The Book of the Seven Delights (28 page)

"Come—there is no time to lose." Idera thrust one of the two lighted, sacred lamps into Abigail's hands and then pushed open a hidden door at the side of the altar. The way was narrow, crudely chiseled from the rock that formed the main part of the temple. Smith had to bend and crouch to make it through and Haffe sometimes had to put down his bag of gold and drag it behind him in order to pass. But after a few minutes of harrowing and increasingly claustrophobic descent, they reached a tunnel that was broader and of more reasonable height. The air was thick with dust, and there were sand and small rocks underfoot that made crunching sounds.

"If you bear to the right twice and then to the left once, this tunnel will take you to an oasis that is directly east," she said looking to Smith. "The tunnel you came in by runs directly west." He nodded. "You may still be able to retrieve your horses. If not, nomads come by the oasis from time to time…" She looked pained as she gave them each one last touch and muttered a blessing. As she turned to retrace her steps to the temple, Abigail grabbed her hand.

"Come with us, Idera. Your knowledge is priceless. You could help us tell the world your story."

A rumble moved through the walls and passages and vibrations made the sand at their feet shift. The old priestess stiffened, looking sad but resigned.

"A hundred and fifty years is long enough to live," she said. "I would stay with my sisters and share their fate."

Another, more powerful rumble sent a shower of sand and small stones down over them, and Smith muttered something unintelligible and pulled Abigail's hand from Idera's. With a nod to the old woman, he dragged Abigail down the tunnel. She protested and made him halt, but when she looked over her shoulder, there was only darkness. Idera and her lamp were gone. Her eyes filled with blinding tears.

"Hold up the lamp, Boston," Smith ordered, pulling her along.

When she held it up and blinked to clear her eyes, she was alarmed to see dust and rocks spraying down through the roof of the passage. The large stones had once been held in place by force of placement and mortar, but seemed to be slipping both restraints.

"This thing could go at any time," Smith uttered. "Move!"

Abigail went in front since she held the light, but she soon was being pushed by Smith's determined pace.

At each juncture he reminded them "two rights and a left," and Abigail was grateful he had the presence of mind to keep track. She kept thinking of Idera and Hathor and Calla, and of all of the archaeological treasures that were being destroyed behind them.

The rumbling seemed closer and the creak and groan of rock around them grew deafening and seemed almost continuous. It was like being in a fog; the light of her lamp reflected off the falling dust, making it difficult to see the way. She extended her arm and veered to the side of the passage to let the wall help guide them. They began to cough and Smith told her to pull her shirt up over her nose to filter the air. She could hear the strain in his and Haffe's labored breathing. The heavy bags of artifacts were becoming a dangerous burden, but Smith was determined to soldier on.

Then there was a huge, ear-splitting crack and thunderous roar. The earth shook and large stones from the tunnel roof began to fall. Abigail yelped as a stone glanced off her shoulder and Smith shouted above the roar: "Run!"

Dodging rocks and splintered timbers, they charged through the passage… gasping for breath… battling both a lowering ceiling and a sharpening incline. All that mattered was putting one toot in front of the other and evading the rocks falling around them.

Abigail sensed that Smith wasn't behind her and when she looked back, he was bent at the waist in order to move through the tightening passage. A frisson of panic shot through her as it occurred to her for the first time that they might not make it out. Then she saw that part of his struggle had to do with the bag he earned—the artifacts—the gold.

"Drop the bag!" she called, sliding back down the sand-slippery slope to extend him a hand.

"No!" was all he could spare breath to say. But moments later the lowering ceiling forced him to lower the bag and pull it behind him. This time when she offered a hand, he accepted it. When she called to Haffe. who was behind Smith, the little Berber's only response was a gasping prayer of gratitude that he was not as tall as Smith.

The sand under their feet made traction difficult. Each of them slipped and fell, banging the amphora against the passage floor. Everything seemed to be closing in on them, as if the earth itself was trying to strip them of the evidence they carried—determined to keep the story of the library its own private secret.

