Handwriting of the God

CHICO KIDD

‘I have made my way, I know you, and I know thy name, and I know the name of her who is within thee: Invoker of thy Two Lands, destroyer of those who come to thee by fire, lady of spirits, obeyer of the word of thy Lord is thy name.’

The Book of the Dead

He couldn’t resist another look at the papyrus before he put it away. Not in over forty years of scratching for treasures (but usually finding no more than detritus) in the white sands and stony cliffs of Egypt had he seen anything quite so beautiful.

With infinite and meticulous care, he unrolled a tiny section and drank in the delicate painting like a fine wine. His fear of damaging the frail thing was not quite enough to prevent one final greedy sight of the painted figures in their vibrant colours, clear and bright as if they had been drawn the day before, stylised yet wonderfully lifelike.

In the flickering lamplight, raven-haired girls moved through a stately dance, their lithe bodies plain beneath their diaphanous skirts. A crowned woman offered a blue lotus flower to a pharaonic figure. Musicians - a flautist, a drummer, a blind harper - played to guests at a feast. Men with the heads of beasts and birds marched in stately procession. Here was Thoth, the scribe; there, crocodile-headed Ammut, eater of the damned.

His lips moved silently as he read some of the hieroglyphs: Thoth, great god, Lord of the holy words, place-taker of Re, ibis-headed, god of truth and wisdom, five times very great, and his hand crept almost of its own accord to stroke the small golden statue which stood on the table beside him.

And at first they had assumed this to be a run-of-the-mill funerary papyrus of no particular importance.

Valentim Ruivo smiled once more in sheer delight at his prize and smoothed its ancient surface more gently than, in years gone by, he had caressed the soft hair of a lover, remembering and savouring the delicious moment when he had first seen it.

Just an ordinary wooden funerary statuette, a little more time-damaged than some, its painted inscription illegible; finding it hollow, as such things often were, they had been unsurprised to discover a roll of papyrus inside. Indeed they had laid it on one side, preoccupied as they were with the golden Thoth statuette and the small but exciting hoard of other artefacts they had unearthed earlier.

Finally, though, Ruivo had come back to the papyrus, laid it on this very table after setting the remains of his lunch on the floor to be out of the way. Taking his pocket-knife, he raised the outer fold of the roll with some care, but not the delicacy he now used. And what a sight had met his eyes. He sighed with pleasure at the recollection. Such moments were not very often granted. One had to grub in the dirt for forty years to find such a reward. Although the ultimate prize, an unplundered tomb, was yet to be discovered, every Egyptologist worth his salt was convinced that it was out there: an Eldorado of the desert, a treasure trove of wonderful things.

The shaft had seemed so unprepossessing, too. It had smelled so foul that none of the locals would dig there, claiming that the vile stink was a sign that it was infested by afrits, evil spirits. So Ruivo, who did not believe in such things any more than he credited stories of cursed tombs and crumbling bandaged mummies three thousand years dead stalking the night, had wrapped a cloth over his mouth and nose and descended.

* * * *

Ship of the desert, my arse, thought Luís Da Silva irritably for the hundredth time as he braced his thighs around the camel’s singularly uncomfortable saddle. I might have known it would be about as enjoyable as being keelhauled.

Torn between an urgent need for a smoke and a desire to wipe the sweat running down his face, and able to do neither - nothing on earth would have induced him to release his grip on the wooden handhold -he wondered again how he had let himself be persuaded to visit an archaeological dig in the dusty middle of Egypt. It was about as far from the sea as it was possible to be without actually being in the Sahara Desert. And therefore not the native element for a Portuguese ship’s captain, or even a remotely suitable environment. He found that he was uncomfortable this far away from water. His ship, the barque Isabella, was hundreds of miles away in Alexandria.

He squeezed his right eye shut, disorienting himself completely, and attempted to lean his head far enough sideways to wipe it on his sleeve, but succeeded only in reaching his unshaven cheek. It rasped along his sleeve. Should have shaved, too, he thought in annoyance, opening his eye hastily before he overbalanced.

The eyepatch he wore on the other side was now so unbearably damp and gritty he’d tried to give up even thinking about it. I wish I’d taken the damned thing off before I got up on this wretched beast, he thought. Normally he wore the patch to avoid subjecting people to the sight of the scar that ran from eyebrow to cheekbone, souvenir of an encounter with a demon which had cost him his left eye. But the snaggle-toothed guide who accompanied him boasted not only a horribly puckered crease down half his face but also seemed to be missing part of his nose, so Da Silva didn’t think he would have objected.

However, the speculation was academic. Thirty-odd years spent at sea meant he could keep his balance without even thinking about it on a bucking deck in the teeth of a force nine gale or a fifty-foot sea, but rocking on top of a camel had deprived him of all stability. And illogical as he knew it was, the handhold was the only thing that gave him any sense of security above the creature’s ungainly gait.

I just hope Senhor Ruivo appreciates this, he thought, otherwise I’m going to go straight back to London and personally strangle Jorge Coelho. This was the shipping agent who had persuaded him into this folly: an old friend who had presumed rather too much on friendship this time.

The dry wind, which did nothing at all to alleviate the heat, tugged at the cloth over his head, and he was glad at least that he had taken his guide’s advice and relinquished his hat. Otherwise it would have been long gone into the sands of Egypt. He rather envied the native’s loose robes, as well, although he was dressed as sensibly as a European could, even to the extent of omitting collar and tie; even so, everything had become moist and most of it was itching. The majority of people wore far too many clothes, in his opinion. Especially, he thought with an inward smile, women.

Ahead, he saw his first ghost since they had left the outskirts of Luxor, and brought his attention back to the present, wondering if that meant they were nearly at their destination.

It was a very ancient ghost, this one, faded almost to nothingness, little more than a heat-haze shimmering over the desert. For a moment, he doubted his perception, and then more phantoms came into view, drifting aimlessly over the pallid scorching sands.

This ability to see the dead was the other legacy of his encounter with the demon, and it had taken some getting used to, until he realised that all he had to do was ignore them, and he had just about trained himself to do that. It had taken nearly five years, though. Getting used to missing an eye had been a lot easier, and, of necessity, a lot quicker, too.

‘How far?’ he asked his guide, who, as before, refused to reply to Arabic in the same tongue and answered in English, which annoyed Da Silva considerably, even though his English was almost as good as his Portuguese.

‘Ten minute,’ the guide replied, spreading his hand three times, and thus confusing Da Silva completely. I wish I hadn’t asked, he thought crossly, and returned to observing the ghosts.

In fact, since the camels’ lurching stride was deceptive, Ruivo’s camp came into view not much more than five minutes later. Da Silva, whose temper had begun to fray, gave silent thanks, and scanned the scene in front of him.

He picked out the archaeologist with ease, for the simple reason that everyone else in sight was obviously Egyptian. Ruivo, bustling towards them, put him in mind of a stork wearing a straw hat, lanky and stooped, with a birdlike gait.

The guide induced the camels to kneel, and Da Silva leant hastily backwards, just in time to avoid a forward dive over his mount’s head which would have been a dramatic, if a little over-flamboyant, introduction to his client. Terra firma had never felt so welcoming, although he was surprised and annoyed to find his knees were shaking. He handed the guide a handful of piastres - less than he would normally have done, but he was irritated by the man’s insistence on speaking English - and turned his attention to alleviating his various discomforts.

By the time Ruivo drew near, he had put the headcloth to good secondary use in mopping his face, especially under his eyepatch, and was standing bareheaded, squinting in the brightness, and smoking a small black cheroot. All I need now is something to drink, he decided, looking at the sky and estimating the time to be around eleven, before I melt away completely. His mouth, like everything else, felt full of sand.

‘Capitão Da Silva,’ the archaeologist said effusively, a smile splitting his beard, which, being pure white from jaw-level, gave the rather startling impression that he had just dipped his chin in a bowl of milk. ‘So good of you to come all this way.’

Yes, I think so too, thought Da Silva, shaking the proffered large, bony hand and finding it curiously strengthless as well as unpleasantly clammy. ‘Senhor Ruivo,’ he replied. ‘I’m sure it will be a pleasure once I find out what I’m doing here.’

Ruivo looked taken aback, Da Silva was mordantly amused to see, and he smiled to himself, his ill humour forgotten. You don’t get away with it that easily, he told the older man silently.

‘Well, er, we don’t quite have all the comforts of home,’ said Ruivo, ‘but I expect you wouldn’t refuse a drink.’

Da Silva, who knew prevarication when he saw it, but was in need of replacing some of the liquid he had sweated off, raised his eyebrows, feeling the familiar pull of the scar at the left one. ‘That would be very welcome.’

The archaeologist blinked owlishly, as if not quite sure how to react. The captain spoke like an educated man, but looked like a ruffian. He looked him up and down, taking in his vaguely piratical air, single, incongruously blue eye, crumpled suit of unbleached cloth and collar-less shirt - Ruivo himself wore not only a neatly knotted tie but a coat and waistcoat as well, even if they were of lightweight fabric - and suggested, ‘The local beer is quite refreshing, especially after a dusty ride.’ Dusty, yes, that was one way of describing it.

‘Fine,’ said Da Silva, ignoring the other man’s scrutiny, though beer was not normally his first choice. He knew better than to ask for water. Ruivo, who did not seem overly affected by the blistering heat, gestured for him to take a seat under a canvas canopy and he ducked under the flap. The captain was not a tall man, but it was the sort of thing that you instinctively think is going to be too low. Having once met a doorway that smacked him on the forehead, he was prepared to err on the side of caution.

‘Allow me to introduce you to my colleague,’ the archaeologist said from behind him as a dapper Egyptian in a suit almost as creased as Da Silva’s, but of infinitely better cut, half-rose to his feet and gave a small bow. ‘Senhor Doutor Hassan El-Aqman, of the University of Cairo. El-Aqman,’ he switched to English, ‘this is Captain Da Silva.’

‘Sabáhil khayr,’ Da Silva said, and shook hands, noticing as he did so that the Egyptian was missing the top of his middle finger. El-Aqman smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of extremely white teeth. He had delicate features, almost like a girl’s, but his voice, when he spoke, was exceptionally deep.

‘You speak Arabic, Captain; how pleasant to meet a European so cosmopolitan.’

Da Silva, who spoke a number of languages, returned the smile — somewhat less expansively - and was endeavouring to think up some pleasantry when he was interrupted by Ruivo. The archaeologist had relinquished his hat, revealing a bald scalp fringed with white hair like a monk’s tonsure.

