direction of the monastery.
Nicholas built a small fire in the corner of the quarry nearest the
entrance, and as they sat around it he divided the pack of dry survival
rations into three parts. They nibbled them, and washed down the sweet
and sticky concentrated tablets with water from his bottle.
The fire threw ghostly reflections up the side of the ed the moving
shadows. When a quarry wall, and enhanc.
nightjar uttered it warbling cry from a niche high up the wall, it was
so eerie and evocative that Royan shivered and moved a little closer to
Nicholas.
'I wonder if somewhere on the other side Taita is aware of our
progress,' she said. 'I get the feeling that we have him a little
worried by now. We have untangled the first part of the conundrum that
he set for us, and I'll bet he never expected anybody to do that well.'
'The next step will be to get to the bottom of his pool.
That will be really one up on the old devil. What do you hope we might
find down there?'
'I hesitate to put it into words,' she replied. 'I might talk it away,
and put a jinx on us.'
'I am not superstitious. Well, not much anyway. Shall I say it for you?'
he offered, and she laughed and nodded.
He went on, 'We hope to find the entrance to the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.
No more hints and riddles and red herrings. The veritable tomb.'
She crossed her fingers. 'From your lips to God's ear!' Then she grew
serious. 'What do you think of our chances?
I mean of finding the tomb intact?'
He shrugged. 'I will answer that once we get to the bottom of the pool.'
'How are we going to do that? You have ruled out the use of an
aqualung.'
'I don't know,' he confessed. 'At this stage I just don't know. Perhaps
we might be able to get in there with fullhelmeted diving suits.'
She was silent as she considered the seeming imposs' ability of the task
ahead.
'Cheer up!' He put his arm around her shoulders, and she made no move to
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?'
