The Book of the Seven Delights (23 page)

Haffe, she decided, was the living, breathing incarnation of optimism. And she wondered—not for the first time—what he would say if he truly understood just how little she and Smith knew about what they were doing.

The next morning the sun rose blearily over the horizon at dawn and seemed to grow more hostile as the day wore on. Smith was sagging badly and the horses were even beginning to droop in the heat. They stopped at noon to erect a shade for themselves and the horses, and Haffe doled out a single cup of water for each of them… giving the horses and mules twice that amount. It was a harbinger, Abigail realized, of privations to come.

Smith roused a few hours later and insisted on staggering up a tall dune to take another sun reading.

"How certain are you that we're on the professor's course?" she asked, watching him compare the sun's angle with the angle indicated on map.

"Fairly certain," he said. "But the old boy was mad as a March hare. Who knows if he had a clue what he was talking about?"

As midday passed and the sun grew less punishing, they set off again following a course that took them still further out of the way of caravan and commerce, into uncharted desert wilds. They rode until night fell and the desert around them became a dark, moonless void that forced them to stop for the night.

Smith didn't argue when she and Haffe thrust him into the tentlike shelter they erected and insisted he drink part of their cups of water. His lack of resistance stoked Abigail's growing anxiety.

Two hours later as a desert-gold moon rose in the east, Abigail and Haffe sat wrapped up in their burnooses by a long-dead camp fire. Haffe was snoring softly, and Abigail had lit the lantern and was once again pouring over the professor's last journal.

T. Thaddeus' final discourses rambled and were filled with arcane references. But in the middle, she found once again the account of travelers who stumbled across a place they said was called the "Temple of the Keepers." The story came from a three hundred-year-old scroll the professor discovered in a mosque library in Timbuktu. A mixed party of Berber traders and Spanish merchants had gotten lost in a sandstorm and wandered in the desert for several days before encountering a vision… a tantalizing mirage of clear, sweet water… over which rose a great columned edifice made in the style of a Greek temple. She held the journal closer to the lantern and read aloud to herself.

"Some of the party—maddened by lack of water and the searing heat of the sun—ran toward it and were 'swallowed by the desert.' The missing men were found later by their companions, raving about a great 'reservoir of knowledge,' from which wisdom flowed like water into the desert. The reunited party later stumbled across a caravan route and were picked up by traders. When they recovered, the men spoke of their experience in dreamlike terms and regarded the event as a vision of a long-dead world."

"Lost." Her spirits and shoulders both sagged. "Like us."

Was she making fool of herself… having squandered her best chance for a secure life on the scheme of a man who was as mad as a March hare? Anxiety coiled around her stomach and began to squeeze. It wasn't just her money she was risking out here. What if Smith had been gravely injured or Haffe had taken a bullet? What if they ran out of water and supplies?

She looked over at the sleeping Haffe and knew she had to move in order to purge the anxiety building in her. She strode up and over the first dune… and then across a second… dragging her heels to leave furrows that would mark her path… then sat down on the side of a dune to look up at the night sky. Its simple grandeur and immensity seemed to mock her ambitions.

"Well, Mother, I hope you're happy," she whispered irritably. "I'm having my big romantic adventure."

When she started back she had difficulty finding the tracks she had left. The sand had flowed back together like a liquid, filling in her trail, and the moonlight wasn't strong enough to give her a view of the minor disturbance left.

Heaving a sigh, she walked back and forth looking for the dune she had crossed. She could always call out, she supposed; Haffe would probably waken and rescue her. But she would never live it down if Smith awakened, too, and learned she had lost her way so close to camp.

After a few minutes of searching, she admitted she was lost. Worse, she began to worry that her searching might be leading her further away from camp. In desperation, she climbed to the top of a dune and searched the darkened area visually. As she feared, there was no sign of their camp or animals.

Turning, scanning the moon-silvered landscape, she froze… staring through the moonlight at something that shimmered.