‘And here is my other colleague,’ he announced, adding to someone unseen, ‘do come and meet Captain Da Silva.’

On the point of sitting down, Da Silva resumed the vertical as a dark-haired young woman bent her head to come under the awning, and he wished once more that he had bothered to shave earlier. He wiped his sweaty palm hastily on his trousers.

‘May I present Miss Phoebe Hardy,’ said Ruivo. Miss Hardy had straight black brows and a strong face, and was clad in a man’s shirt, waistcoat and trousers. The sight was sufficiently arresting for Da Silva to picture his wife similarly dressed, and enjoy the image. She held out a tanned hand, and proved to have a firm grip.

‘Hello, Captain,’ she said in a strong American accent.

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he replied. ‘You’re from Boston, I think?’

‘Why, yes,’ she said, a little surprised. ‘You have a very good ear, Captain.’ Helped by a second mate from that city, he thought, but merely smiled.

Miss Hardy sat down, thus giving everyone else leave to do the same, and Da Silva took off his jacket and bundled it under his chair. He rather wished he could take off the damp shirt as well, an idea that amused him. People were still remarkably straight-laced, though there had at least been some improvement in that since the turn of the century. Spending most of his life at sea gave a slightly different perspective on the purpose of clothing. He decided to roll up his sleeves instead, and unfastened his cuffs without looking down.

The introductions complete, Ruivo called for refreshments and beamed round at everyone, clasping his bony hands around one knee. His air of bonhomie was not nearly sufficient to mask the tension under the canopy, and Da Silva wondered exactly what was going on. He decided to let them tell him in their own time, however, since the heat was like an oven now, and he contemplated what remained of his cheroot. There didn’t seem to be another drag left in it, so he ground it out on his boot-sole.

‘So,’ he said, raising an eyebrow at Ruivo, ‘what does everyone do here?’ And looked round at the others.

‘Miss Hardy is our resident artist,’ the archaeologist explained, still beaming, ‘and Dr El Aqman lends his expertise and makes sure that no artefacts find their ways into places they shouldn’t.’ His smile became rather forced as he said this, a fact which was not lost on Da Silva. Ah, he thought, so that’s it. I’m to be asked to do a spot of smuggling. Now he could sit back and enjoy the show. He rubbed at the scar on his cheekbone and crossed his legs, only to uncross them a moment later due to accumulated humidity.

Drinks arrived on a tray carried by an urchin with one arm in a grubby plaster cast, some species of fruit juice or sherbet for El-Aqman and beer for the other three. The glasses were all cold enough to come beaded with moisture, Da Silva noticed. Not quite all the comforts of home, he observed, but a few of them, all the same. He took a long drink of the beer, which proved a little watery but thirst-quenching, perhaps because of that. After this the Egyptian doctor pulled out a gold cigarette-case and offered it round. Miss Hardy took one, but Ruivo declined, as did Da Silva, preferring his own smokes. Cigarettes, even Egyptian ones, were pretty tasteless in comparison. He accepted a light from El-Aqman, though.

He would quite happily have sat there for the rest of the day, but apparently was not to be allowed to do this. The company, having consumed its refreshments and made small talk, broke up, leaving only Ruivo sitting with him.

The archaeologist, showing the first sign of being affected by the furnace heat, took out a limp handkerchief and wiped his face, which reminded Da Silva of his own discomfort. As if I need reminding, he thought damply, sticking a finger under his eyepatch to try and let some air in.

‘Why am I here, Senhor Ruivo?’ he asked.

Ruivo laughed nervously, the humourless reflex of embarrassment, and fixed his gaze on Da Silva’s eyepatch. ‘Because you can see ghosts.’

Well, that’s the last thing I expected, the Captain thought in surprise. ‘I suppose you got that from Jorge Coelho?’ he asked, scratching his eyebrow. Who I will definitely strangle now.

‘Yes,’ said Ruivo. ‘Is it true?’ He looked at Da Silva curiously, perhaps looking for some sign of feyness. The captain laughed shortly.

‘If that’s what you want, I’d look a damn fool coming all this way if it weren’t,’ he retorted. ‘Though if you have some idea of getting me to locate tombs for you, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. It doesn’t work that way.’

‘Oh, er, no,’ the older man said, looking thunderstruck, as if he wished he had thought of that. He dropped his gaze to his hands, twining and untwining in his lap. ‘It’s just that a . . . colleague of mine, ah, borrowed some artefacts we unearthed, and then had a heart attack before he could return them.’

Borrowed. And there was I thinking you wanted me to do some smuggling, thought Da Silva, taking hold of a handful of damp shirt from over his ribs and flapping it ineffectually. I do apologise. ‘And what do you want me to do?’ he asked aloud, simply for the rather malicious enjoyment of watching Ruivo squirm.

‘Well, we, er, I, wondered if there was any way you could, you know, ask him what he did with them.’

Da Silva had known it was coming, and liked the idea no better for that. Seeing the dead was one thing. He did it all the time. Summoning them to ask them questions, however, he found distasteful. It meant not only commanding them, but literally binding them to his will. And that smacked too much of slavery for him to be comfortable with it. He had had too much first-hand experience of slavery for that. Nineteen years of it. And though the man was five years dead now, it was a legacy he couldn’t easily shake off.

‘You do realise I would have to be at your colleague’s grave to do that?’ he asked, half-hoping to hear that the deceased had been shipped home for burial.

But the archaeologist gave another of his nervous laughs and said, ‘Actually I have his ashes here, will that do?’

Good God, thought Da Silva, raising his eyebrows; these people aren’t just grave-robbers, they’re ghouls. ‘Yes, that would do,’ he said, trying for nonchalance, but unsure how far he succeeded. ‘How is it you happen to have his ashes?’

‘He was my brother,’ Ruivo explained hastily, a little intimidated by the captain’s expression. ‘He wanted them scattered out here, so I, er, postponed the scattering for a while.’

‘Pragmatic,’ remarked Da Silva, amused, taking out another cheroot and contemplating it. ‘Is that it?’

‘Well, I’d also like you to supervise our small shipment to Lisbon, of course, after all, we did charter your vessel. I want it packed properly for the voyage - I don’t trust these river pirates to do that.’

‘Of course,’ agreed the captain gravely. Why else would I trek all this way down the damned Nile, if not for that? Unable, for the moment, to find a light, he snapped his fingers at the hovering boy and said, ‘Kabrít.’ The urchin grinned hugely, and instead of matches produced an enormous American cigarette lighter. He flipped it open with a flourish and produced a flame big enough to roast an ox. Da Silva smiled back, allowed the lad to light his cheroot, and handed him another in return.

Ruivo watched disapprovingly as the boy stowed it in his robes. ‘You really shouldn’t encourage these children to smoke,’ he said sternly. Da Silva shrugged.

‘I don’t think he needs any encouragement from me.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Ruivo agreed, adding in a surprisingly tolerant tone, ‘Different ways, that’s all.’ He fell silent, staring out at the shimmering desert. It was the hottest part of the day, and nothing was stirring. The heat was a nearly tangible thing: it even had its own scent, the smell of roasted dust. It was almost difficult to breathe. Da Silva, looking out as well, found now that he really couldn’t tell the difference between ghosts and heat-haze, shuddering over the sand. The desert stretched away into the distance, clean as a bleached skeleton, inhospitable and totally alien.

‘Nothing at all from here clear to the Atlantic,’ he remarked, clearing sweat out of his eyebrows with a finger, ‘except sand.’

‘It’s not your first visit to Egypt, I presume?’ the archaeologist enquired lazily. Even he looked hot now, and seemed content to sit in the sweltering airless shade.

‘My first down this far,’ Da Silva replied. And my last, I hope. ‘Put into Alexandria and Port Said a few times. Visited the Pyramids, of course, years ago now, gawked like a tourist.’

‘Well, they are, of course, eminently gawkable,’ Ruivo agreed. ‘Soldats, songez que, du haut de ces pyramides, quarante siècles vous contemplent.”‘

‘Forty centuries look down on you,’ repeated Da Silva, the words running cold down his back despite the day’s heat. ‘Who are you quoting?’

‘Napoleon,’ said Ruivo. ‘A man who was actually so sensitive to history that he had his soldiers use the Sphinx for target practice.’

Da Silva laughed, amused. ‘And our own countrymen have shown consideration and sensitivity in the colonies, I suppose?’ He exhaled deeply, and, to his surprise, achieved a spontaneous smoke-ring. This feat was sufficiently startling to engage his attention for a minute.

‘About talking to Valentim—’ the archaeologist ventured, running a finger inside his collar. His face glistened moistly.

‘Valentim being your brother?’

‘Just so. When - what would be a good time?’

‘Any time you like,’ said Da Silva, and laughed at the other’s expression. ‘Truly. I’m not a spiritualist, Senhor Ruivo. I don’t need any props; it doesn’t even need to be dark. All I need to know is, did your brother dabble in magic at all, as far as you know?’

There was a pause. ‘Well, I’m not actually sure,’ Ruivo said at last. ‘I would have said yes. It’s the sort of thing he would try, although he was very much the sceptic in many ways. Why do you ask?’

Because in that case I’ll need some of your blood, thought Da Silva, reluctant to spring that information on the other man out of the blue. He could have used his own, of course, but the damned ghost was Ruivo’s brother. And blood calls to blood. That never changes.

His mouth was dry from smoking, and tasted of dust. ‘Is there any more of that beer?’ he asked, and Ruivo waved the boy to fetch some. He wasn’t accustomed to drinking much during the day, but it wasn’t as if the beer was very high in alcohol. Tasted like cat’s piss anyway. A nice Portuguese red, though . . . would have sent him straight to sleep, he knew.

The urchin hurried off with alacrity, probably hoping to be rewarded with another cheroot - he had, Da Silva observed, already smoked the one he’d given him earlier.

‘Wait here,’ said Ruivo suddenly, and got to his feet. And where would I go? the captain thought, rubbing his unshaven chin, which felt decidedly grubby. The archaeologist clapped his battered straw hat back on his head and stooped to go out into the scorching, sun. Da Silva fidgeted in the canvas chair, trying to shift his damp clothes from his sweaty skin, and watched his progress, struck again by his oddly avian gait, remembering pictures he had seen of bird-headed ancient Egyptian gods. He lifted his eyepatch and tried to blow air upwards. Nothing seemed to work. Everything was sticky, sandy, slick with perspiration. The dusty wind stirred the sand in little whorls without cooling the air.

