“You’d better pray that threat is empty, Kasaya. If they’re sent to the desert mines, there to spend the remainder of their days, we may spend the rest of our lives guarding them.”
“Will this accursed climb never end?” Kasaya mumbled.
“We’re almost to the top,” Bak answered, though he was certain the young Medjay had been talking to himself. “Just a few more steps, I think.”
“What do you mean by
Very much aware that the sun no longer reached the cliff face and of the long distance they would fall if fall they did, Bak stopped to study the boulder that barred their path. This was one of the steps he had referred to. He could barely see over it, but it looked to be the highest-he thanked the lord Amon. It filled the cleft from one side to another. It seemed to be solidly planted, but he had learned early on not to trust appearances. Should he forget, a long patch of chafed skin on his left thigh burned like the very sun itself, reminding him to value caution.
He placed both palms against the boulder and shoved. It did not move. Putting his weight behind the task, he repeated the process several times, studying the edges of the boulder and the sand built up around it. Not a grain trickled into some hidden void. It looked to be safe.
“Give me a hand, Kasaya.”
The Medjay gingerly shifted his weight to test the solidity of the rocks beneath him. Satisfied none would move, he wove his fingers together and held out his hands. Bak stepped into them and let Kasaya heave him upward. He scrambled onto the boulder, which held steady.
“How am I to get up there?” the Medjay asked.
Bak scrambled to his feet and studied the irregular rock steps and the steep slope between him and the top of the formation. “The rest of the cleft looks easy enough to climb. I should be able to do it without help.” He looked down upon the younger man, who was taller and heavier than he, and not an easy lift. “If you want to stay where you are, you may.
If not, cut hand- and footholds for yourself and call me if you need help.”
Kasaya looked upward, undecided. Irresolution turned to certainty and, his mouth tight with determination, he dug into the sack of tools tied to his belt and retrieved a chisel and mallet.
“You’d better use the rope for safety,” Bak said.
A short time later, with precautions taken to prevent the Medjay from falling to a certain death should he make a misstep, Bak issued a final warning. “Don’t do anything to dislodge this boulder, and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“No, sir.”
Conscious of the passage of time, Bak climbed from one stone step to another, testing each before he placed his weight on it. At the top lay debris that had fallen from the cliffs towering above. A thin layer of loose sand and stones overlay a firmer base that had been packed through the years to form a steep but fairly stable incline. He climbed slowly, looking for signs of another man’s passage, but the rough surface held its secrets. In a short while he stood atop the tower, a rounded patch of weathered stone separated from its mates and the parent cliff by sand-filled crevices.
A faint breeze ruffled his hair and kilt and dried the sweat on his face and chest. Swallows chattered in the nearby cliffs, undisturbed by the sharp tap-tap-tap of Kasaya’s mallet. Bak wished he had thought to get a drink before leaving the water bag behind with the Medjay.
The valley spread out below, an open bay enclosed on three sides by the high walls of the cliff, floored with sand faded, so late in the day, to pale gold. Nestled within their own shadow, the tall eroded walls had turned a deep, dark brown cut by crevices black and mysterious. The sun had dropped lower than he expected, the time they had taken to climb the cleft longer. They must soon return to the valley or spend the night cold and hungry.
The two temples, shrunk by distance, spread across the head of the valley, the older a mass of fallen stones, the newer fronted by a field of stones waiting to be raised. Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s temple stood empty and abandoned except for a pack of dogs nosing among its fallen columns.
The temple of Maatkare Hatshepsut should have been equally deserted but for the guards assigned to stand watch through the night.
Instead, not a man who toiled there had left. They were standing or kneeling or sitting among the statues and column parts and rough stones strewn across the terrace. Located at what they must have believed to be a safe distance from the northern retaining wall, they were looking up toward the face of the cliff. Watching him and Kasaya, Bak guessed. Waiting to see if the malign spirit would strike them down. He spat out an oath. That’s all they needed. Men watching their every action while they slipped and stumbled and slid down the cleft. He thought to wave, but decided not to. Why tempt the gods with too brazen an action?
Erasing the workmen from his thoughts, he looked for the scarred stone. He could not see it from where he stood. He recalled the terrain as he had seen it from below and compared it with the rocks and crevices around him. He was too high, he decided, too far west. Climbing down a narrow defile, he found a ledge about five paces long and less than a pace wide. Careful not to think of the long deadly drop should he fall, he crossed to a shallow slope of sand that filled another, wider crevice, this running along the face of the cliff behind the tower-like formation. The scar that marked the fallen stone was clearly visible beyond the sand, where the crevice narrowed and dropped off into space. He saw at once that the crevice walls would almost completely conceal a man from below.
He knelt at the upper edge of the sand. No footprints marred its surface, and neither was it as smooth as were other nearby patches. It was slightly rippled, as if someone had hurriedly brushed away with his hand any signs left behind, any footprints. He was certain of what he saw, but Kasaya was a better tracker. Thinking to preserve the ripples so the Medjay could see them, he sidled along the wall to the lower end of the crevice.
The whitish scar on the cliff face was much larger than he had expected, a long trail left by large chunks of stone knocked loose by what had probably been a single boulder torn from a spot near where he stood. Wind, heat, cold, and rain, he guessed, had slowly eaten away a vein of more fragile stone, forming an ever-deepening crack. The loosened rock, a large and heavy chunk, would have fallen sooner or later. But someone had been unwilling to wait. Several deep, bright-white gouges told him the boulder had been broken away with the aid of a pointed metal tool, a lever.
“You were right all along, sir.” Kasaya stared at the scarred wall of rock, his expression as dark and angry as Bak felt. “A man was here-no question about it-and he broke loose the boulder that started the slide. If ever I lay hands on him. .”
He said no more, leaving the rest to the imagination.
“He was very careful. I doubt he left anything behind.”
Bak looked at the deepening shadow in the valley below and tamped down a sense of urgency. He had no desire to spend the night on the cliff. “Nonetheless, we must sift through the sand.”
Kasaya, too, looked at the shadowed valley. “Can’t we come back tomorrow, sir?”
“If you want to climb down by yourself, do so. But take care. I’d not like to find you battered and bruised partway down the cleft.”
Kasaya stood undecided, looking as miserable as a man could look. He knew his officer well enough to know that he would remain through the night if need be.
Bak dropped to his knees near the scarred cliff and began to run his fingers through the soft warm sand. Another long moment passed and Kasaya dropped down beside him. Bak bit back a smile. The Medjay was far from the brightest policeman in his company, but he was among the most loyal and steadfast.
Bak found the amulet within a pace of the scarred cliff face. It was a fish, a Lates, slightly longer than the width of his thumb. It had been carved from a green stone, malachite.
From a tiny hole bored through its head, he guessed it had been part of a broad beaded collar. It must have torn free while its wearer was swinging the lever, the intense physical exertion causing the cord to break.
“Others must’ve fallen, too,” Kasaya said, and set to work with renewed enthusiasm.
Bak was not so certain. The tiny fish was beautifully carved. If the collar was of the same quality, each bead and amulet would have been individually tied. If they were to find another, the lord Amon would indeed have smiled upon them.
They searched with care, leaving no grain of sand unturned, but diligent effort proved fruitless. By the time they reached the upper end of the sandy incline, their sole trophy was the single green amulet.
