'Don't take Hansith with you,' Nicholas ordered. 'I need him here.'
When Sapper had gone, taking most of the workers from the tunnel with
him, Royan and Nicholas looked at each other seriously.
'We are running out of time fast, and Taita still has us in a tangle,'
Nicholas said. 'One thing I must warn you.
When the river starts to rise '
She did not let him finish. 'The river!' she cried. 'Not the sea! I was
mistaken in the translation. I read it as 'tide'.
the sea, but it should have I assumed Taita was referring to been
'curyene,.The Egyptians made no distinction between rds.'
the two wo They both rushed back to the desk and her notebooks.
C4The current behind me and the wind in my face Nicholas changed the
quotation.
on the Nile,' Royan exulted, 'the prevailing wind is lways from the
always from the north, and the current a south. Taita was facing north.
The north castle.'
'We assumed the symbol for the north was the baboon,'
he reminded her.
'No! I was wrong.' Her face was alight with the fires of inspirations
'', my beloved, the taste of you is sweet upon my lips.' Honey! The bee!
I had the symbols for the north and south inverted.' we find there?'
'What about east and west? What can with fresh enthusiasm. ''MY
He turned back to the texts of bronze sins are red as carnelians. They
bind me like cUns the They prick my heart with fire, and I turn my eyes
towards evening star.''
'I don't see ation,' he stuttered eagerly. -Prick' is the wrong transi
ing towards the qt should be 'sting'. The scorpion look the west. The
evening star. 'Me evening star is always in rn castle, not the eastern
castle.' scorpion is the wester
'We had the board inverted.' She jumped up excitedly.
'Let's play it that way!'
'We still have not determined the levels,' he objected.
'Is the sistrum the upper level, or is it the three swords?'
'Now that we have made this breakthrough, that is the only variable. We
are either right or Wrong. We will play work upper level, and if that
doesn' the sistrurn first as the lay it the other way round.'
we can tricacies of the maze It was so much easier now. The in had
become less forbidding with familiarity. There were the large white
chalk signs in Nicholas's handwriting on each corner and at each fork
and T-junction of the tunnels.
They moved swiftly through the complex twists and turns, their
excitement rising sharply as they followed each notation and 'i6und the
way still clear before them.
'The eighteenth move.' Royan's voice trembled. 'Hold both thumbs. If it
takes us into one of the open files that threaten the opponent's south
castle, then that will be the check coup.' She drew a deep breath and
read it aloud to him. 'The bird The numbers three and five. With the
lower level symbol of the three swords.'
They paced it out and passed the five junctions into the lowest level of
the maze, reading their position from the chalk marks on the stone