No flies, he thought suddenly. Not even mosquitoes. Too damned hot for them, I suppose. He frowned at the idea of mosquitoes. In all his years of voyaging to tropical coasts he had somehow managed to avoid malaria, and at forty-four he did not want to start now. Oh well. There wasn’t much he could do if he did get bitten when evening came, and he scratched pensively at his right ankle in reflex.

Ruivo reappeared, carrying a wooden box which presumably held his brother’s ashes, and Da Silva sighed at the idea of moving. On the other hand, though, perhaps he could get this over and done with and return to the comparative comfort of Luxor. Although even that, unfortunately, would involve getting on a camel again. Perhaps he could hire a horse instead, or even a mule.

Exhaling explosively, he picked up his discarded headcloth and mopped his face and neck again, annoyed to think that he hadn’t taken advantage of the other man’s absence to remove his eyepatch entirely, even if temporarily. At that moment, the urchin materialised at his elbow with a fresh glass, and Da Silva passed him a cheroot.

‘Shokran,’ the boy said, and made to resume his squatting position in the shade just outside, but the captain chased him away. He did not want him to witness a ghost being raised. God knew what sort of a to-do that might cause. Then he picked up the glass and drank most of the beer in one long draught. That was a little better. Not much, but a little.

‘Here,’ Ruivo’s voice made him turn as the archaeologist ducked under the canvas - he actually needed to - and placed the box he was carrying carefully on the table. ‘Now, do I need to open it?’

‘No,’ said Da Silva, still reluctant, and ran his fingers through his damp hair. ‘You want to do this now, then?’

‘Why not? You said we didn’t need to wait until evening.’

Da Silva nodded, fiddling with his eyepatch. ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ As he got to his feet he realised he had never raised a ghost in front of witnesses before. It made him a little apprehensive. ‘Do you want your colleagues here?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Ruivo hastily. So he hadn’t told them, then. ‘Now, do you need anything else?’

‘A drop of your blood, I’m afraid,’ Da Silva answered, remembering occasions when he had had to slice into his own arm with his knife, and winced. ‘Do you think you can stab your finger, or something?’

The archaeologist looked alarmed, and stared down at his hands. ‘I don’t know.’ He took out a pocket-knife and opened the blade, then shook his head. ‘Here, you’d better do it, if that’s what you need.’

‘Put your hand flat on the table.’ Ruivo complied. ‘What was your brother’s full name?’

‘His full name? Valentim Joao - ouch!’ The archaeologist jerked back as Da Silva stabbed his thumb with the small blade. Both men watched the blood welling out for a second, then Ruivo lifted his hand from the table and squeezed the small wound.

A drop of blood fell on the box, and then another. ‘Valentim Joao Ruivo,’ said Da Silva softly, remembering other times, other ghosts, and something unidentifiable made him shiver. From the startled expression in the other man’s eyes, he felt it too.

In front of the table, in the breathless desert heat, a shadowy figure began to form, at first indistinguishable from a heat-haze, but then taking shape rapidly and beginning to solidify - no, not exactly solidify, thought Da Silva, wiping a hand over his face, that was the wrong word. It steadied, wavered less, but failed to gain plasticity. It faded in and out of existence, now almost substantial, now spectral.

‘Valentim—’ began Ruivo. The ghost turned to him, reaching out a semi-transparent hand, and his brother held out his own, blood still oozing from the thumb. Ghosts and living people could not touch, but as phantom hand met real one and passed through it, through the blood of his brother, there was a sound like soft thunder, and Valentim Ruivo’s ghost took on the semblance of reality, like a photograph in a developing tray. He looked entirely real, except for an almost imperceptible haziness round the edges.

‘Manoel?’ he said. There was nothing spectral about his voice. It sounded remarkably like his brother’s.

‘Where’s the papyrus?’ Ruivo asked, before Da Silva could speak. The ghost shook his head, seeming distressed.

‘You cannot refuse to answer me, Valentim Joao Ruivo,’ Da Silva interrupted, and at the sound of the name, the ghost’s head snapped round to face him.

‘Don’t make me answer,’ he said. ‘It’s better you don’t find it again,’ and an expression of pain passed across the phantom face.

‘What do you mean?’ his brother demanded.

‘Disaster,’ whispered the ghost. ‘Disaster all round. I can’t say any more.’ A cold fist seemed to squeeze Da Silva’s heart.

‘Tell me,’ he said, wishing Ruivo would shut up. I should have told him to keep quiet before we started, he thought, though I don’t suppose that would have worked. Damned man can’t keep his mouth closed. Sweat trickled into his eye and he knuckled it away.

The ghost turned an anguished face to him. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘You know there are some things I can’t tell.’

‘Then where’s this papyrus your brother wants?’

‘Please,’ the ghost implored. Da Silva raised an eyebrow at Ruivo.

‘We have to know,’ said the archaeologist. ‘Or that confounded El-Aqman will take away our permit. He thinks we stole it.’

‘Tell him,’ Da Silva ordered. The ghost shook his head, fighting the compulsion, but unable to resist.

‘I put it back where we found it!’ he spat, strain making his voice shrill. ‘But it didn’t do any good.’

Ruivo frowned. ‘What do you mean, it didn’t do any good? What were you thinking of?’ Be quiet, damn you, thought Da Silva angrily, or I’ll knock you cold, I swear it. He wiped his damp palms futilely down his trousers.

‘Didn’t do any good because I’m dead, you fool.’

‘Mother of God,’ exclaimed Ruivo, ‘how did you die?’

‘Shut up, Ruivo,’ Da Silva snapped. ‘He can’t tell you that.’ He turned to the ghost. ‘What can you tell us?’

‘Nothing more.’ Shaking his head from side to side, seemingly in pain. ‘I wish I could. I wish I could. Believe me.’

‘Scatter his ashes, Ruivo,’ said Da Silva, sickened by the ghost’s anguish; by the whole business.

‘But what if—’

‘You’ve got what you wanted, now do what he wanted. Or I will.’ Ruivo stared at him, then nodded abruptly and picked up the box. His brother’s ghost watched. Da Silva turned to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

The archaeologist said quietly, ‘Goodbye, Valentim,’ and took the box outside.

‘Goodbye, Manoel,’ whispered the ghost, a little wistfully, and dissolved as his brother let the desert wind take his ashes.

‘Obrigado, Valentim Joao Ruivo,’ said Da Silva into the sudden silence.

Outside, Ruivo stood still for some time, staring out into the great emptiness. Da Silva sat and watched him, waiting for his heart to stop racing. He finished his beer, wondering what had distressed the ghost so much. Speculation was pretty useless, but he could no more stop himself from speculating than he could from - well, from seeing ghosts.

He wiped his face again, lit another cheroot, and waited for Ruivo to rejoin him.

At last the archaeologist, with an audible sigh, turned and came back into the shade. His face had grown haggard and Da Silva realised, startled, that the man was probably pushing sixty. How long has he been grubbing in the desert, pursuing dreams? he wondered. Thirty years, forty? Ruivo pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes wearily, then slowly opened them again and stared tiredly at the captain.

‘I suppose I owe you an explanation,’ he said. Da Silva shrugged. He had worked some of it out already, but was still intensely curious. And he had no intention of going back to Luxor until he found out the full story.

Raising an eyebrow, he said, ‘You’ll have to tell me something before my brain overheats with wild guesses. What’s this papyrus that has the pair of you so excited?’

‘Why, it’s the most amazing thing,’ said Ruivo, becoming animated all at once. ‘Beautiful colours, perfectly preserved, quite unique. Popped inside a funerary statue just like any old scroll - they often contain papyri,’ he added, apparently just then remembering he was speaking to a layman. ‘But I should begin at the beginning. Do you want another drink? Where’s that wretched boy? Ahmed! Ahmed!’

‘I sent him away,’ Da Silva explained, blowing smoke out and wondering vaguely whether the day could possibly get any hotter.

‘Oh. Of course. Yes. I’m, er, glad you thought of that.’ Ruivo raised his voice and called again. ‘Ahmed! Where are you?’ The boy came trotting up, bare feet apparently impervious to the burning sand.

Having made the domestic arrangements to his satisfaction, and at the same time, Da Silva noted, successfully postponed the promised explanation, Ruivo resumed his seat. His clothes were looking rather the worse for wear now, his collar decidedly limp. Beads of sweat were running down his nose. They had made dark spots on his linen trousers.

‘You were going to tell me about this papyrus of yours,’ Da Silva prompted him, fed up with waiting.

‘Do you have children?’ the older man asked, with apparent irrelevance.

‘Yes,’ replied Da Silva, his wife’s face coming clearly into his mind, and missing her strongly. ‘A son and a daughter. Why?’

‘My son and my brother brought out that papyrus. And now my brother’s dead, and my son’s in hospital in a coma.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘We don’t know. The morning before Valentim died, he simply never woke up. Brain fever, the doctor called it. Which means he has no idea, either.’

Da Silva digested this. He did not believe in coincidences. ‘Did anything happen to anyone else who handled the papyrus? Who else did?’

‘Just the three of us - Miss Hardy, Dr El-Aqman, and myself.’

The boy Ahmed brought more drinks. Ruivo turned to tip him, and Da Silva surreptitiously lifted his eyepatch and mopped beneath it. Something was going on, and if past experience was anything to go on, things would start getting unpleasant very soon. He sighed. It was almost too hot to think.

‘You’d better tell me everything. From the beginning.’

Ruivo looked at him with a slight frown. ‘You’re not what I expected, you know.’

And you’re prevaricating again, Da Silva thought in exasperation. What the hell did you expect, Madame Blavatsky? He settled on a more diplomatic, noncommittal, raised eyebrow. ‘Go on,’ he said, mildly.

The archaeologist took a sip of his drink. ‘Well. There was a shaft that looked promising. You understand we play hunches a lot.’ Da Silva nodded. He himself never underestimated the power of a hunch. ‘It had been marked but not excavated. When we enquired we found the workmen wouldn’t go near it. They said it had afrits in it - that’s a kind of evil spirit. Apparently you can tell when these things are about by their terrible smell.’

‘Most of Cairo must be infested, then,’ observed Da Silva, drily, and Ruivo laughed, a high-pitched, strangely girlish giggle.

