Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

The chamber, when first adorned, must have been magnificent. In the flickering light, colorful figures of men and women and children, all a hand’s length in height, marched and danced and wrestled across the walls, working and playing as they had in the distant past. Hunting and fishing, plowing and harvesting, weaving, making wine and leather and pottery. A large painting of the deceased held pride of place on the back wall, seated with his family and fawned upon by his minions. Three octagonal columns still stood, while a fourth lay in good-sized chunks where it had fallen near the back of the chamber. The smooth stone floor was dusty-gritty but, like the antechamber, had been too heavily trod upon to reveal its secrets.

A wooden sledge leaned against the fallen column. Several rollers lay beside it. A large wooden box had been shoved into the corner behind the column. Its dimensions were roughly those of an outer shrine-shaped coffin, but it had no lid and the wood was plain and unpainted. Surely Wensu would not have thought to save himself by hiding inside!

Bak hastened to look-and found the box empty.

Curiosity got the better of Mery’s fear. He got down on his knees and began to sift through the small piles of sand that had collected around the fallen column. “I see no sign of a burial. Not a bead, not a piece of rotted wood, not even a broken bit of pottery.”

“The ancient tombs in Kemet have a deep shaft going down to a burial chamber.” Bak glanced around. If this was the tomb Intef had found, the shaft would be open. But where could it be? His eyes settled on the wooden box, shoved back in the corner for no apparent reason. Unless…

He walked to the box and moved the torch slowly around its lower edge. Mery came close to watch. A flicker of flame, the play of light and shadow drew Bak’s eyes to a patch of disturbed dust beside the container and a pale, fresh gouge in the stone. A narrow strip of black spoke of a void under-neath.

“That’s it!” Mery said. “The shaft!”

Propping the torch against the fallen column, Bak leaned against the box and pushed hard, putting all his weight behind it. The container refused to budge. He wiped the sweat off his face and tried from the opposite end, but he could not get it to move.

“I’ll bring the tools,” Mery said, already on his way, his feet skipping across the sandy floor.

Bak bent low to examine the base of the box. One end, he saw, had dropped into the shaft and was firmly lodged there, probably no deeper than the width of a finger, but enough to hold it tight. The shaft had been covered deliberately-and recently-he was sure. But why? If Userhet’s goal and Wensu’s was to cut and run, why not simply abandon the tomb?

Puzzled, he sat down on a broken chunk of column to await Mery and the tools. His thoughts returned unbidden to the footprints they had followed, seeing no other sign of man or beast. Wensu had surely come from his ship, for the trail had led unbroken from the cove to the tomb. Userhet might well have followed-or even preceded-his confeder-ate, with the second man taking care to walk in the first man’s steps. But where had they gone? How had they managed to disappear without leaving signs of their passage? Had they backtracked over the same footprints? Were they even now hiding somewhere outside, lying in wait for the chance to entrap him and Imsiba and the boy?

A chill crept up Bak’s spine. He rose to his feet, anxious to leave the tomb, and at the same time chided himself for an overactive imagination.

Mery hurried into the chamber, laden with tools. The boy shoved a lever at Bak, dropped the rest on the floor, and let the rope slide down his arm and onto the turned-up end of the sledge.

“Did you see Imsiba?” Bak demanded.

“I didn’t look.” Mery glanced up, noted the tension on Bak’s face. “Is something wrong? What…?”

A startled squeal cut him short. Hooves clattered along the entryway and across the antechamber floor. The donkey burst through the door. The portal was narrow, catching the burden on the beast’s back, holding it. The creature fell to its knees, eyes wide with fear, and pulled back its lips and brayed. Suddenly the rumble of stones filled the tomb and rocks rattled across the floor of the antechamber. Dust bil-lowed through the air. The torch flared. The donkey gave a second terrified shriek, heaved itself up, and jerked forward, tearing the burden from its back. It plunged into the room and, with a rat-a-tat of hooves took a quick turn around the standing columns and headed back toward the door.

A groan sounded outside. The donkey stopped in its tracks, hooves planted wide apart and firm on the stone, and screamed. Bak leaped to the animal’s head and caught the rope halter. Beyond the doorway, he glimpsed overturned 244 / Lauren Haney baskets spilling loaves of bread, food packets, the waterbag, and weapons around the sandy floor of the antechamber and he saw Imsiba lying among them, his legs and arms flung wide. The rest of the room was dark, the floor around the exit littered with stones, the entryway blocked by fallen rocks. They were trapped inside the tomb.

“Here!” Bak caught Mery’s arm, pulled him close, and shoved the halter into his hand. “Hold this creature! Quiet him!”

“What happened?” Mery grasped the rope and drew the trembling animal’s head against his chest. He stared through the dust cloud at the supplies and rocks scattered across the floor, Imsiba lying among them, and his voice grew hushed.

“Is he dead?”

Fearing for a moment he had imagined the groan, Bak hurried to his friend. He knelt alongside and, as his physician father had taught him, laid a hand on the pulse of life in the Medjay’s neck. Its beat was strong and steady, outpacing the regular rise and fall of the unconscious man’s breast. A good sign, but…“Imsiba. Can you hear me? Imsiba!”

He received no answer.

Clutching the Medjay’s shoulders, resisting the urge to shake him awake, he repeated the query. Again no answer came. He rocked back on his heels, whispered a quick but fervent prayer to the lord Amon, and bent again to search for a bump on the head. The whirling dust tickled his nose and abruptly he sneezed. Once, twice, three times.

Imsiba’s eyes flickered open; he gave his friend a wan smile. “Could you not wake me with a gentle whisper instead of the blast of a trumpet?”

Weak with relief, Bak laughed softly. “Who struck you down?”

“I don’t know.” Imsiba touched the back of his head, grimaced. “I heard a noise among the rocks above the tomb.

When I went to investigate, someone must’ve crept up behind me. The next thing I knew, I was draped over the donkey’s back, my hands tied to my feet beneath its belly.” Biting his lip to stifle a moan, he raised himself onto an elbow. “I was untying the rope-the knot had been made in haste-when something hit the creature’s flank, frightening it, sending it racing into the tomb. I struck…A wall, I think. And once again the world went black.”

“You hit the doorjamb and the donkey brushed you off his back.”

Imsiba raised himself higher, gave Mery a crooked smile, and looked at the supplies on the floor around him. Seeing the stones among them, his eyes darted toward the entryway and he spat out an oath in his own tongue. “Userhet?”

“Or Wensu. Or maybe the two of them.” Bak stood up and offered a hand. “Let’s get you into the next chamber, where you can rest. If I’m to clear the entrance, I’ll need space in which to work.”

“Don’t treat me like an invalid, my friend. I’ve a headache, that’s all.” Nonetheless, he took the proffered hand and, with Bak’s help, rose slowly to his feet, holding his neck and shoulders stiff and straight so he would not set his head to throbbing.