Without warning, the tunnel began to collapse, raining rock and sand down on them, knocking the lamp from her hands and plunging everything into total darkness. Sand started to engulf her feet. With the memory of being buried alive fresh in her memory, she began to churn her legs, running almost in place, her panic rising. Smith's hand released hers and she cried out and turned back, groping for him in the darkness. He latched on to her wrist but when she tried to pull he didn't move.

"I'm stuck—"

"Leave it!" she cried.

"No—I think I can—"

Another rumble caused more rock to fall around them and she screamed, "Smith! Haffe!"

"Here!" Haffe called, sounding far away.

Suddenly the sand and rock filled a third of the tunnel—Abigail was practically crawling as she struggled to haul Smith upward with her. It felt like her arm was being pulled from its socket.

"Leave the bag!" she cried.

"If I could just—there's a damned rock—it's wedged…"

Rocks crashed behind them and the roar of sand and debris filling the tunnel told them they had just missed a massive cave-in. Galvanized, Abigail set her feet against one side of the tunnel and her shoulder against the other, latching on to Smith's arm with both hands and pulling with all her might.

Smith felt his grip on the bag failing and desperation filled him.

"The tunnel is filling up!" she called to him. "Smith—for God's sake—"

He felt inevitability in the way the bag was slipping and, with a surge of self-preservation, released it and began to climb over the mounds of rock and sand building between them and the exit. Moments later, they reached a spot where the sand sloped downward and sensed they were past the worst of the cave-in.

"Haffe!" he called, panting, bracing against one of the walls, listening past the
shush
of falling sand and his own echo.

The little Berber's voice sounded far away; he was caught in the cave-in. Smith felt around in the dark to locate the slope and crawled back to the top of it.

"Crawl along the top—there's still an opening. Feel for my hands." He called to Abigail: "Grab my feet—when I give the word, pull!" Then he crawled up the slope and stretched out through the narrow opening between the unstable roof and the debris filling the tunnel.

He had to fight for every breath and suppress every survival instinct he possessed to again wedge himself into that narrow space. It seemed like forever before he felt something brush his hand and called out, "It's me—here's my hand—can you feel it?"

Haffe's fingers coiled around Smith's, then their other hands met.

"Pull! Now!" Smith yelled.

After an agonizing minute, Haffe burst from the hole—free—and all three of them tumbled back in the darkness, struggling to breathe. Then the earth rumbled again and they were forced to push on in the darkness, praying there would be no more obstacles.

The tunnel abruptly shortened, making walking impossible. They dropped to hands and knees to crawl along in the darkness. The rocks cut their hands and gouged their knees. Just as it seemed too much to bear, a faint point of light appeared far ahead.

"Light!" she called. "I can see light ahead."

The prospect of breathable air and being able to stand up helped her ignore the pain in her hands and knees. The tunnel brightened continually as they approached the end, and it seemed to her that something like branches or roots had overgrown the opening. It turned out to be vines that had once fed from the spaces between rocks in what appeared to be a man-made wall. She pounded with her fists to break the desiccated vines and was finally able to push the three amphora she carried out the opening and then to drag herself out after them.

She tumbled into a cylindrical structure made of stacked stones—a hand-dug well. Its bottom, where she landed, was at least ten feet below ground level and was bone dry. She staggered to her feet and checked the amphora. Finding them intact, she bent and braced with her hands on her knees, breathing deeply, grateful to be alive. She was more grateful still when Smith pulled himself out of the opening and collapsed nearby… still wearing both of his amphora.

She helped him up and together they staggered to the opening of the tunnel to help Haffe. When he scrambled out, covered with sand, he threw his arms around Abigail and then Smith, weeping with joy and relief.

"Praise be to Allah—we escaped! I swear upon my mother's heart I shall never again—"

"Where is the other jar?" Abigail said, staring at the amphora that had fallen by Haffe's feet. She grabbed the rope and pulled it from the vines at the tunnel opening… and out came the broken top of second amphora he had carried. The rope was still tied to the handle.