‘Just so,’ he agreed, and went on with his narrative. ‘So, anyway, Valentim decided to dig into it himself, with Juliao - my son, that is. I mean, Valentim took a pick and started swinging at the rubble. He was sixty-one! No wonder he had a heart attack! We eventually managed to get a few of the younger men to dig. They either didn’t believe in these spirits or the bonus we offered them spoke louder. That happens a lot. So we covered up our faces, because it really did smell vile, and got to work.’ He paused to take a drink.

Da Silva, caught up in the story, wiped sweat away automatically and wondered why, after getting on for three glasses of beer, his bladder wasn’t complaining.

‘Not far down,’ Ruivo went on, ‘we found a side passage, loosely blocked by rubble, and at the end of that, a burial chamber. Of course it had been plundered. The grave-robbers hadn’t even left the mummy. It was full of rubbish, stones, broken wood. There was a stone sarcophagus - the lid was smashed to bits - but they had missed a few small items, including a battered wooden statue which held the scroll.

‘As I said, we thought it a common funerary papyrus. We didn’t even bother to look at it until we’d cleared out all the artefacts.’ He smiled in pleasure at the recollection.

‘Where are the other artefacts?’ Da Silva asked, rubbing thoughtfully at his cheekbone, trying without much success to ignore the sweat trickling down his ribs. He had been, despite himself, almost mesmerised by Ruivo’s tale: the change which had come over the archaeologist as he related it was quite remarkable. He was reliving it. The dark shaft, the rubble-strewn passage, the smashed sarcophagus, the detritus on the floor which hid the few treasures overlooked by the thieves, all were very real to him.

‘Under lock and key. I’ll show them to you later. You’ll be interested, I’m sure.’

‘Yes.’ Da Silva nodded. ‘And the papyrus? What was it?’

‘It was astonishing,’ said Ruivo. ‘Quite unique, as I said. Nothing like it has ever been recorded. What it was - well, my brother was the linguist. He said it was sacred poetry. Praising the gods. Hymns, perhaps, or prayers.’

‘Prayers,’ repeated Da Silva, thoughtfully, lighting another cheroot and staring at the white-hot sand outside. There must be more to it than that. Why would he want to get rid of prayers? ‘Did your brother write down any of his translations?’

‘Yes, he did,’ Ruivo said, ‘but he knocked a lamp over in his tent the night before he died, and his notebook got burned. He was really upset - or he seemed to be. Now I’m not so sure. We should have asked him.’

‘He wouldn’t have been able to tell us,’ Da Silva told him. ‘You heard what he said. Ghosts have to follow rules, too, you know.’ He ran a hand through his sweaty hair. ‘Are you going to retrieve the scroll?’

‘I have to. El-Aqman wants it for the Cairo Museum.’

‘You should tell him what your brother said.’

Ruivo stared at him. ‘Are you mad? The man’s a complete materialist. He wouldn’t believe in a ghost if it appeared in front of him and shook his hand.’

‘As you wish,’ said the captain, with a shrug. ‘What exactly did you tell the good doctor - and Miss Hardy - about me?’ He sat back in the chair and eased his trousers away from his thighs in a futile attempt to let some air in. Ruivo coloured.

‘Er, just that you could find missing items.’

Won’t tell them I talk to ghosts, but makes me out to be some kind of dowser, thought Da Silva, torn between annoyance and amusement. ‘I see,’ he said, and got to his feet. ‘Shall we go and find a missing item, then?’ The idea of going out into that heat was daunting, but it was preferable to ferreting about in pitch darkness when evening came.

‘Now?’ the archaeologist exclaimed.

‘Yes, why not? Perhaps whatever your brother was afraid of will be less of a threat while the sun’s up.’ He tossed the butt of his cheroot out into the sands and squatted down to rummage in the pack he had brought until he found the long knife he normally wore concealed down his back. The silver in the blade’s alloy was remarkably effective against things that were not human, and its fourteen-inch length equally so against those that were. Holding the sheath loosely in his right hand, he turned towards Ruivo. ‘Shall we go?’

The older man stared at the knife, apparently taken aback by this assumption of control, and said in a bemused tone, ‘You’ll need a hat.’

‘Right,’ said Da Silva, fishing a squashed fedora out of the pack and clapping it on his head, ‘lead on.’

‘This way,’ the archaeologist said, putting on his own hat and setting off in the merciless heat across the sand. It was not easy to walk on, being soft and powdery, and quantities of it soon found their way into Da Silva’s boots. Everyone in their right mind was under cover, having a siesta if they had any sense, and in minutes he was regretting the impulse which had led him to suggest this. The sun beat down like a great bronze hammer, and sweat was pouring off him. The gritty wind blew in his face, threatening to remove his hat. He shoved the knife through his belt and held the hat down instead. Ahead of him, Ruivo’s jacket flapped like a cloak.

They had not gone very far when Phoebe Hardy’s voice called out, ‘Hey, you fellows, where are you going?’ and the lady herself came striding towards them. She may have preferred the comforts of masculine garb, but she was keeping the sun off with an equally practical, if somewhat incongruous, parasol.

‘I’m taking the captain to see where we found our little hoard,’ Ruivo explained, tipping his hat to her. ‘Don’t stay out in the sun too long, dear Miss Hardy.’

‘I’ll tag along,’ she said, blithely ignoring this rather feeble attempt to get rid of her. ‘Hot enough for you, Captain?’

Da Silva took his own hat off and wiped his brow. The sweatband inside the hat was living up to its name. ‘I’ve encountered climates I like better, Miss Hardy,’ he replied, replacing it hastily on his head as the sun battered at him with renewed ferocity. ‘But you look very cool. How long have you been in Egypt?’

‘Four years,’ she replied with a smile, acknowledging the compliment. ‘You do get used to the weather, if that’s any help.’

‘I don’t intend to stay long enough to do that,’ he said drily.

It was really too hot even to carry on a conversation. The heat got into the throat and made breathing difficult, and the burning dry wind was intensely annoying. He removed grit from his eye, and wished he could do the same for the other side. I really wish I hadn’t suggested this, he thought. Charging off across the desert like a bloody camel. I must be mad.

‘Not far now,’ said Ruivo encouragingly, if a little breathlessly, gesturing at the low cliff-face which rose ahead of them.

Miss Hardy moved to walk beside him. ‘It’ll be better out of the sun,’ she said.

That’s the understatement of the year, thought Da Silva, but enjoyed her back view in her trousers. She had long legs and a trim figure, and there was no harm at all in looking.

‘Here we are,’ Ruivo said, and stood to one side to let Miss Hardy precede him into what looked like a crack in the cliff. Following them, Da Silva found it widened immediately into a narrow defile full of welcome shade and the faintest of ghosts, fluttering almost invisibly in the dark-shadowed interior. The sun did not reach the bottom, even at its highest. Its absence was an infinite relief. He took off his hat, flapped it briefly in front of his face, and sat down on the cool ground. When he pulled off his boots, he found he could tip about half a pound of sand out of each one. Miss Hardy laughed at his expression.

‘There must be a knack to walking on sand,’ he said, looking at her feet.

‘I suppose there is,’ she said. ‘I don’t even think about it now.’

A faint reek reached him then, something undeniably foul but without any immediately recognisable provenance. You wouldn’t say drains. Or latrines. Or dead cat. But you certainly didn’t want it to get any stronger.

He got to his feet. ‘Do you smell that?’ he asked, remembering Ruivo’s story of evil-smelling afrits.

‘Yes, that’s the famous stink,’ the archaeologist replied. ‘That’s why we couldn’t get anyone to dig.’

‘I’m afraid it gets worse,’ said Miss Hardy, who was tying a handkerchief bandit-fashion over her nose and mouth. ‘Ready?’

‘Lead on,’ said Da Silva. A prickle of unease went across his back, and he frowned. He never ignored such feelings, not since he gained the ability to see ghosts. At the same time he thought he heard music. Surely that had to be imagination, unless someone had a phonograph in the desert. Still, stranger things had happened.

Ruivo and Miss Hardy were already ten feet away, and he hurried after them, his sense of disquiet deepening with the growing foetor. He took the knife from his belt, drew it, and dropped the sheath on the sand.

Now the stench was all around them, thick enough to cut, strong and unclean and meaty but not quite like decaying matter, yet not entirely like anything living, either, though there was something feral about it, something predatory and tigerish. And now the music was unmistakable, although the others showed no sign of being able to hear it. Now why am I not surprised at that? he thought sourly. Strange, plangent music, full of unfamiliar chords and curious harmonies. Sweat ran into his eye, and he wiped it away with his sleeve.

‘There’s the shaft,’ said Ruivo. ‘—Mother of God!’

Da Silva didn’t see where they came from, but suddenly two frightful figures hopped out of nowhere and swooped towards the archaeologist, who fell back, eyes wide with terror.

They were not the stuff of nightmares. They were worse than that. Wrapped in fluttering rags, the flesh beneath looked flayed, suppurating, bones glinting yellowly through in places. They were not even remotely human. A little less than man-sized, their faces had long muzzles, improbably fanged, and their mouths gaped open, jaws lolling brokenly as their heads wagged on their shoulders. They had no eyes, just blazing sockets like searchlights. Their taloned feet were birdlike, their limbs were hinged wrongly, and in their hands they held curved swords. A weirdly debilitating keening noise issued from their lipless maws, an intensely horrible counterpoint to the odd music which still sounded. Their very presence was terrifying.

Yelling, Da Silva charged them. It was pure reflex: he was too scared to swear, too angry to retreat, and he had no time at all to think. His mind registered only armed creatures attacking an old man, and did not stop to think about odds. His instincts yammered at him to turn and run. He ignored them.

He ducked under a whistling slash from a scimitar, and pushed the paralysed Ruivo out of the way, pivoting to parry the long curved blade in a flurry of sparks, and disengaging instantly. It was longer than his knife, but his reach was greater. That made a change. On die other hand, there were two of them. And he only had one eye.

Then the other came screeching at him. It was inhumanly fast. He skipped back rapidly, flailing his knife in long parries, the thing seemingly a little confused at his left-handedness. Noting this he went on the offensive, blocking its swordthrust and slashing downwards like an executioner with his knife, just missing severing its neck. He dodged the scimitar, but the thing kicked forward impossibly with its taloned foot, ripping his leg from shin to knee, and the strange ululating music reached a crescendo.

The pain was breathtaking for a split second, and he drew in a grating sob, bringing the knife up again to split the creature open from belly to chest. Its shriek abruptly cut off, and it crumpled, thick ichor spilling from it. Da Silva felt blood running down his leg into his boot.

