The Spitting Cobra (7 page)

No. She would not find Hopi here; but with his bad leg she doubted he would have gone on further. She decided to backtrack, then left the path and skirted the Great Place to the south. The sun was hot now, and she was thirsty, but she wanted to save the little water she had. The sunlight was reflecting from the yellow-white rocks, the glare nearly blinding her, but she carried on, scanning every gully for the figure of her brother.

She began to lose track of time. Boulders seemed to loom up, then pass by on either side. Sometimes she could hear the slap-slap of her sandals on the stones; at others she could hear only her own hoarse, dry breathing. When she saw a dark gap in the shimmering brightness of a rocky gully, all she could think of was shade, and she headed towards it instinctively. It was only when she was a few metres away that she realised that Hopi was half-sitting, half-lying across its entrance.

Her throat was parched. ‘Hopi,’ she managed to croak.

His eyes were closed, but they flickered open at the sound of her voice.

‘Isis,’ he murmured. ‘What are you doing here?’

Isis flung herself down and hugged him. ‘I found you,’ she said. ‘I knew I would, I knew . . . You need water. I’ve brought some – here you are.’ Hurriedly, she lifted the little water pouch from around her shoulders and pressed it to her brother’s lips.

He drank gratefully, then handed the pouch back to Isis. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why did you come?’

Isis shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I was worried, that’s all. There are strange things going on in the village.’ And as they shared the rest of the water, Isis recounted everything that Heria had told her, and described the scene with the dancer Tiya, her broken arm and her bracelet.

Hopi listened quietly, letting the water do its work. When he had revived a little, he sat up and looked around. ‘You were lucky to find me,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Isis. ‘But what are you doing here, anyway? What happened? I saw a man talking to you last night. You looked frightened. Then this morning, you’d gone.’

Hopi watched as a spiny-tailed lizard poked its head out of a crevice, and ducked back into it. He thought of Seti’s curse. ‘I don’t understand most of it, Isis. I’ve met a painter who wants to find cobras. We found one, but he didn’t see it, so he grew angry and placed the curse of the mountain’s goddess upon me.’

‘The mountain’s goddess? Who is she?’ asked Isis.

‘She’s a cobra goddess. Her name is Meretseger,’ said Hopi. ‘And the man who spoke to me last night also gave me a warning. He said that the mountain is a sacred place and that I shouldn’t follow strangers here. I wished I’d listened to him, now.’

‘And that is all the man said?’

‘No,’ said Hopi. ‘He told me about another goddess. Serqet. Have you heard of her?’

Isis shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘He said the gods show themselves when they’re ready. Something like that. I’m not sure I fancy meeting one of them up here.’

A breeze stirred the air, bringing a little relief from the scorching sun. Isis looked up at the brilliant blue of the sky against the rocks, and began to feel that the place was somehow peaceful.

‘I think you should forget that curse,’ she said. She gestured around them. The dark fissure in the rocks where they sat offered deep, cool shade. ‘This cobra goddess can’t be so terrible. Even in the heat of the day, she has given us shelter.’

Both of them glanced into the fissure, which seemed to continue behind a big boulder. Hopi shuffled back, and leaned against it. To his surprise, he felt the boulder shift. He peered around it, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Isis moved closer, and poked her head through the gap, too. It was then, looking closely at the sides of the walls, that they saw the truth. This might have been a natural opening in the rocks – at first. But beyond the boulder, there were marks: the scorings and scrapings of chisels. It had been widened by human hands. It was a tunnel.

.

CHAPTER FIVE

Isis and Hopi pulled their heads back into the daylight and stared at each other.

‘Do you think it’s a tomb?’ whispered Isis.

‘Can’t be,’ said Hopi. ‘We’re nowhere near the village cemetery.’

‘But . . . what about the Great Place?’ asked Isis. ‘I saw it earlier. I think it must be quite close.’ She peered up at the mountainside uncertainly. She had become so disorientated when she was hunting for Hopi that she couldn’t be sure how far she had walked.

Hopi shook his head. ‘Not a chance. Look at the tunnel, Isis. It’s just a narrow gap in the rocks. It’s tiny. You couldn’t get anyone’s coffin through there, let alone a royal one. And it’s not even sealed.’

Isis crawled forward and examined the tunnel again. ‘I could get through there easily enough, though,’ she said. She paused. ‘Shall I try?’

Curiosity was burning inside Hopi, but the voice of his father echoed around his head
. . . Look after Isis . . .
What if something happened to her? He couldn’t possibly allow her to go on her own.

‘We’ll both go,’ he said.

Isis frowned. ‘What about your leg?’

Hopi shifted it impatiently. ‘All we need to do is crawl,’ he said. ‘I think I can manage that.’

‘But . . .’ Isis was thinking. ‘It’s so dark in there. We won’t be able to see.’

It was a good point. Hopi reached for his bag again. They would have to make a light somehow. Whoever made the tunnel would have had oil lamps to work by, but they had nothing like that.

‘I have my tinder-sticks,’ said Hopi, rummaging through his bag. ‘But we’ve nothing to make a lamp, or a torch.’

‘Then we’ll have to explore in the darkness,’ said Isis, sounding braver than she felt.

‘Then what? We won’t be able to see what we find.’ Hopi looked around, and spotted a few bone-dry acacia twigs lying amongst the rocks. Struggling to his feet, he quickly gathered a handful.

Isis grasped his idea. ‘Could you make a spark in the darkness?’ she asked. ‘Just by feel?’

‘I think so, if there’s enough space. It depends what we find. If we don’t reach anything, we’ll just have to crawl out backwards.’

