The Buried Pyramid (62 page)

“Yee-haw!” Jenny shouted. Whipping her loop over her head several times, she let it fly. The lasso dropped neatly over the snake’s head, falling several yards down the sinuous length of its body before she drew the loop tight.

Apophis felt the strangling coil tighten and drew back, forgetting Mozelle in this new distraction.

Neville had already wrapped the length of the rope around the mast, and now he grabbed hold of the line. He smelled a whiff of flowers and realized Lady Cheshire was behind him. Stephen came behind her. Rashid joined in last, though hauling against the line must have made his blistered skin burn anew.

Mrs. Syms gaped at the writhing mass of giant snake before hurrying to take a place behind Rashid.

“Tug of war! How marvelous! This really is the most fascinating cruise.”

Ra had risen and now joined those holding the line. Apophis pulled so hard that the mast creaked, then cracked—a long fissure running end to end, but not snapping the well-seasoned wood. The thrashing of Apophis’s lower body smashed the rails along the prow, finishing the destruction the hippopotamus had begun. Only the fact that the snake was straining back, resisting the rope’s pull, kept the weight of its body from pulling the front of the boat underwater.

“Neville,” Eddie called. “It won’t hold for long. Here!”

Feeling the rope holding firmly despite Apophis’s struggles, Neville let go of it and took the machete Eddie thrust out to him. Together they hacked at the snake’s neck where it narrowed slightly, just behind the swelling of the head. Jenny joined them, wielding the axe they had brought for cutting firewood. The axe was smaller than the machetes, but the heavy wedge of its solid iron head broke the scales and gave the machetes softer ground in which to work.

Thick and viscous, the snake’s red blood began to wash the planks. Apophis’s lashing motion became erratic as it increased its attempts to break free. Neville slipped on the sodden deck, his weak ankle giving in the uncertain footing. He was struggling to stand up, groping for his machete, when Captain Brentworth shoved in and took his place.

The big man grabbed the machete in both hands, striking down with all his strength, putting the weight of his body behind each blow as neither Neville nor Eddie, hampered by their injuries, had been able to do.

Apophis’s body was thicker than the barrel of a big horse, but Captain Brentworth slashed into it with concentrated violence. Bone, tendon, and flesh gave before him, but Apophis continued to thrash, apparently unimpaired. Neville took the axe and rejoined the fray, coordinating his strokes with Brentworth’s. Jenny and Eddie moved well out of the way.

There was chanting in the background, Stephen and Lady Cheshire, doubtless, trying one of their spells to defeat the snake. Neville heard the sound as he heard the thudding of his heart, background noise without meaning but with tremendous intensity.

“Back!” Brentworth grunted. “I . . . have . . . it.”

The last three words were staccato, one to each outflowing of tormented breath as the captain’s blows grew wilder and more powerful. Neville obeyed, exhausted despite his terror, wanting nothing more than to lean against the rail and rest. His ankle throbbed with fresh pain, but he balanced himself and readied his rifle, checking that snake blood and spray hadn’t ruined his charge.

Then Brentworth’s machete flew up in a final, high arc, a motion that shouted that it contained every ounce of strength remaining to the captain. There was a dull thud as the last bit of thick, scaly hide parted and the machete bit into the wood of the deck.

Apophis’s head parted from his body and dropped down onto the deck amid a shower of thick, red blood that tasted foul where it splattered against Neville’s lips. Writhing still, but without direction or strength, the serpent’s body smashed down onto the deck, then slid off across the broken railings and into the water.

The head continued to spasm, jaws snapping open and shut, tongue lashing out. Everyone scrabbled clear, even Ra, for the head seemed to move with purpose. The curving fangs might not carry enough poison to spray the entire deck, but they surely carried enough to kill a human being.

Yet it was not the fangs, but the tongue that snared Captain Brentworth as he turned away, heading for the rudder platform, the good soldier resuming his post when the battle had ended.

The forked tongue hit him with the force of a battering ram, a fleshy one, but even at its narrowest parts enough to topple a man—even one as big as Captain Brentworth, caught unaware as he was. The captain staggered, trying to regain his balance.

Neville lurched forward to assist him, but he was too far away, and the deck was slick with blood. He slipped and fell forward, catching himself on his hands. Brentworth fell, too—backwards and into Apophis’s gaping maw, impaled upon a curving white fang as he toppled. He couldn’t even scream before he died.

Blood mingled with venom spurted from the wound, burning as it fell. Then Stephen yelled: “The snake’s growing a new body! It can’t! A new skin, but not a new body . . .”

Ra started to say something, but, unthinkably, someone interrupted the god.

Mozelle had leapt to the remaining rail when Apophis’s head fell on the deck. Now she jumped down, lightly, and with the arrogant grace that even a very small cat can summon at need.

Neville’s head swam. Mozelle seemed suddenly very large. Certainly, she did not seem smaller than the snake’s head, yet she must be. Its size was not in doubt, not with Robert Brentworth’s corpse still impaled on one fang. He knew, despite the evidence of his eyes, that Mozelle was just a tiny kitten.

Yet the snake seemed to feel threatened. It worked the short, fat length of body grown from the bloody stump behind its head, and Brentworth’s body was shaken clear. Then, amazingly, it hissed and began to wriggle backwards.

Mozelle stalked forward, her fur standing up along her spine, her back slightly arched. She meowed deep in her throat, a threatening noise, completely unlike her usual shrill mew.

Is the kitten grown large or the snake small? Do either of these terms apply?
Neville shook his head again, trying to clear it, and only feeling himself grow dizzy.

