The walking
was going to kill him.
Tamron hadn’t considered that possibility when he had left the crashed
plane, somewhere four days behind him, lost in the desert. He was not lost, though. Not exactly.
He knew the Nile was still somewhere ahead of him in the east, but he
couldn’t be certain of how far.
He knew how
to walk so that he didn’t end up
going in circles. He kept something in
sight to aim for and then, when that was close at hand, he would focus on
something beyond it. In the monotonous
world of the desert, he had to choose odd shaped rocks and sand dunes with
noticeable curves. Walking the desert
wasn’t so bad, though this trip was overly long.
Tamron
still wondered if the crash hadn’t
been an act of sabotage. H e was certain he was close to finding the first true
sign of a lost civilization in the western wastes of the Sahara, not far from
the Nile. He had found an ancient map
half a year before and spent all that time researching any tidbit of
information he found in the few lines of
demotic scribbled on the edges of the ancient map, the words crumbling away.
Tam had
been careful about not saying anything, but an archaeologist as well known as
he was couldn’t help but draw
attention, especially when he took his battered bi-plane out several days in a
row. Tamron, barely in his thirties, had
a few exceptional finds under his belt already.
He had the gift, as his late grandfather had told him. Tam had grown up in Sir Clement O’Killam’s
archeology work camp after his own father had gone back to England. His Egyptian mother had died when he was
young, and while some of grandfather’s people had treated him badly, Sir
Clement had realized his grandson had the gift that his own son lacked. They’d worked well together until grandfather
disappeared in a massive sand storm five years ago.
He didn’t intend to disappear as well.
The crash
hadn’t killed Tamron. The walking though — yes, even someone used
to the desert, someone who knew enough to have emergency supplies on the plane,
still might succumb to the heat. He
rested during the worst of the hot day, walked mostly at dusk, dark and
dawn. He had to fend off some
deathstalker scorpions and a couple snakes but he saw and heard no one. Not impossible in a land like this, to go so
many days alone, but he had still hoped. . . .
Tam rested
through the fourth day, and prepared to walk on, fixing his eyes on a distant
area that appeared to be another patch strewn with boulders —
Something
moved there.
His heart
thumped and he almost shouted, but wisdom from years of living in the desert
stopped him. First, it was dusk, and he might simply have seen a shifting
shadow. Second, not everyone in the
country loved foreign archaeologists. The sun was setting behind him so he had
to wait or he would have cast a shadow as well. He saw movement again. It might be a creature of some sort. He didn’t
see any sign of an oasis but there might be a shallow pan of water or even a
well. Some more water would be nice —
And then,
in the last light of the sunset, Tamron saw something that made his heart
stop. A temple stood in the shadow of
the dunes and this building was not in ruins.
Gold and jewels glittered in the fading sun. He stood and moved forward,
unable to think of anything except that he must get there, must see and feel
that it was real.
What had
moved? He didn’t care though a faint alarm rang at the sight of the
blazing brazier’s on each side of the elegant and intact Horus symbol on the
wall. He had never seen anything so
perfect. He hardly paused until he came
almost within reach of the walls.
Too perfect.
He reached
out with a hand but dared not mar the beauty of this place with even a gentle
touch.
And then a
hand rested on his shoulder.
“Will you not even leave me this place?” a man asked.
The words
were not English, nor the current patois of an Egyptian fellah,but he
understood. He wanted to turn and find
out who stood there.
What stood
there.
He couldn’t move.
“It’s all gone, the glory.
You gather little pieces of my world and stare in wonder. This, though . . . This is all I have left.”
“I —” The word stuck
in Tamron’s throat. Whatever had touched
him was not natural. His eyes flickered
to the right where the hand held to his shoulder. The fingers were unnaturally long, and
perhaps claw-like.
“How could you understand?”
For a
moment, though, Tamron did understand.
He closed his eyes and saw the world of the Nile as it had once been,
with the pageant and wonder of an age few now could imagine. With that thought came a longing for things
long past.
And yes, he
did understand.
“There will be other finds,” Tamron said. “I am honored simply to have stood here.”
“Then go in peace, friend.”
He didn’t like to think what would have happened if he hadn’t said
— and believed — those words. He walked
on through the night and never looked back.
He might even have believed it was all a fever dream from the hot desert
sun, except for one thing. When he
finally reached civilization a day later, he went straight to clean up, and
looking in the mirror he saw the Wadjet symbol on his shoulder, where it had
not been before.
The Wadjet
was the sign of the Eye of Horus.
And yes, he
did have remarkable luck with his excavations, though people often wondered why
he stood and stared off into the Western Desert with such longing sometimes.
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