‘We can do that.’ Isis felt her heart beating a little faster. ‘I’ll lead the way. It’ll be easier for me, because I’m smaller.’

Hopi nodded. ‘All right, then. Check the tunnel as you go,’ he instructed. ‘Stop if you get scared. I’ll be right behind you.’

They looked into each other’s eyes. Impulsively, Isis gave Hopi a hug. Then she bent down once more and began to grope her way along the narrow tunnel.

.

With Hopi blocking the light behind her, the tunnel was soon completely dark. Isis could see nothing ahead, not even the slightest glimmer of reflected light. It was as though her eyes had stopped working. Fighting back her fear, she felt the walls and roof of the tunnel with her fingers before pulling herself forward.

‘Keep going,’ Hopi’s voice reassured her. ‘I’m right here.’

Isis wanted to stop. It was difficult to breathe, and she had never known such total blackness. The tunnel seemed to wind on for ever into the depths of the mountain. But every now and again, Hopi’s hand touched her heels and gave her courage.

The air was changing. It seemed colder, and was mingled with faint odours that Isis could vaguely recognise. Old wood, perhaps, and incense. She groped upwards for the roof ahead of her and suddenly found it had gone. Reaching out, she traced her hand around the edge of the tunnel. The walls had gone, too. Wherever it was leading, the tunnel had finally arrived.

Isis checked the floor ahead. There was no drop below. She wriggled out into the space, and found that she could stretch her arms. She reached as high as she could, and touched nothing. Her heart pounding, she tried standing up.

‘Hopi!’ she called in excitement. ‘It’s huge!’

‘Stay where you are!’ called her brother, still deep inside the tunnel. ‘I’m almost there.’

Isis did as he said. It was spooky, standing in the middle of such darkness. Even here, there were no chinks of light for her eyes to grasp and adjust to. When Hopi reached the open space, only her ears told her he was there. She listened as he fumbled with his bag, arranged the little acacia twigs and began to rub the tinder-sticks together.

There was a sudden flare of light as the sticks made a spark, which caught on the dry acacia. Isis and Hopi both gasped. By the flickering flame, images of all the gods stared down from the walls around them. It
was
a royal tomb! It couldn’t be anything else. A huge stone sarcophagus stood in the centre of the chamber, and all around them were beautiful, priceless objects.

But many of them were not in one piece.

‘It’s been ransacked!’ exclaimed Isis. ‘Look . . . look at that chair – it’s almost been hacked to bits!’

All that was left was the wood, scraped clean of its gold plate and precious inlays. Only little flecks remained to show that it had once been covered. Chariot wheels lay in a crooked pile against the wall, and a painted statue of the god Anubis lay thrown on its side on the floor. They gazed around in disbelief. Anything that could fit into the little tunnel had clearly been taken.

The acacia twigs had almost burnt out. The flames were already sinking to ash and ember. In less than a minute, they would be engulfed in darkness once more.

‘This is a terrible place,’ said Isis, her voice trembling. ‘Hopi, we have to get out of here, before the gods seek their vengeance!’

Hopi nodded his agreement. His chest felt tight with anger. He poked at the acacia twigs to create one more flare of light, and took a final look around. The last thing he saw was a dark hole in one corner, not far from the tunnel they had come through.

‘There’s another hole there,’ he said, but Isis had already disappeared, and was crawling towards daylight. The acacia fire died, and Hopi stood alone in the darkness.

.

Isis had never been so glad to see the sun. She emerged from the tunnel blinking, almost weak with relief, then immediately turned and peered back down it.

‘Hopi!’ she called. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Yes,’ her brother’s voice came back. ‘But my leg hurts. I have to go slowly.’

Isis sat down to wait. Her stomach rumbled, and suddenly she realised that she hadn’t eaten since early that morning. She glanced up at the sun. It was beginning to dip towards the west. She was sure that Heria would have done her best to protect them, but now they’d been gone for hours. No one would believe they’d slept until the afternoon. They were going to be in big trouble.

‘Come on, Hopi!’ she called, a little anxiously. ‘It’s getting late!’

When Hopi’s head poked out of the tunnel at last, his face was pinched with pain. The hard rock had scraped his bad leg several times. He hauled himself out.

‘Look at the sun,’ said Isis. ‘It’s mid-afternoon. We have to get back to the village. I’m not even sure where it is, though.’

Hopi gritted his teeth and stood up. ‘It’s that way,’ he said, pointing. ‘It’s not as far as you think. We’ll be all right, Isis. But you mustn’t say a word to anyone, d’you understand?’

Isis had already imagined telling Heria, or even Mut. She could just picture their faces. And anyway, it was going to be tricky, explaining where they’d been. ‘Why not?’

Hopi thought of the man and boy he’d seen that morning. He thought of Rahotep’s warning, and Seti’s anger. ‘We don’t know who to trust,’ he said, setting off up the gully.

‘We can trust Heria,’ said Isis.

‘No, we can’t,’ said Hopi, wincing with each step that he took. ‘You told me yourself that she made Tiya hide her bracelet. What if it came from this tomb?’

Isis said nothing. She was sure that Heria wouldn’t have anything to do with tomb-robbing. She just
knew
. But maybe Hopi was right – they couldn’t say anything yet. She took her brother’s arm to support him as he walked, and, thanks to his sense of direction, they made their way slowly to the path.

.

‘Do you realise just how much trouble you’ve caused?’ demanded Nefert, her eyes flashing. ‘Nakht sent men out to search for you not long after noon. He’s an important man and he has much better things to do than hunt for his guests!’