Mozelle leaped up onto the roof of Ra’s canopied pilot’s cabin, and stood poised, one paw raised. Then she sprang, deftly avoiding the slash of Apophis’s fangs, the lash of his tongue.
This can’t be the same kitten I saw falling over her own feet just last night, can it?
Neville thought, but he knew that somehow it was.

With suddenly leonine jaws, Mozelle grabbed Apophis behind the swell of his head, clamped tightly and shook. The snake wriggled and lashed, but could not break free. Mozelle’s tail switched back and forth. Then she sprang up onto the rail, bounded from there to the shore, and vanished into the brush, her prey still wriggling in her jaws.

They had hardly had time to collect their wits when Mozelle returned, looking very satisfied with herself. She leapt onto Jenny’s shoulder, purring and rubbing herself against the thick mass of the young woman’s hair.

“I wonder if she ate him?” Jenny asked, her voice awed and hushed.

“I don’t think so,” Stephen said, in a poor imitation of his usual pedantry. “Snakes are symbolic of reincarnation. Apophis will be back.”

Lady Cheshire picked her way across the deck to Captain Brentworth’s dead and mangled corpse.

“Is he dead?” she asked Ra. “Really and truly dead?”

Ra bent his hawk’s head in solemn assent.

“He is dead. Really, truly, and finally dead.”

They had sailed past the place where they had battled Apophis. As if to mock them for their grief and shock, the Nile now carried them through surroundings that were as lovely as the place where they had first met Ra. The lush green soothed them, seemed to suggest nothing would be harmed by their taking a rest, but the substitute crew of the Boat of Millions of Years had been through too much to give in to this Lotus Eater lure.

Jenny, reeling with shock and fatigue, was the first to realize that although none of Apophis’s minions opposed them, still the boat was not sailing easily up the Nile.

“The sail!” she said, staring upward, aghast. “Look at the sail—and the mast!”

Every pair of eyes, including the gold-rimmed hawk eyes of Ra, looked up. Only the hawk-features, immobile by human standards, did not show shock and dismay.

The broad sail that had carried them so far was in tatters, burnt by the acid of Apophis’s venom. Tiny pinpricks spread into gaping holes as they watched, leaving the sail a cobweb that could hardly hold itself together, much less catch the wind. The mast was riven from top to bottom. Even if they could rig a new sail, there was no way the mast could carry it.

“We’re drifting backward,” Eddie warned. He hopped up onto the rear platform and shifted the rudder so the Boat of Millions of Years drifted sideways, slowing slightly.

“Backward?” Lady Cheshire asked. “To Apophis?”

“To Apophis,” Ra agreed. “Even if he remains incapacitated when we reach him, his minions will still be there—and very angry, I fear, for they will have once more suffered the shame of defeat.”

“All but the hippo,” Stephen said bravely. “He should be glad to see us.”

Neville had grabbed one of the remaining oars.

“We’ve no choice but to row,” he said. “Gentlemen, if you each will take an oar . . . Eddie, your arm won’t let you row, but you may be able to manage the rudder. Ladies, I hate to ask . . .”

“I can row,” Jenny said stoutly, though in truth she didn’t know how long she could hold out.

“Are we going sculling now?” Mrs. Syms asked brightly. “What an
interesting
outing this is turning out to be. Don’t you think so, Mr. Ray?”

Ra cocked his head to one side, very birdlike, but accepted the oar Neville thrust at him.

“I may honestly say that it is among the oddest voyages I have experienced in very many voyages on this river.”

“Let’s see if we can get the boat straightened out first,” Neville began, but Lady Cheshire cut him off.

“Sir Neville,” she said, “take us to the riverbank. We may be able to recruit another crew to row us.”

“Lady Cheshire,” Neville replied stiffly, “we have seen no sign of human life. Indeed, we have seen little other than reptiles.”

“I don’t think,” Stephen said, “that hippopotami are reptiles.”

“Blast your hippopotamus, Stephen Holmboe!” Neville exploded. “Blast your taxonomy, too. The only use I’d have for that water horse is if we could convince it to pull us upstream.”

Lady Cheshire persisted. “I don’t fancy hippopotami for motive power, Sir Neville, but the ancient Egyptians did provide for laborers.”

Jenny saw her own realization touching her uncle’s face.

“You mean those shabti things?” he said. “The figurines that were supposed to do the work in the afterlife?”

“Precisely,” Lady Cheshire said. “We might be able to create some. Stephen and I have managed a few things so far—we may be granted one more miracle.”

“Eddie?” Neville said.

“I’ll steer for the riverbank,” Eddie replied, “on your command.”

“Do it then,” Neville said.

Even with all of them pulling on the oars, they more drove the Boat of Millions of Years into the nearest riverbank than landed it. The hippopotamus-mutilated prow cracked a little more as it thumped against the land.

“I hope the sail soaked up most of the venom,” Jenny said, “or we’re going to need more than rowers.”

“I’ll take a look for leaks,” Neville said, rising. “Eddie, lend me a hand.”

“I only have one to lend,” Eddie said, “but you’re welcome to it.”

Rashid motioned that he could help, too, and Neville accepted gladly.

“We may need someone who can climb down the side,” he said, “and neither Eddie nor I could handle that.”

Jenny was about to offer her assistance when Lady Cheshire touched her arm.

“Please, Jenny,” she said, her green eyes intense. “We’ll need extra hands to model the figures. I’m sure I can get Sarah to help, but . . .”

“Sure,” Jenny said.

Ra had returned to his seat at the center of the vessel, and took Mozelle back into his lap. There was a silent consensus among the humans that they could not ask him to assist in this next step. He’d aided in the defense against Apophis, pulled an oar, managed the sail, and warded off the crocodiles. Jenny had the impression that the god—if god Ra was—was as distressed in his own fashion by all this strangeness as his human crew were.