Terrified that he couldn’t see its companion, he spun away on his unwounded leg before the creature hit the ground, to see Phoebe Hardy fencing with the other, using her sadly battered parasol and cursing with impressive fluency. Her handkerchief had slipped down around her neck.

‘Get it, Captain,’ she panted, and he went for the creature, thoroughly enraged now. Pick on women and old men, will you, he thought. It gave way at first, wary of the blade, but quickly pressed back. It was more skilful than the other one, or maybe just not confused by a left-handed opponent. The curved blade slashed out in a lightning cut, narrowly missing his belly as he knocked it aside, and he felt his gut clench. He knew to watch for the razor-clawed feet, now, and dodged a kick deftly, but landed on his wounded leg and staggered as it nearly give way under him.

The thing darted inside his guard, scimitar raised, and he yelled and punched it in the face with his right fist. It skittered back with a surprised-sounding bleat, and he followed it up with a knife-thrust that ought to have gutted the creature, but thanks to its wrong-jointed legs merely dealt it a flesh-wound. He muttered an imprecation, and then had to parry another fierce jab from its blade.

I’d better finish this bloody thing off, he thought. Now, preferably. He was panting heavily, sweat was running into his eye, his leg was a long agony, and he knew he was tiring. On the other hand his adversary seemed indefatigable. Then the flailing scimitar tip caught him on the upper arm, slicing open a shallow stinging cut. He swore again and backed off rapidly, swinging his knife at arm’s length as the music filled the air with its weird chords once more.

Screeching, the creature followed him, and then Phoebe Hardy flung its dead companion’s scimitar at its legs, tripping it. Da Silva ducked under a sword-swipe gone awry and severed the thing’s hand, which thumped to the ground, the curved blade flying out of its grip. The creature squealed like a stuck pig, turning to a dying gurgle as Da Silva cut its throat open with a blow that nearly took its head off. It slumped at his feet and he had to jump back to avoid it.

There was silence, sudden and abrupt. The two dead creatures seeped into the ground, liquefying as he watched. In a moment, the sand had absorbed them, not even leaving a stain. And the foul smell was also gone. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, harsh and ragged. He wiped his eye with his shirt-sleeve, the knife suddenly weighing a ton, and looked at the shallow cut on his arm. It was already inflamed.

‘And those, I presume,’ he said when he had got his breath back, ‘were afrits’

He pushed the blade into the sand to clean it, and looked up to see Phoebe Hardy, very white in the face, kneeling beside Ruivo, who seemed to have fainted. She was rubbing her right hand on her thigh.

‘C-captain, I—-’ Her voice sounded strained.

Da Silva limped over to them, his torn trouser-leg flapping against his bleeding shin. ‘What’s the matter?’ Don’t tell me the other brother’s keeled over as well, he thought disgustedly.

She looked at her palm, grimacing. ‘That sword, it felt repulsive. I could hardly bear to touch it. Now my hand—’ she turned it to show him. The palm was swollen and red, like a bad rash. Miss Hardy bit her lip. ‘It hurts,’ she said. She was shaking, he saw.

What a good thing I came prepared, he thought, and took a hip-flask out of his pocket. Sweat ran down his face, and his leg was throbbing fiercely, but first things first. ‘May I borrow your handkerchief?’

‘Surely.’ As she unknotted it, he lowered himself to sit beside her. She handed him the cloth and he soaked it with holy water from the flask and tied it around her hand. Her skin was very soft and smooth.

‘Oh, that’s better,’ she said, surprised. ‘That can’t be plain water; what is it?’

‘Holy water,’ he told her with a smile, and wet his own handkerchief to clean the inflamed cut on his arm. The swelling vanished as she watched. ‘These ... things always get infected. I don’t think our flesh can endure the touch. But this always seems to do the trick.’

He hitched up his torn trouser-leg to look at the gash on his shin and winced. It had begun to suppurate, and the skin around was hot and shiny. Blood still welled out from the wound. His sock was red and sodden. The pain came in waves, making him lightheaded, and he wondered if he would pass out.

‘Let me do it,’ said Miss Hardy suddenly, unwrapping her hand and holding out the handkerchief to him for fresh water.

As she sponged the long slash, Ruivo opened his eyes. They were still shadowed with horror. ‘Is that what killed my brother?’ he whispered hoarsely.

Miss Hardy didn’t even look up. Da Silva rubbed a hand over his face. ‘We’ll never know,’ he said tightly. The holy water was beginning to take effect, but the wound was bad enough in itself to hurt like hell.

‘Blessed Virgin,’ said Ruivo, and crossed himself. A fat lot of good that does now, thought Da Silva, not that he had ever, himself, found prayer to be particularly effective.

‘This is going to need stitching,’ said Miss Hardy. ‘But I can cover it up for now, so it won’t get too dirty. Can you walk back to the camp?’

Da Silva exchanged a glance with Ruivo, but the archaeologist still seemed unwilling to speak. Damn the man! Exasperated, Da Silva scowled at him, and said to Miss Hardy, ‘First I’d like to see where you found the papyrus.’

‘We can do that any time,’ she said.

‘No, I don’t think so. We should go now. There might be more of those . . . things around.’ He found a cheroot - he was nearly out of them - and lit up, drawing in the smoke gratefully. There were plenty more in his pack, anyway. I’m glad I’m still able to worry about things like that, he thought, and the memory of the afrits made him suddenly cold. He laughed at himself. Getting old, Da Silva.

Ruivo shuddered, and struggled into a sitting position. ‘Dear God, do you suppose there are?’ He looked around wildly, as if expecting another attack.

‘I think we’d smell them, don’t you?’ Da Silva said, and stood up, wincing, trying to ignore the throbbing from his leg. Miss Hardy took his offered hand and he pulled her to her feet. ‘“Can you stand, Senhor Ruivo?’

Trying to smile, the archaeologist nodded, and got up slowly. His face was grey, and for a moment Da Silva was afraid the older man was going to have a heart attack. Miss Hardy appeared to have had the same idea.

‘I think you’d better stay here and rest, Mister Ruivo,’ she told him, briskly, not unkindly. ‘I can take the captain inside.’ Ruivo looked as if he wanted to object, but felt too ill to do so. He leant against the wall of the gully, mopping his face. ‘Come along, Captain,’ she went on. ‘This won’t take long.’

The entrance to the shaft was shored up with timber, and piled rubble in the vicinity had evidently been excavated from it. A pair of lanterns stood just outside and Miss Hardy picked one up and shook it. It sloshed reassuringly and she pulled a cigarette-lighter from her pocket and lit it. I feel superfluous, Da Silva thought, amused, and scratched his shoulder, just above the shallow cut on his arm.

Eyeing the dark entrance, he asked, ‘Shall I bring the other lantern?’

‘No, it’s not far,’ she replied, obviously too polite to suggest that he might need both hands free. ‘Steep slope to start with, and low - don’t bang your head.’ She bent down, and disappeared into the opening. With a grimace, he threw away the butt of his cheroot and followed her. The lantern threw odd shadows, but he could see that the shaft led steeply downwards. Someone had made a makeshift handrail from a piece of rope, and wooden slats nailed to the floor at intervals prevented the headlong slither threatened by the loose stones and sand covering it. He caught hold of the rope gratefully, and began to descend.

Bent almost double and hanging onto the rope in Miss Hardy’s shadow, he still felt his feet wanting to slip. The shaft was claustrophobically stuffy, the sense of rock all around quite oppressive. Its choking airlessness made it hot as the antechamber of Hell. Da Silva had cooled down a little, but now the sweat was running off him worse than ever.

‘How far?’ he asked, and his voice boomed and echoed. He had the irrational feeling that the air was going to run out.

‘Just here,’ said Miss Hardy, reassuringly, indicating a dark opening to the left. This passage was just as low as the first, but at least ran level. After about twelve feet it opened into a square chamber, and Da Silva straightened with a sigh of relief. Both his legs were protesting, not just the injured one. He wiped sweat from his face with one hand, and wiped the hand on his trousers. I never knew I was claustrophobic, he thought.

Miss Hardy put the lantern down on the stone sarcophagus, which was the only thing in the chamber, and turned to him with a smile made grotesque by shadows. Da Silva looked around, struck by how perfectly square the chamber was. The walls were quite unadorned, which disappointed him obscurely.

‘No paintings,’ he said, constrained to whisper, as though that would conserve the air.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But still—!’ And he realised that she was just as excited about the find as Ruivo. For himself, he would be glad to get out of this dry, suffocating, dusty, underground place of the dead. The sooner the better.

First, though, there was something he had to do. It had better be there, he thought, and wondered what the hell he would do if it wasn’t. That would destroy his credibility, all right. He reached into the sarcophagus, which reminded him of nothing so much as a great stone bath, and picked up the scroll which lay in there, hidden by shadows.

‘All right, Miss Hardy,’ he said, ‘we can go now.’

She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Omigod,’ she exclaimed, eyes wide with surprise, ‘how did you know that would be in there?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’

* * * *

Back in Ruivo’s camp, people were stirring. The worst of the noon heat was over now, and the wind was actually managing to bring a little relief. Phoebe Hardy, who turned out to be resident medic as well as the dig’s artist, stitched up Da Silva’s leg and dusted the wound with sulphur. Ruivo provided clothes of his son’s, which proved a reasonable fit, to replace his ruined shirt and trousers. He even managed to have a sort of a wash, though he had to miss out on shaving. There was not enough water for luxuries.

Now he sat under the canopy, leg propped on a stool, smoking and feeling reasonably comfortable for the first time that day, and watching El-Aqman cooing over the papyrus like a mother with a new baby. Beside him, Ruivo hovered like the anxious father, while Miss Hardy showed the captain some of her sketches. There were views of the camp and of people working, as well as detailed drawings of statues, jars and pots. Da Silva looked at her at least as much as he looked at her pictures. From time to time, he noticed, she rubbed her right palm gently. He didn’t think she knew she was doing it.

Finishing his cheroot, he tossed the butt out to join the others in the sand. ‘I don’t think I thanked you for what you did back there,’ he said quietly. ‘That was very brave of you.’ We might not have made it out of there otherwise, he thought.

‘It was pathetic,’ she said. ‘I wanted to pick that sword up and stab that thing, and all I could manage to do was throw it like a silly girl.’

Da Silva took her hand. He was reassuring her, so that was all right. ‘You picked it up,’ he said. ‘Not everyone could have done that. I certainly wouldn’t want to.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. Listen, Miss Hardy. These things are . . . inimical. We can’t endure their touch. You saw what it did to your hand. Just picking it up was a remarkable thing.’

