Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

Nagged by the passage of time, by the growing closeness of the air, he handed the figure to Imsiba and stood up. Mery slipped the ring off and sat on the floor to make impressions of interlocking spirals in the soft dust around him. The boy’s eyes drifted to the shaft, Bak noted, and his mouth tightened in disappointment.

Bak formed what he hoped was an optimistic smile and ruffled the child’s hair. “We’ll come back, and you with us.

If for no other reason, we must close this tomb and seal it for eternity.” The irony of his words did not escape him: the tomb was already sealed.

“What of the objects we’ve found? What of those still here?”

Bak shrugged. “The less of value we leave, the safer the dead will be. But that’s a decision Commandant Thuty must make.”

Collecting chisel and mallet, bracing himself for another stint of hard labor, he walked with leaden feet into the outer chamber. Imsiba followed, no more enthusiastic than he.

After clearing away the stones that cluttered the floor, the two men crowded into the entryway, a space barely wide enough to work side-by-side, and attacked the blockage. Mery shifted the rocks that fell around their feet. Sweat trickled down faces and backs and thighs; dirt built up in the creases of their bodies. Imsiba grimaced now and again, but refused to admit to pain. In spite of the need to stop at regular intervals to let the dust settle, exhaustion set in.

Far too soon-at what they judged to be midway along the entryway-the torch began to sputter, signaling its end.

Mery searched out the second lamp and set it unlit beside the first, ready for use when needed. And he brought a jar of beer, providing a welcome excuse to rest. Bak rolled the warm liquid around inside his mouth, wetting his parched tongue and savoring the tangy bite. How many jars remained? he wondered. How much food? How long would they live in the dark, hot tomb if they failed to dig themselves out?

Stifling a fresh burst of fear, he took a final mouthful and passed the jar on to Imsiba. Back in the entryway, he gripped chisel and mallet, gritted his teeth, and began to pry stones out of the blockage. They fell one, two, sometimes three and four at a time, raining dirt, choking him. The sweat turned to mud on his shoulders and back; his hair felt glued together.

A mass of stones broke free, forcing him back, raising a cloud of dust. Through the gloom, he saw an unbroken expanse of rock. The boulder he had feared they would find.

He felt as if he was about to be sick.

Imsiba came up behind him and stared. “What now, my friend?” His voice was flat, its natural ebullience gone.

Bak had no answer.

Refusing to think, summoning a strength born of desperation, he raised his arms high and began to hack away the stones jammed into place above the boulder. Imsiba, saying nothing, shifted the debris from around his feet. Drawn to the antechamber by the silence, Mery spotted the wall of rock and he, too, lost the power of speech. Bak toiled on, loosing the stones until he could reach no farther. At last, he sagged against the wall, tired, hot, dirty, and thirsty, his upper limbs numb from holding them high for so long.

Imsiba sat at Bak’s feet, his forehead on his knees. Mery went to the donkey, wrapped his arms around the creature’s neck, and buried his face in its hair. Bak had an idea the boy was crying.

He raised his face, resting the back of his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. Why would the gods frown on them now? he wondered. Why hand them an ugly, lingering death in this dreary tomb when, as men of action, they should be given a quick and honorable death on the field of battle?

He took a deep breath, drew in air cooler and cleaner than before. As if his ka had flown from his body and escaped from the tomb. His eyes popped open; he tore himself away from the wall. No! As if air was seeping in from outside. He drew in a long, cautious breath. Sure enough. The air was sweeter, purer. He must have opened a tiny crack or hole above the boulder.

Afraid to speak aloud news of his discovery, fearing it would prove an illusion, Bak grabbed a lever. He raised the tool and attacked rocks the chisel had been too short to reach. The angle was bad and his blows not as hard as he wanted, but several stones fell, allowing him to imagine air pouring in instead of seeping. When next he tried, the whole mass collapsed, a deluge of rocks and grit and dust. Yelling a warning, he leaped back. Imsiba scrambled out of the way on all fours. Rocks clattered, building up in a pile, rolling into the antechamber. A dense cloud surged through the tomb. Retreating to the inner chamber, they closed their eyes tight and tried not to breathe. The donkey squealed and fought for freedom, entangling his forefeet in the rope. Awed by the noise and the roiling cloud of dirt, Bak prayed he had not brought down the whole face of the ridge, entombing them forever.

As the dust settled, they saw a sloping pile of rocks reaching through the doorway. Fearing the worst, they hurried to its leading edge and looked into the antechamber.

The slope rose steeply to the top of the boulder, a loose conglomeration of stones illuminated by light flowing through a good-sized hole above the entryway. The sky was pale and tinted with gold, harbinger of sunset.

Bak let out a delighted whoop, grabbed Imsiba around the waist and Mery by the shoulders, and hugged them tight.

The Medjay returned the embrace, squeezing the breath from the others. Mery’s grip loosened and he backed off to gulp air.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bak said, breaking free. The words sounded feeble, trite, but he could think of no worthy way to express the joy he felt.

Mery scrambled up the loose rocks. At the top, he raised his hands high and yelled, “We did it! We’re free!” And he raced out of sight along the ridge.

Imsiba went to the donkey and scratched its head, calming it. “What of this creature? Can we get him out, do you think?

Or must we slay him?”

Bak studied the steep slope. With the rocks so loose, the donkey could easily break a leg, especially if the stones began to roll beneath his hooves and he panicked. If they could somehow build a road…Should they take the time? Or should they go instead in search of Userhet? They had been trapped in the tomb for close on two hours, plenty of time for the overseer to reach his skiff and sail away to safety.

His eyes fell on the wooden box. “There. The box. We can break it up, leaving the sides and bottom intact, and lay them end-to-end up the slope.”

“Lieutenant Bak!” Mery squatted at the opening, looking down. “I’ve found tracks. Userhet’s, I bet.”

Imsiba scooped up a chisel and mallet. “Go, my friend.

See what the boy has found. I’ll tend to the donkey.”

Bak climbed the treacherous slope, taking care where he 254 / Lauren Haney placed his feet, trying not to disturb the stones beneath him lest he set off another slide. At the top, with a light breeze drying the sweat on his body, he stared out across the tawny desert, savoring a world he had feared never to see again.

Barren and dry it was, nothing but sand dunes and rock formations, but beautiful beyond words. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon for allowing him to stand once again in the sunlight.

“Here,” Mery said, pointing to a scuffed trail down the side of the ridge.

Bak half ran, half slid down the incline. The place where they had tied the donkey when first they came was a mass of intermingled prints. Its journey to the tomb, where its hooves had been driven deep by Imsiba’s weight, was clear, as were the footprints of the man who had led it. The slide had covered the fissure and the rock face to either side, concealing the burial place as if it had never existed. A good stiff breeze would have covered the tracks and deposited sand on the fallen rocks, leaving no sign of human presence.