Impossible. She rubbed her eyes and squinted, looking harder. There was a brief, bright shimmer, like that of moonlight on water. Knowing it couldn't be their camp, she still felt compelled to move toward it.

Just one dune—she would climb just one dune closer.

From that vantage point, the shimmer seemed even more pronounced. She slid down that dune and clamored up a third, feeling a surge of excitement.

Shafts of pale, silvery light resembling solidified moonbeams began to appear… first one, then another parallel to it… still another. Columns, she realized. Arrayed in a line. She leaned one way and then another to see if it was some trick of light, but was unable to make them disappear. She continued to approach and glimpsed an entablature above the columns and a sloped roof above the frieze and cornice.

It looked uncannily like the entrance to the British Museum!

She stopped dead, staring at a ghostly Greek temple that seemed to be made of moonlight. Such things were called mirages if seen under the burning desert sun. But what were they called if they were seen by moonlight?

Crazy, that was what.

She headed for the columns, bent on exploring them, but her foot caught in something. She looked down to find both feet sinking in a strange, slippery kind of sand. Alarmed, she strained to lift her feet and step out of it, but her movements only caused her to sink faster. She was up to her knees before she realized she was caught fast and sinking even faster. The sand seemed to be flowing downward and—like water seeking its lowest level—was pulling her down with it.

She was submerged to her waist before she admitted she couldn't climb out and began to call for help with everything in her.

"Help! Smith! Haffe—help!—I'm trapped in the sand—sinking! Help!"

She clawed at the ground that continued to sink around her and dug in with her feet, seeking purchase, feeling like she was swimming against a thick and determined current.

"Please—please God, don't let it—
Help! Help
!"

Despite her struggles, she continued sinking… chest-deep… shoulders under… calling out for help…

gasping to breathe as she tried to stay afloat on that smothering tide until the sand choked off her cries and closed slowly over her head.

Buried alive, unable to move more than an inch in any direction, she struggled with urges to both cough and gasp for air. Panicky thoughts flashed through her mind as the air in her lungs was depleted…

Apollo… her mother… the museum… adventures she would never… kisses she would never…

Something shifted beneath her; the pressure on her feet and legs decreased. She began to slide again, this time in a flume of free-flowing sand… descending… then falling. She crashed to an abrupt halt in a sitting position, with sand raining down on her head. She had found a bottom of some sort and flailed in one last, spasm of will. Her hand hit a void—an open space!

Frantic with hope, she dug in that direction until she broke abruptly into nothing. No, not nothing—
air
!

She sucked deep, glorious breaths of air that made her cough repeatedly. Dust-laden and probably as stale as Pharoah's beer, the air felt marvelous. She collapsed at that boundary between solid and gas…

listening to the shushing sound of sand still falling behind her.

It took a few moments for her wits to reassemble. She'd fallen through a hole of some kind and was underground. But underground in what?

Waving her arms, she investigated the space around her. There was nothing above her or on either side, so she slid down the slope, pausing here and there to feel her unseen surroundings, until the sand grew shallow and ended on a solid surface. It was stone…
stones
… set together. A floor! She planted her feet against it and stood up slowly, feeling above her head and finding no barrier.

To her right she discovered upright stonework… set with mortar. A
wall
. Reassured by the prospect of being in something man-made, she felt her way along with both hands and feet. If it was a wall, it had to lead somewhere.

She had the sense that the floor sloped downward and the sound of her movement began to echo around her, as if the size of the space was increasing. From a distance she heard a sound like a trickle.

Water
. Alarm filled her. Was she in a well? Had fate thrown her down a well after all, as punishment for—

"For God's sake, Abigail, get a grip," she said shakily, and was buoyed momentarily by the sound of her own voice.

Then the passage dropped out from under her and she tumbled and fell, smacking into stony edges and she careened arse-over-elbows into darkness. When she stopped, she groaned and sat up. The sound of water was significantly louder—closer—almost at hand.

