The Buried Pyramid (73 page)

“You have done well,” Neferankhotep said, “and will win freedom from punishment for Audrey Cheshire. She and Sarah Syms will be brought to you shortly. However, before you meet with them, you must understand that you have won something else as well.”

No one said anything, but the question was almost a physical presence in the silence. Even the birds fell silent as if waiting for the pharaoh’s next words.

Neferankhotep continued, “You have won the right to eternal paradise. You have been judged and vindicated. There is no need for you to return to your world and its difficulties. Everything you could desire is here.”

Certainly that seemed possible. The tranquility and beauty of Neferankhotep’s garden was tantalizing, as was the hint that beyond the delicately carved stonework gateway lay other gardens, other fields, beautiful rivers, towering mountains—in short, anything one could desire.

Neville felt a tug at his heart. It would be very nice to stay. He wondered if the remaining stiffness from his old injuries would vanish. He was feeling the first touch of age’s long fingers. Here he would never grow old, and if Audrey stayed with him, paradise might hold new delights as well as preservation of old.

Eddie was shaking his head.

“I hope you don’t intend to try and keep us, sir,” he said. “I have a wife and children I need to get home to.”

“You will not be kept from them,” Neferankhotep assured him. “Nor do all of you need to make the same decision. Those who remain will simply have died on this venture into the unexplored desert. It does happen.”

“Too frequently,” Eddie agreed. “However, I’ll take my risks with living.”

Stephen looked around rather forlornly. Neville didn’t doubt that he was comparing this luxury with his straitened circumstances back in London. But Stephen, too, shook his head.

“I need to go back,” he said. “My mother and sisters depend on me—and there’s still so much research to do, so much to learn. I suspect I won’t be talking about these discoveries . . .”

“No,” Neferankhotep said. “No evidence will remain to support your claims. You would ruin rather than enhance your reputation.”

Stephen looked momentarily sad, then he brightened.

“But no one can take what I’ve learned. That will certainly help.”

“Without a doubt,” the pharaoh agreed.

Neville sighed. He had no family but Jenny, but there were others who depended on him, friends who would mourn him. He’d be selfish to abandon them.

“I’ll go back, too,” he said.

Jenny reached out and squeezed his hand, “And I’ll go with you, just so you have a new problem to keep your mind occupied.”

She looked at Neferankhotep.

“Do I get to keep Mozelle?”

“That is up to her,” the pharaoh said.

Mozelle purred, but she also jumped down from Jenny’s hold. Maybe it was to get a drink of water. Maybe not. Now the only one left was Rashid.

He bowed deeply to the pharaoh, then made a gesture that encompassed the others, and pointed up.

“He, too, wishes to go.”

Neville looked at the youth. “If you want to return to England with us, you would be welcome. If you wish to remain in Egypt, I will be happy to speak to various people on your behalf.”

Rashid then did something curious. He turned to Stephen and made a gesture as if scribbling.

“You want pen and paper?” Stephen said. “I thought you couldn’t write.”

Rashid repeated the writing gesture, and Stephen handed him the necessary articles, still contained in the box in which he had carried them through time.

Rashid sat cross-legged on the floor, a fresh sheet of paper on the box braced against his knee. He wrote perhaps a dozen words, then showed them to Neville.

“Before you offer me your kindness,”
they said,
“you must know. I am the Sphinx.”

Jenny felt her head swim as reality adjusted itself far more strikingly than it had done when Ra carried them back in time. She had long thought Rashid was more intelligent than Captain Brentworth believed, a belief Rashid had validated by his actions once they had all been taken into Tuat. However, Jenny had never dreamed Rashid was well-educated enough to be the Sphinx.

“What?” she said, her question echoed by all the others, and Rashid began again to write, positioning himself so that the others could read over his shoulders.

“I was born in Cairo, and when I was very small a fever came. It killed all my family but for me, and me it left mute. I was fortunate, however. My parents had loyal friends, and these secured for me a place in an orphanage.

“It was a good orphanage, run by English who were interested in providing an educated population for Egypt, one that would be free from the usual clan and family ties. They thought that such might be the answer to some of Egypt’s factional problems.”

“I think I know that place,” Neville said, sounding mildly surprised. “I gave some money to it when I came into my inheritance. Sent some books for the library when I merged my library with my father’s.”

Rashid gestured so eloquently to be permitted to continue his tale that Jenny felt a wash of pity. How horrible for an intelligent young man to be forced to act like an idiot. Her pity transformed into anger as she thought of the daily misery of that life. Maybe it wasn’t so sad after all that Captain Brentworth had ended his life impaled on Apophis’s fang.

Rashid continued writing:

“Those who ran this orphanage were determined that even a mute boy should be able to make his way in the world. There I learned to read and write, to tend a gentleman as a personal servant, and many other useful things. They were kind to me, and I learned English as easily as I learned the myriad street dialects of Cairo.

“Captain Brentworth took me from this place. Hired me, is the accurate way to state it, but I rapidly learned that my pay would be irregular or devoured in the expenses of my keep. I also learned that he had no interest in my intellectual attainments. Gradually he either forgot I could read and write, or he thought the orphanage had lied to him. In any case, soon he came to believe his own slighting dismissal of my capacities. I also realized that he was less cruel to me when he thought of me as a sort of two-legged dog or horse, not responsible for my own thinking.