She let her hand lie in his. ‘I think you could call me Phoebe, you know. Since we both—’ Saved each other’s life, she didn’t say. ‘Or am I being too forward for you? American women are notorious for that, I’m told.’

‘I see,’ he said, gravely. ‘All Americanas are forward, and all sailors are superstitious. Phoebe,’ he added at her quizzical expression. I need to stop this, now, he thought, uncomfortably, and scratched the scar on his cheekbone.

‘And?’ she prompted, raising her dark eyebrows. ‘Your name is?’

‘I’m sorry. It’s Luís.’

‘Luís, were those things guarding the papyrus, do you suppose?’ He shook his head, frowning thoughtfully.

‘I don’t think so. Otherwise they would have tried to stop you digging in the first place. I think your workmen were exactly right. That place was their home.’ But you don’t believe in coincidences, his mind insisted.

‘Do you know what they were?’ she asked.

‘Just what we were told, I suppose,’ he replied, grinning without much humour. ‘You don’t need to know their names to kill them. You know their nature. That’s enough. You only have to know a name if you want power over something.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Too strongly tempted to kiss her, and knowing she wouldn’t object, he looked away. ‘I’ve met this sort of thing before.’ He touched his eyepatch. ‘That’s how this happened.’

Ruivo interrupted them. ‘Come and see the scroll, Captain Da Silva.’

He raised an eyebrow at Phoebe and pushed himself to his feet. His leg throbbed angrily, but two steps took him to the table.

Looking over El-Aqman’s shoulder, he was struck by the brilliant colours of the papyrus. He had only the sketchiest knowledge of Egyptology. But, like most people, he had seen representations of tomb paintings. To that extent, they were familiar: the stylised stance of the figures, their leaf-shaped eyes. The men with heads of hounds, vultures, snakes, the odd little pictures that were hieroglyphic writing.

‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.

‘The Book of the Dead,’ Ruivo said. ‘Or perhaps not.’

‘Perhaps more than that,’ El-Aqman supplemented, his deep voice almost preposterous coming from his slight frame. ‘Do you know anything at all about ancient Egyptian burial practices, Captain?’

‘Only what most people do, I suppose,’ Da Silva said, trying to put all his weight on one leg without overbalancing. ‘Mummies and so on. Preparing the body for the afterlife.’ He remembered something else. ‘Pots and food and stuff they thought the dead person would need.’ He stuck a finger under his eyepatch and tackled an itch since no one was looking at him. The Egyptian was nodding, but still had his attention fixed on the papyrus.

‘Well, Captain, apart from all those grave-goods, every mummy was entombed with a copy of part of the Book of the Dead,’ he explained, adding with a scholar’s pedantic precision, ‘That’s a misnomer, by the way. Its proper title, pert em rhu, means ‘coming forth by day’ or ‘manifested in the light’. It’s a guide to the afterlife, spells to help the dead person on his way to paradise. He would have to pass many trials and be judged first.’

A kind of Baedeker Guide for the dead. Da Silva looked down at the papyrus again, as if by staring at it he could decipher the contents. He did not entirely understand the others’ fierce fascination with the scroll. ‘And that’s what this is?’

‘That’s what we thought it was,’ said Ruivo. ‘But apart from the content, there’s something extremely odd about it.’

‘Yes,’ El-Aqman agreed, and lifted his head, his dark eyes glinting. ‘Despite its very beautiful state of preservation, gentlemen and lady, it is about a thousand years older than the statue in which it was found.’

‘What!’ exclaimed Phoebe Hardy, getting to her feet and coming to join them. ‘That’s impossible. Isn’t it?’

‘In that it ought to have fallen to pieces as soon as Valentim tried to unroll it, yes,’ said Ruivo. ‘As to what it is, we’ll have to wait for Dr El-Aqman to translate it for us.’

‘Well, not all of it,’ said the Egyptian with a smile. ‘That will take weeks. But I should be able to give you some idea of the content by the morning.’

* * * *

Da Silva slept uneasily in Juliao Ruivo’s tent, disturbed by dreams of a vaguely crocodilian thing gnawing at his leg, which was not particularly surprising, considering the way the damned thing felt when he woke up. I forget it always feels worse the second day, he thought, fingering the neat bandage gingerly. There was no trace of heat from the wound. He decided this was a good sign. It still took him a while to get himself up from the camp-bed. Getting too old to be gallivanting about in the desert.

Still, the service was better than some pensãos he had stayed in. There was a jug of hot water, enough to shave. Someone had mended his shirt. There was even something that passed for coffee. He drank it sitting outside in the tent’s shade.

And then all hell broke loose.

He didn’t see how it began because he had ducked back inside to finish dressing. But suddenly there was pandemonium in the camp, people rushing to and fro and shouting at the tops of their voices. If that had happened two minutes ago, he thought, buttoning his shirt, I’d have cut myself. As it was, he hadn’t even spilt his coffee.

Ruivo, clad in a robe, emerged from his tent like a turtle’s head from its shell, blinking, his white tonsure disordered, and grabbed at a passing arm. They were too far away for Da Silva to hear what was said, but at the man’s reply, Ruivo swiftly crossed himself. The captain’s eyebrows rose. A moment later Phoebe Hardy ran out into the still-cool morning and conferred briefly with the archaeologist. Then both of them turned to look at Da Silva.

I suppose I’d better go and see what’s up, he thought, and began to limp towards them. Phoebe met him halfway. ‘Dr El-Aqman’s dead!’ she blurted out.

‘Dead?’ he repeated stupidly. Get a grip on yourself, he told himself. ‘How?’

‘We don’t know...Luís, the papyrus—?’ He didn’t know whether she was asking him whether it was safe, or whether it was responsible. She turned towards El-Aqman’s tent. Ruivo was staring at it, apparently rooted to the spot.

As they watched, an Egyptian whom Da Silva recognised as the doctor’s manservant emerged from it and halted abruptly when he came level with the three of them.

‘What happened?’ Da Silva asked him, in Arabic. The man rolled his eyes.

‘Allah knows,’ he said. ‘You are the moghrebi?’

The word, as far as he knew, meant a person who talks to demons. How did that get started? he wondered, never surprised at the power of rumour.

‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘You’re sure he’s dead?’

Looking at him a bit pityingly, the man drew a finger across his throat. ‘Scared to death,’ he said, in case Da Silva hadn’t got the message. The captain raised an eyebrow and pushed past him into the tent.

Scattered pages of notes met his eye. The papyrus lay on the table. El-Aqman lay on the ground. Flies crawled on his delicate features, which were set in a rictus. Seeing the dead man’s expression, he understood the servant’s comment. The Egyptian’s eyes were wide open, his mouth gaping in a silent scream. His fists were clenched tightly, his body rigid.

Above the corpse, El-Aqman’s ghost boiled. There was no other way to describe it. It was a writhing mist as thick as molasses and its surface seethed, as if unable to settle into a coherent form. Half-fascinated, half-appalled, Da Silva touched the man’s dead face and found it still warm. He had never encountered such a new ghost before, he realised. A shudder ran down his back and he turned around quickly. There was nothing there, of course.

His leg throbbed fiercely at him as he squatted to gather the fallen papers. He could not read Arabic as well as he spoke it, and the scrawled words meant nothing to him.

Papyrus of Setna. Book/books of Thoth. Tomb of Nefer-ka-Ptah son of Mer-neb-ptah (unknown). In Hermopolis? And again: Books of Thoth. All-powerful.

He stared at the scroll on the table as if it were a scorpion, scratching his cheekbone thoughtfully. Then he picked it up as well and ducked under the tent-flap into the strengthening sun.

‘Well?’ Ruivo said, and Da Silva heard desperation in his voice.

‘I think he probably had a seizure,’ he said. ‘No, don’t go in. Here, these are his notes.’ He held out the papers.

Ruivo took them from him reluctantly, and began to read. ‘Papyrus of Setna. Very ancient text. Surely—? Books of Thoth. Yes. Tomb of yes, where Setna found the magic book. Oh . . . my . . . God.’ His mouth dropped open.

‘Books of Thoth?’ Phoebe whispered. They exchanged glances in some kind of mystic communion, which annoyed Da Silva greatly.

‘He’s implying the papyrus is one of the Books of Thoth,’ Ruivo explained. ‘The spell to control the whole world and gain power over life and death. Supposedly written by the god himself. Thoth. That must be why it’s preserved so well.’

‘How old is the scroll?’ asked Da Silva.

‘Four thousand years,’ Phoebe replied.

‘Wait a minute,’ Da Silva said. ‘Let’s put things in perspective here.’ He lit a cheroot. They helped him think. ‘Do you believe in the gods of ancient Egypt?’

Do you believe in God? something said to him. He still did, he supposed, though not in the strictly Catholic way he had been brought up. The power of prayer, for one thing, was greatly overrated. And the power of priests too great. Well, some priests, anyway. The one who supplied him with holy water was a good and humble man.

‘Not as objects of worship,’ said Ruivo irritably. ‘What do you take me for? But if demons and evil spirits are real, I’m sure good and benevolent spirits exist. Other than angels, that is. And those may be what the ancient Egyptians worshipped. Akhnaton realised this—’

‘And you think one of these “good and benevolent” beings wrote this . . . magic spell?’

With an impatient glance, Ruivo snapped back, ‘Why do you find that so hard to believe? What you do is magic.’

‘I suppose it is,’ Da Silva admitted. ‘But you’re asking me to believe something a lot more profound than talking to ghosts.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said the archaeologist, looking slyly from El-Aqman’s tent to Da Silva and back again.

Oh no.

‘Talking to ghosts?’ Phoebe asked in a puzzled voice.

Da Silva rubbed the scar on his eyebrow again. ‘That’s how I knew where to find the papyrus yesterday.’

‘My God,’ she said, staring at him as if, he thought crossly, I’ve grown an extra head. It’s not as if nothing unusual happened yesterday! He turned to Ruivo, and expelled smoke.

‘And what would you ask the doctor? I can’t ask him how he died.’

The archaeologist looked taken aback. ‘Well - er—’

‘Ask him what he found out?’ suggested Phoebe.

‘We know that.’ Da Silva pointed at El-Aqman’s notes.

‘These may not be complete,’ Ruivo said. ‘—Yes, what is it?’ This to El-Aqman’s manservant, who was hovering close by. Nervously, the man gestured towards the tent.