She blinked repeatedly, and the darkness lightened and surfaces became visible. A block wall on four sides—a passage! And she was sitting at the bottom of some steps. Pushing to her feet again, she ignored her screaming knees and hips and the burning in her shoulder to explore further.

The passage ended in a large underground chamber filled with water. A pool at least fifty feet across and a hundred feet long was bordered by paved walkways and, at one end, water seemed to be squeezed from pure rock and tumbled down a stone face into the pool. The light came from the openings of several other passages apparently leading into the pool chamber.

A man-made pool, below ground, in the middle of the desert!

She rushed forward and dropped onto her stomach at the edge of the water, plunging her cupped hands into it and drinking greedily. It tasted sweet and she began to laugh and splash the water into a wild, impromptu fountain that expressed her relief at being alive.

Light bloomed around her, blinding her momentarily. She rolled up to a sitting position and brought her hands up to shield her eyes. When she was able to focus past the lanterns illuminating her, she found herself facing four old humans. Very old, very wrinkled humans. With fuzzy white hair, age-yellowed eyes, and sunken mouths. Wearing earrings.

One of them spoke using a word that Abigail understood in theory, but was unused to hearing or speaking except in her own head. It took her a moment to trap and translate the word properly.

"
Gyni i
." An ancient word for "woman." Moderns used the word
gynaika
instead. Greek. Her heart stopped.
Old
Greek.

"
parthena," "neos
," and "
oraia
"… opinions came thick and fast.

Virgin… young… lovely… Her mind dutifully translated each word, while somehow holding the full sense of its meaning at bay. Women… old and withered… speaking ancient words…

Smith rushed to the edge of the cone-shaped depression, calling to Haffe as the little Berber's frantic face disappeared into the streaming sand. The sound of Haffe's frantic voice had roused him from sleep with something about Abigail being in trouble. By the time he stumbled from the tent to see what was happening, he found only Haffe's tracks settling and disappearing in the sand. He followed them at a lope over several dunes and arrived just as Haffe's shoulders were sinking into the same depression that Haffe said had "swallowed" Abigail.

There wasn't time to go for a rope. Making a split-second decision, Smith dug his toes into what seemed the stable edge of the depression and launched himself across the sand, his hands outstretched. But he fell short and as the little Berber disappeared, he crawled forward and plunged his hands into the sand, feeling for Haffe's head or hands. Then he began to sink himself, though he scrambled to support himself with his arms. The treacherous sands pulled and the edge under his feet slowly gave way.

Panic seized him as his arms and shoulders were pulled under, and he just had time to suck a breath before his head was engulfed in sand as well. Shoulders, waist, hips—he was encased upside down in a streaming current of earth. Clawing and resisting as much as the sand would allow, he felt his blood rushing into his head and lost all semblance of thought and reason. Instinct took over as his lungs began to bum and he began to flail and dig with his arms and hands while trying to shield his face.

Then he felt a release of pressure beneath him and fell straight down in a shower of sand and dust and landed with a thud on something that groaned and moved. A torrent of sand poured over and around him, and he scrambled to one side and rolled downward until he came to a jarring halt.

He gasped and lay there for a moment, stunned, grateful to be breathing. As he took inventory of his battered body, he realized he was lying on what seemed to be a flat surface in breathable air and that nothing seemed broken.

The darkness around him lightened suddenly, allowing him limited vision. From behind him came the sound of human groaning and from the front came a scraping, scuffling sound.

Bright light burst over him, blinding him momentarily, and he raised his hands to shield them from two merciless beacons that illuminated a stone floor… a block wall… air hazy with dust… a massive pile of sand…

"Smith?" Abigail's voice coming from the light caused his heart to thud and then race wildly.

"Boston?" he managed to choke out between coughs. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." A moment later, she had her arms around him and was helping him to his feet. "But you don't look so good. Is that Haffe with you?" As soon as he was stable, she abandoned him with a hasty squeeze and a "Stay here," to respond to Haffe's groans and plea to Allah to be merciful.