“This was not as terrible a life as it might have been. True, I was reduced to menial servitude when I had hoped for better. On the other hand, I never went hungry or without clothing. Captain Brentworth never attempted to keep me from following Islam, nor did he belittle me for doing so. I saw too many starving and sick, too many paying lip service to a religion in which they did not believe, to think my situation the worst it could be.

“Moreover, Captain Brentworth took me to many interesting countries with him, and permitted me to keep Mischief as a pet. I tell you all of this, so you will understand my confusion when I overheard my master speaking with Lady Cheshire as that lady explained her plans to learn what one Sir Neville Hawthorne intended to discover in Egypt, and to take over that project for herself if he would not confide in her.

“I knew the name Neville Hawthorne. When I was in the orphanage, we prayed daily for our benefactors, each by name. More importantly, in the library many of the books I had most enjoyed were inscribed with the Hawthorne name. I listened carefully, and did some research until I confirmed that this Sir Neville and the Neville Hawthorne who had been the benefactor of my childhood were one and the same.

“I was in a terrible dilemma. I had no desire to betray one who had, after all, given me food, clothing, and shelter for many years. Yet I had no desire to be party to a fraud to one who had also done me—and many other bereft children—a kindness. I resolved to warn the one without doing so in such a direct a fashion that it would betray the other. Later, I met all of you, and your courtesy and consideration of myself, one who was only a native servant, encouraged me to continue in my efforts.”

Rashid looked a bit sheepish:
“From overhearing what you have said since, I believe I was too clever for my own purpose. I also admit that I was enjoying the game. It was delightful to play at puzzles with those who rose to the challenge.”

Stephen beamed. “I did enjoy them, Rashid. Deuced clever. You’ll have to try some others on me now that we’ve no need to hide your abilities. Tell me, how did you learn hieroglyphs?”

“Lady Cheshire studied them most assiduously. Captain Brentworth did so also. Their books and notes were often left for me to tidy away. It was easy to borrow one or two for my own use during those times they were not in use. I had many years to learn, and I was interested since Lord Cheshire, for whom my master worked for many years, lived and breathed Egyptology.”

“How old are you?” Neville asked.

“I don’t know precisely, but I believe I am twenty-one or twenty-two. I worked for Captain Brentworth for seven years.”

“You look younger,” Neville said dubiously.

“You can check the orphanage records,”
Rashid wrote, and Jenny thought he looked a trace defensive.

“It’s just the lack of a beard,” Neville said soothingly, “but then many Egyptians are not hairy. So, you’re the Sphinx who gave us so many sleepless hours. I think I can forgive you that. Are you interested in a job, or shall I ask around for you in Cairo?”

Jenny realized she was holding her breath. She suddenly knew she didn’t want this enigmatic young man to vanish from her life.

“I would be very happy,”
Rashid wrote, beaming,
“to enter your employ.”

Jenny clapped as if at the conclusion of a play.

Neferankhotep, also looking pleased, cleared his throat.

“The time has come for you to leave us. Audrey Cheshire will be released to you as promised. However, do not expect her to be grateful. You may have won her freedom, but Audrey will not have forgotten that she was judged and found wanting.”

“I understand,” Neville murmured.

Jenny thought he looked rather nervous. She hurried to distract him.

“And Mrs. Syms,” she asked. “Will her mind be healed?”

“She has chosen a reality in which she is more content,” Neferankhotep said. “Indeed, we could keep her here, and she might not even know the difference, but I think it best she return to your homeland. Clearly, it is where she wishes to be.”

“Lady Cheshire certainly won’t abandon her now,” Neville said. “Whatever her other flaws, she has always shown kindness to Mrs. Syms.”

“That,” Neferankhotep agreed, “is true.”

He stood, and the crook and flail that were his emblems as both Osiris and pharaoh were in his hands.

“There are many types of kindness,” he said, “and many types of law, but in the end truth and justice are the bedrock upon which good lives are built. May you be content with your choice to continue the struggle to build such lives.”

He motioned with the flail.

“Walk along the corridor you see before you, and it will return you to the world you have left. Once you leave, do not seek to return, for the way will be forever closed. Your companions will join you.”

“Let’s go, then,” Jenny said. She made a gesture somewhere between a bow and a curtsey, wondering how they would explain their odd attire. “Thank you, Pharaoh Neferankhotep, for everything you have taught me.”

Eddie grinned, offering a salaam after the Arab fashion.

“It has been interesting, sir, very. Perhaps someday I’ll tell my children tales of this place—but only perhaps.”

Neferankhotep’s lips moved in one last smile.

“A wise provision. Go now, all of you. I know your hearts and am warmed by the kindness within them. Stay within maat, and perhaps someday we shall meet again.”

They passed between a pair of obelisks down the corridor Neferankhotep had indicated—another corridor that had not seemed to be there until needed.

I’m actually getting used to miracles,
Jenny thought.

After they had taken a few steps, Jenny glanced back.