‘You have some bureaucracy to deal with,’ said Da Silva, glad to deflect Ruivo’s determination, even if temporarily.

He walked slowly towards his tent. His leg was aching and he needed to sit down for a while. In addition, the sun was gathering strength rapidly, and he had left his hat inside. Damned desert, he thought wearily, not relishing the thought of a repeat performance of the previous day’s furnace heat. As far as he was concerned, the proper place for sand was on the sea-bed.

Finding the patch of shadow in front of the tent had shrunk away, he carried on until he reached the communal canopy. The boy Ahmed was sweeping its canvas floor, and grinned widely when he saw Da Silva.

‘Is there any more of that coffee?’ the captain asked him.

‘Yes, boss. For both?’

Looking round, he saw that Phoebe had followed him. He mimed drinking coffee at her, and she called, ‘Sure.’ Ahmed, correctly interpreting her tone if not the expression, scuttled off.

‘Tell me about the Book of Thoth,’ Da Silva said, sitting down gratefully.

She didn’t reply at once, but sat down herself and drew a few deep breaths. A tear leaked out of her eye and she brushed it away impatiently.

Damning himself for his insensitivity, Da Silva stood up again. Winced as pain shot along his leg. Went and put a hand on her shoulder.

Phoebe came awkwardly into his arms, chokingly trying not to cry. He held her, regretfully, for a long minute, smelling the clean scent of her hair, and then she disengaged with an attempt at a smile.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Sorry to get all weepy on you.’

‘De nada,’ he said absently, remembering her wielding her flimsy parasol like a rapier, flinging the afrit’s unclean sword at it. Coming out of that calm as if she’d been at a tea party. He would never understand women. Come to that, a lot of men did incomprehensible things as well.

‘I didn’t even like him very much,’ she confided, blowing her nose. ‘He was too - smarmy, if you know what I mean. A lot of Egyptian men get that way over women. The ones that don’t think I’m a brazen harlot for wearing trousers, that is,’ she added, her smile less forced this time.

At that moment, Ahmed came back with the coffee. Da Silva passed him a cheroot and found the boy looking at him curiously. He raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Is it true you killed an afrit yesterday, boss?’ he asked.

With difficulty, Da Silva restrained himself from laughing. ‘Two,’ he said. ‘Now shove off.’

The urchin laughed in delight, and scampered away. Da Silva resumed his seat and picked up his coffee. It tasted a bit like ground mud, but it was preferable to beer at eight in the morning.

‘Cigarette?’ Phoebe asked, offering him her case. ‘Or do you always smoke those awful things?’ Oh, why not, he thought. I wonder how many years it is since I smoked a cigarette? Her lighter flared, and he sat back, carefully stretching out his injured leg.

‘The papyrus?’ he reminded her.

‘Yes. Of course,’ she said. ‘Well, there are several references to Books of Thoth. Dr El-Aqman seems to think this is one called the papyrus of Setna. He was the son of the pharaoh Rameses the Second, and he was a magician. He was said to have found this book in a tomb in the necropolis at Memphis. The book had two very powerful spells in it. Now, the man who told him where to find it warned him that taking it away would be a bad idea, but old Setna did it anyhow. And he got the power he wanted, but he had such a miserable life that he eventually decided to put the book back where he found it and seal up the tomb again.’

Tasteless. He knew it would be. But he went on smoking it. ‘Memphis is near Cairo, isn’t it?’ he said. Six hundred miles away.

‘Yes, that’s true. But the pharaoh whose tomb it was in hasn’t been identified. But if it was found once, it could be found again. Maybe whoever found it next just didn’t have Setna’s scruples.’

Like Ruivo, she became more animated when talking about her favourite topic. ‘Do you know whose tomb it was you found?’ he asked her.

‘We think her name was Meryt-ankh,’ she replied. Pausing to extinguish her half-smoked cigarette, she looked up at him speculatively. ‘Luís.’

‘Yes?’

‘Can you really speak to ghosts?’

He nodded, his face expressionless. ‘It’s a talent I could live without.’

‘Could you speak to hers? Meryt-ankh’s? In the tomb?’

Oh, God, yes, I suppose I could, he thought, remembering the claustrophobic chamber with distaste.

‘She’s been dead a very long time,’ he pointed out. ‘It might not be possible. And we can’t speak her language.’

‘Dr El-Aqman could,’ Phoebe said.

Cigarette halfway to his mouth, he stared at her, a dozen thoughts warring in his mind. Eventually he said bleakly, ‘You’re a single-minded bunch of people, aren’t you?’ and stubbed out the cigarette in the tin ashtray.

* * * *

Da Silva, fortified if not mollified by a shot of arrack provided by Ruivo, sighed deeply and lit a cheroot to take the taste away. It had been more like drinking turpentine than anything potable. I’m fated to drink bad brandy all over the world, he thought. Looking around cautiously, trying to avoid the strong, sandy breeze, he slipped into the doctor’s tent. Phoebe and Ruivo hovered outside, supposedly standing guard but looking, he decided mordantly, more like the comic henchmen of a villain in a melodrama.

El-Aqman’s body had been transferred to the camp-bed. It was still clenched in rigor. The Egyptian’s ghost, now a calm drift of transparent mist in the air, also lingered. In fact it would linger there for the rest of time, growing fainter as the years went by. It, like all the shades which were Da Silva’s near-constant companions, was merely an echo. An image. No more than a dickering nickelodeon film. The ghosts he summoned were another matter entirely.

He would have to be quick, he knew. But calling ghosts - necromancy was a term he didn’t care for - wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that came with an instruction book. Well, maybe it did, but he had no intention of consulting that kind of text. Ever. He had also never tried to summon the recent dead before.

His long knife was resting in its usual place, a sheath down his back, though not concealed. But he wanted to try something else before drawing blood, feeling, not unreasonably, that he had already shed enough.

Unsure as to whether it would work, he put his hand on El-Aqman’s dead forehead. It felt like cold stone.

‘Dr Hassan El-Aqman,’ he said softly. The name echoed strangely in the tent. How could canvas echo? A shock ran up his arm, and he jerked his hand away, suspiciously eyeing the corpse.

Which sat up and stared at him.

He choked on smoke, and El-Aqman spoke. ‘So, Captain, now I know why they call you moghrebi.’’ His voice was much like it had been in life, but somehow hollower, without substance.

‘Only if you style yourself a demon,’ he said. The ghost, he now saw, had come to a sitting position out of the Egyptian’s body. It looked like an ill-defined pair of Siamese twins.

El-Aqman’s ghost looked amused and freed himself from his corpse, swinging his feet over the side of the cot and standing in one fluid movement. ‘Come now, Captain. You summon ghosts, and you slay afrits. And more, I sense. What are you but a sorcerer?’ Da Silva blinked, unable to think of a good retort to this, and wiped a drop of sweat from his cheek. ‘So why have you summoned me?’

You don’t know everything, then, do you? Da Silva said silently. ‘They want you to talk to someone named Meryt-ankh.’

This time the ghost laughed. ‘You think you can summon a shade so old? Well, Captain, maybe you can. And maybe I can speak with her. But will she answer?’

‘Will you?’ asked Da Silva, and El-Aqman winced.

‘If I can,’ he said, i am yours to command.’ Now it was Da Silva’s turn to grimace. ‘Ah, you have little liking for that notion, I see. Perhaps you are a man of the light after all.’

Intrigued as he was by this definition, Da Silva felt the pressure of passing time. ‘Tell me, then,’ he said, ‘is the papyrus the Book of Thoth?’

‘It is a Book of Thoth,’ replied the ghost, looking amused again.

‘Da Silva!’ came Ruivo’s voice, urgent and petulant. ‘Hurry up, man.’

‘Ah, the impatient Mister Ruivo,’ El-Aqman said. ‘Is this your command also?’

Glaring at him, Da Silva said, ‘Yes, come on, let’s go.’

Outside, the sun hammered down. Waves of scorching air rolled off the sand, and the light was as intense as the heat, bright as a phosphorus flame. There was no one around the camp. Apart from Ruivo and Phoebe, it could have been a city of the dead.

Shading his brow and feeling sweat break out along his hairline, Da Silva put on his hat. Phoebe, having lost her parasol, had resorted to a headcloth.

El-Aqman looked down at his spectral body curiously. ‘I never imagined a ghost would look so solid,’ he remarked in a conversational tone. ‘But then, I never believed ghosts existed in the first place.’

By the time they reached the gully again, Da Silva’s clothes were soaked. His knife chafed. Sweat was running off him, not to mention collecting under his eyepatch. His leg ached fiercely, and the cut on his arm was stinging. Cursing under his breath, he sat down in the shade and repeated his boot-excavation. Phoebe borrowed his hat and fanned herself.

‘I am impressed, Captain,’ El-Aqman’s ghost said. ‘Not a trace of afrits. Not that I credited such things when I was alive, of course.’

Da Silva put his boots back on and wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ he said grimly. Before I change my mind and tell the whole pack of you to go to hell.

He sent the ghost down the shaft first, followed it with knife in hand, because he felt safer that way. Phoebe, holding one of the lanterns, came third, and Ruivo brought up the rear, carrying the other. Their shadows, caught by the light, waxed and waned as they descended.

The sultry, airless chamber was no more bearable on second acquaintance, even though Da Silva knew what to expect this time. He scratched his scar, supposing that it was logical for a seaman to find confined spaces oppressive. And especially confined spaces hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. Suddenly he desired, very strongly, the sea’s clean smell, a fresh clear wind. The sounds of ropes and canvas.

Two living people and one dead one watched as he placed his knife on the empty sarcophagus and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. It was the ghost who spoke.

‘That’s a formidable weapon, Captain,’ he said. ‘What do you use it for?’

‘Killing afrits,’ said Da Silva shortly. ‘Amongst other things.’ He wanted a smoke, and wished he had taken the opportunity to light up before charging down here. Too late now. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Better get on with it. Are you ready, El-Aqman?’ The ghost nodded.

Picking up the knife again, he held his right arm over the gaping tomb and nicked the wrist, almost catching a small white scar. He was better at it this time. Just a couple of drops of blood fell into the sarcophagus.

‘Meryt-ankh,’ he said.

And knew instantly that he had summoned a magician. They did not come easily. They resented being bound to his will. Which was understandable. The underground chamber shuddered and dust cascaded from the ceiling. His heart thumped at the sudden dread of entombment. A wave travelled across the stone floor, sending Ruivo reeling. Phoebe grabbed at the wall, Da Silva the edge of the shivering tomb . . .