"Sorry, Merchant ma'am," Haffe's big eyes were filled with glistening prisms. "Jar broke."

Abigail's heart stopped as she stared at the jagged shards left around the still-sealed mouth of the clay jar.

All she had learned… all she had discovered…

"But… kept book," Haffe said, pulling a long, narrow roll covered in sheepskin from behind him.

Her eyes widened.

"You saved it?" She grabbed it and pressed it to her heart, rocking, weak with relief. "Oh, thank God."

No one spoke for a few moments as they caught their breaths, brushed sand from their hair and clothes, and took stock of their injuries.

"What is this place?" Smith looked around as she inspected the scrapes and cuts on his hands.

"Well," Haffe said, confirming Abigail's thought. "Old."

None of them had serious injuries, but all of them felt like they had mud in their lungs from the dust they had been forced to breathe. They began to look for a way out of the well, and Haffe discovered stones projecting from the sides of the well at graduated intervals, meant to serve as steps.

They climbed out into the dying light of the setting sun, piled the amphora together, and collapsed on the ground beneath some palm trees. A sultry evening breeze felt like the kiss of Life itself as they lay looking up through the palms at the deepening blue of the oncoming night.

The next thing Abigail knew, she was awakening to a similar sky, but with the sun visible behind instead of before them. On one side of her Haffe snored softly and on the other, Smith sat watching the sun come up. When she moved, he looked down at her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'll survive," she said, pushing herself up and feeling every nerve and muscle in her body screaming protests.

"Good." He pushed to his feet. "We have a long walk ahead of us."

Minutes later, the threesome were trudging through the desert, headed due west and praying that the old priestess had known her directions.

As they walked Abigail asked how they had escaped and Smith explained Idera's trap in the flooded scriptorium… how she had tricked Gaston's men into chopping through the last remaining support beam to get to a door that supposedly concealed treasure. Instead, they demolished the shoring of the chamber and the scriptorium started to collapse into the pool of water in the cavern beneath it. Apparently the old sisters had known of the damage to the structure for some time, and the water had worsened it to the critical stage. Several of Gaston's men were trapped in the collapse and as Idera and Smith escaped from the chamber, they saw Gaston and others scrambling for their lives.

"So, he's dead now?" Abigail asked.

Smith raised his eyebrows. "I believe so."

"Too bad," she said tightly. "He deserved worse."

Three hours later, standing on a high dune, they spotted a haltered horse wandering and began to run.

What they found on arriving in their old camp made for good and bad news. Their horses and mules were still there and seemed little worse for their time in the hot sun. With some water and a bag of feed, they soon revived. The camp itself, however, was a disaster. They stood looking at the wanton destruction, and Smith ground out one word that sounded like a curse: "Gaston."

It took a while to clean and repack their gear, and treat their minor injuries. Haffe rounded up the Legionnaires' mules and Gaston's horse and declared that he intended to sell them at the first horse souk he encountered. They would fetch enough for two or three of the camels he needed. At that oblique reference to the fortune they'd had possessed briefly and lost, Abigail looked to Smith, who set his mouth grimly and looked away.

The threesome donned turbans and
jellabas
against the sun, and by early evening, were headed directly north, intending to take the same route back to Marrakech and Casablanca.

The next evening they were still trudging northward, veering slightly to the west, fighting exhaustion and dreading the notion of having to spend another night on the ground, when they crested a small rise and spotted in the distance a small, fortified village—a
ksar
.

As Smith and Abigail paused on the heights to discuss whether to try to find hospitality there, Haffe straggled up to joined them and recognized the place.

"Foum Zguid!" Haffe declared with a surge of energy.

He pointed at the village's red mud walls and distinctive red and white gate towers. "Haffe's cousin here!"

With a few inquiries, Haffe was able to locate his cousin's gated house… a place apparently known for offering hospitality and lodging to foreigners. His cousin Topsel was delighted to see Haffe and insisted on offering them food and shelter. After introductions, Haffe's rotund cousin showed Smith and Abigail to sleeping rooms and provided basins and plenty of water for bathing.