercy Is Strained

A
razor-thin line of daylight stole into the forechamber of the high priest’s tomb, broadening as it sliced through the darkness. The tomb, empty now, scoured clean, its costly objects duly catalogued and carted off to Luxor’s new antiquities museum, remained steeped in a centuries-old silence altered only by the early morning song of a desert bird perched on the high wall of the wadi, its pipping note echoing through the canyon.

Inside the tomb, two bodies lay on the bare stone floor: two men, both asleep, one breathing heavily.

At the sound of the bird, one of the bodies stirred, and Sir Henry Fayth opened his eyes in the semidarkness of the inner chamber. He lay for a moment, listening—to the birdsong, to the man a few paces away whose breathing had become laboured during the night—then rose and went to his friend.

“Cosimo,” he said, giving his shoulder a nudge. “Cosimo, will you wake?” When that failed to rouse the sleeping man, he desisted and crawled to sit with his back against the massive stone sarcophagus dominating the centre of the room.

Now that he was awake, thirst came upon him with renewed ferocity—and with it his reawakened hatred of Burleigh. Enemy or no, it was inhuman of him to lock them away without food or water. Sir Henry would not have treated a mad dog so cruelly, much less another human being. Such behaviour was brutish and ignoble, far beneath the decency of civilised men.

He would, he vowed, protest in the strongest, most strenuous terms when the next opportunity presented itself, which would be . . . when? One full day and half of another had passed since they had last seen Burleigh or one of his toadies—thirty-six hours without food or water in the dark, airless tomb of Anen, the high priest of Amun.

That the quest should end here, like this, seemed a needlessly malicious fate for a God-fearing man such as himself. In the early days of their friendship, when he and Cosimo had first begun exploring the interdimensional highways and byways of the universe, there had been little danger, save from the local environment wherein they might happen to find themselves. Before the rot set in, before the race to find the map—that is to say, before the Burley Men—things had been much different.

Perhaps, he thought, they should surrender to Burleigh’s demands, give him what he wanted in exchange for their freedom. Or, better still, join forces, pool their knowledge. Obviously, the rogue possessed information that they lacked, and that would be useful to know.

For example, it would be helpful to learn how it was that the villains always seemed to know where and when to find them. Such had not always been the case. There was a time, when the Burley Men first appeared, that they had been ridiculously easy to elude. Once encountered, they would not meet them again for a very long time—sometimes years might pass between episodes. Not anymore. Now, each and every leap was likely to attract their interest and consequent involvement. How did they know? By what means or method were they drawn to the precise location at the exact time?

Burleigh also had knowledge of the map that they did not. Obviously, he knew Flinders-Petrie had once sojourned in Egypt, and that the map had once resided in this very tomb. What else did he know? Would it not be useful to find out?

As Sir Henry sat thinking, the light grew faintly brighter. Outside, he heard the mechanical engine sputter to life. That meant the Burley Men were up and about their nefarious duties for the day. He considered calling out to them, asking for water—just the merest sip to take away the metallic taste on his thickening tongue. Indeed, he was on the point of doing just that when he heard footsteps on the stonecut staircase leading down into the tomb. Climbing heavily to his feet, he straightened his clothes and went to stand by the iron grate that formed the door of their prison.

“Ah, Sir Henry, you are awake,” said Burleigh, his voice loud in the quiet of the tomb. He strode to the bars, holding a water skin and a tin cup. “Good. It saves me the trouble of trying to rouse you.”

“We need water,” replied Sir Henry, his eyes going to the water skin. “And medical attention—Cosimo has fallen ill.”