. . . Out of which came a roaring sandstorm, filling the chamber, obstructing sight, deafeningly loud. It roiled above the sarcophagus, dark as a thundercloud, howling. The air itself was fighting him. Sweat poured off his face, but he couldn’t pause to wipe it away. He shouted her name again, and the pressure seemed to ease a little, the wind to calm, to take shape. And so he said it a third time, and stilled the storm.

Standing on the other side of the sarcophagus from Da Silva was a woman’s figure. She was tall, and quite plump. Having subconsciously expected her to look like the slim figures of the papyrus, he was oddly disappointed. Her robe was white, severely plain, but cut to display a generous amount of cleavage. The cloth was thin enough that her nipples showed through. Round her neck was a wide collar of beads and gold.

El-Aqman spoke and she turned towards him, her face distorted like a Fury. Meryt-ankh’s voice thundered in Da Silva’s mind, battering at him. Her lips did not move. Her voice intruded on him, a trespasser in his head.

I am the sorceress Meryt-ankh. I do not need shades of men. Begone. She made a brief gesture, and El-Aqman’s ghost turned into a pillar of white flame. From behind him, Phoebe gasped. He hardly heard her. Controlling this ghost was like trying to steer a ship in a hurricane. All my old servants are gone. I have had to seek new ones. Only Ammut, devourer of souls, still waits. Where are my guardians?

‘Your guardians are dead,’ he said hoarsely, and lifted his knife with an effort. The ancient ghost eyed it warily.

By your hand. What do you want, necromancer?

‘What is the papyrus?’ he asked.

‘Is it the Book of Thoth?’ Ruivo added, having apparently still not learnt to keep his mouth shut around ghosts.

The sorceress laughed, and it was terrible to hear, like the tolling of monstrous iron bells. You think to use the spells of the god, mortal? They will rebound on you, seventy times seven. Return me the papyrus.

Da Silva’s arm ached with the effort of holding the knife. Sweat ran into his eye, down his temples, dripped off his nose. The air was becoming foul. His leg throbbed. His entire body hurt with the strain of mastering Meryt-ankh. And his soul, too, he thought. ‘You can threaten,’ he forced out the words, ‘but what can you do? Nothing.’

She opened her mouth and white-hot flame roared out, bright as the sun, too fierce to look at. He looked down, away from it, and brought the knife up. It took both hands to lift it. The flame broke against the blade, and died. But he staggered back with the force of it, and would have fallen to his knees but for Phoebe grabbing him. The sorceress’s ghost watched. Very good, little man, came her voice in his head.

‘I think,’ he said breathlessly to Phoebe, ‘you should put the papyrus back and seal up this tomb.’

‘No,’ said Ruivo.

She rounded on him. ‘What about Juliao? What about your son?’ she asked. ‘Luís, ask her if—’

I know the woman’s thoughts. I am not unmerciful. Return me the papyrus, and her lover will recover.

‘I’m not—’ said Phoebe indignantly.

The dead shall not live again, but all else shall be as it was.

Breathing was getting difficult now. The sorceress’s power pushed him back until he reached the wall. He rather wished he could burrow into it. The knife weighed as much as a man. His arms were trembling with the strain of holding it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Phoebe make her way towards Ruivo, moving slowly, as if walking into a gale. She tried to wrest the scroll from his hand. He resisted her. ‘I won’t let you,’ he shouted. His voice seemed to come from a long distance away.

Da Silva strained against the power. It had stuck him to the wall like a butterfly on a pin. His only lifeline was the knife he held out in front of him, which the sorceress’s ghost could not pass. His sight was fuzzing from exhaustion.

Phoebe finally succeeded in wrenching the papyrus from Ruivo and started to struggle towards the sarcophagus. Da Silva, transfixed, saw the archaeologist pull a revolver from his pocket and slowly raise it. He opened his mouth to warn her, but no sound came out.

Let it be, necromancer. Meryt-ankh raised her hand again and turned towards Ruivo. Da Silva slid down the wall into a crouch, and braced his shaking elbows on his knees to maintain his knife’s upright position. Pain flared up his leg and he let out an involuntary grunt.

Ruivo fired the gun. Echoes bounced off the walls until it sounded like an artillery barrage. At the same moment Meryt-ankh made a throwing motion towards him. The bullet exploded in mid-air.

And then Ruivo exploded as well, something bursting out of his chest in a confusion of blood and bone. Phoebe staggered to the sarcophagus and dropped the papyrus inside and Meryt-ankh smiled.

The lanterns went out. In their after-image Da Silva thought he saw a beast, something like a crocodile, snap up whatever had erupted from Ruivo. And then in the sudden blackness he fancied he heard something feeding.

Darkness. Blind, utter, complete. Night could not be called dark in comparison. He fought down panic, searched for matches, found none. The blackness pressed on him, like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

‘Phoebe?’ He could hear her breathing shallowly.

‘Yes,’ came her shaky voice. Was there anything else there?

‘Cigarette-lighter.’

‘Oh ... of course.’ It clicked, then clicked again. ‘Come on.’ Then flared, showing her pale face. She re-lit one of the lanterns. It burned dimly, reminding Da Silva there was little air left, as if he needed reminding. Staring around wildly, he saw only Ruivo’s crumpled body. He went to wipe sweat from his face, found he was still clutching his knife. The handle had dug grooves into his palm. Blood from his other wrist made it sticky.

Unsteady, he pulled himself to his feet and limped across to examine the archaeologist. He turned the body over with his foot, dreading what he might find. And found no mark on it.

‘What was it? That came out of him?’ Phoebe whispered.

‘I think it was his soul,’ said Da Silva. ‘Come on, we have to get out of here.’ Something was tugging urgently at him. He didn’t ignore such warnings.

She stood her ground, still staring at the archaeologist’s dead body. ‘But - what about Mister Ruivo?’

‘He’s dead, Phoebe, now come on!’ He grabbed her hand, but she stooped, obstinately, feeling for a pulse in Ruivo’s neck.

‘He’s cold!’ she exclaimed. And then looked up at the ceiling, her eyes widening as a tremor shook the chamber.

The next minute they were running down the passage, gasping for breath, the lantern swaying wildly in Phoebe’s hand, as stones and dust rained down. His leg erupted with pain at every step. There was a rumbling, like thunder yet somehow unlike. Thunder is a thing of the air. This was a noise of stone, of earth, of magma’s slow seethe in the planet’s core. It was almost too deep to hear, but its resonance was chilling.

As Da Silva followed Phoebe’s headlong rush into the sloping shaft, and the relief of fresher air, the tunnel collapsed with a roar, spewing out a billowing cloud to engulf them. They scrambled up the shaking conduit, slipping and slithering on the loose stones and debris, and he blessed whoever had put in the climbing aids. Debris and stone fragments shook loose around them, and Phoebe cried out as a chunk of rock hit her on the head. She hung onto the rope, but the lantern plummeted past Da Silva, narrowly missing him, and shattered on the tumbled stone below. The oil ignited in a brief flare, and died.

But they were nearly at the top. Phoebe flung herself out into the daylight and he followed a split second later. They staggered a few steps down the gully, and then his leg gave way. He collapsed in the cool sand, sucking in great breaths of air, and sensed Phoebe on her knees beside him, doing the same.

The earth convulsed again, like a huge beast shaking a troublesome insect off its skin. This was followed by a deep rumble, and dust puffed out of the entrance to the shaft. The timber baulks shoring it up cracked and fell, and a few stones and a small cascade of earth rattled down the cliff-face. Then everything was still.

Blood streamed down Phoebe’s face from a shallow cut on her brow, splitting a swelling bruise in half. Da Silva mopped it with her headcloth.

‘I’ll do yours if you do mine,’ she said, putting her hand on his knee.

* * * *

The following day, the walking wounded - as Da Silva thought of them - visited Juliao Ruivo in his hospital bed to break the news of his father’s death.

Juliao was a cheerful-looking young man of around thirty who presumably favoured his mother, since there seemed to be no paternal resemblance at all. Da Silva watched the two younger people somewhat indulgently. Phoebe may have denied the sorceress’s insight, but he thought it might turn out to be a prophecy.

‘I’m so sorry about your father,’ Phoebe was saying to Juliao, holding his hand. Like the forward Americana she called herself, he thought with an inward smile. ‘That they should both die so close to each other . . .’

‘We were never very close,’ said Ruivo’s son. ‘Still, it is strange . . . and Dr El-Aqbar as well. . .’ His voice trailed off. He was still weak from his illness.

‘Call it the curse of Meryt-ankh,’ said Da Silva, from the window.

* * * *

‘Description of the beast Ammut: Her forepart is like that of a crocodile, the middle of her body is like that of a lion, her hindquarters are like those of a hippopotamus.’

The Book of the Dead

* * * *

Chico Kidd has been writing ghost stories since 1979 under the name of A. F. Kidd, a choice influenced by classic writers such as M. R. James, E. F. Benson and others. Her fiction has been published in such small-press magazines as Ghosts & Scholars, Dark Dreams, Peeping Tom, Enigmatic Tales, All Hallows, and the anthologies The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories 2, Vampire Stories, three volumes of Karl Edward Wagner’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories and the hardcover volume of Ghosts & Scholars. Almost all the short stories were finally collected together in one volume by Ash-Tree Press as Summoning Knells and Other Inventions. Her first novel The Printer’s Devil was published in 1995 by Baen Books (under the name of Chico Kidd rather than A. F.), and a volume of collaborations with Rick Kennett, featuring William Hope Hodgson’s character Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, were recently collected by Ash-Tree as Number 472 Cheyne Walk. In September 2000, a Portuguese sea-captain called Luís Da Silva barged into a story called ‘Cats and Architecture’ (published in Supernatural Tales 2) and demanded to have his story told. Since then he has appeared in nine more short stories and two and a half novels which are currently under consideration. ‘This story came into being because I wanted to see if I could write an Egyptian archaeology tale without featuring mummies at all,’ admits the author. ‘There are no special anecdotes about this particular story but there is a curious coincidence apropos the Da Silva stories as a whole. When I found I was going to be writing a lot about the Captain, I thought it would be a good idea to learn Portuguese. In the course of this I discovered the wonderful (and Nobel Prize-winning) author Jose Saramago. His first novel, Manual de Pintura e Caligrifia (Manual of Painting & Calligraphy) features a character called Chico who also works in advertising, and also mentions a writer named Luís da Silva. Make of that what you will.’