Page 42 of Tomb of the Sun King

“What?” Ellie rasped, her throat dry.

“The inscription in the box,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied impatiently, as though the answer should have been obvious. “It begins,That the true story be known.”

“The true story of what?” Ellie pressed urgently.

“I haven’t gotten far enough to say,” Mr. Al-Ahmed replied with a quelling look that reminded Ellie of one of her old professors. “There are a significant number of ligatures and abbreviations, which likely means that it is a more informal variety of hieratic.”

“Princess…” Adam said warningly from where he stood ready below the dark mouth of the tomb shaft.

Ellie let her eyes roam over the mountains of unexamined debris piled against the walls of the room.

A box with an Atenist ring. The name Moseh. An ancient text that promised atrue story.

That was all she had. She prayed it was enough.

At the top of the shaft, Julian Forster-Mowbray laughed again.

Ellie set a hand on Mr. Al-Ahmed’s shoulder, capturing his attention. “I know it is not at all in keeping with proper archaeological practices, but if we should find ourselves needing to make an immediate removal from this chamber—say through an unstable two-thousand-year-old thieves’ tunnel—what would be the safest way to transport that box without damaging it?”

Mr. Al-Ahmed’s eyes widened. He looked from Ellie to the box with the air of a frightened parent. Then his shoulders sagged. “Might I have your scarf, Miss Tyrrell?” he asked politely.

“Oh!” Constance returned. “Certainly.”

She tugged the length of frothy fabric from her neck and handed it over. Mr. Al-Ahmed gently wound it around the box.

“Hold this—carefully!” he ordered as he passed the bundle to Ellie.

With a sigh of grim resignation, he dumped out the contents of his slender leather tool case.

“What are you doing?!” Neil looked urgently from the mouth of the shaft overhead to the place where his foreman knelt on the floor.

“I am not entirely sure,” Mr. Al-Ahmed calmly admitted, holding out his hands.

Ellie set the box into them, and Mr. Al-Ahmed carefully placed it in his case. He snapped the lid shut. After a moment’s hesitation, he shoved the whole thing down the front of his waistcoat.

He trudged to the hole in the tomb wall, where he paused to glance back at her. “I look forward to hearing the full story behind your business here, Miss Mallory,” he said significantly.

“I promise you that I will provide it, Mr. Al-Ahmed,” Ellie vowed.

He gave her a nod. Picking up one of their two lanterns, he drew in an unhappy breath—and crawled into the tunnel.

“Sayyid, where are you—!” Neil exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You can’t possibly be—!”

“Neil,” Ellie said calmly, holding out her hand. “The ring.”

Neil looked from her to the gold-hued relic he still held in his palm, his expression twisted with conflict. “But we haven’t recorded the context!” he protested forlornly.

“I know,” Ellie said sympathetically. “And I am sorry for it. But we need to go.”

“No!” Neil burst out. He caught himself, containing his volume with obvious effort. “Why should we throw ourselves into a potentially deadly tunnel when the only thing at risk here is that I am about tolose my job?”

“Afraid it might be a bit more than that,” Adam cautioned as he watched the entrance to the shaft, his knife still ready in his hand.

Ellie grasped her brother’s shoulders, forcing him to face her. “I understand that this is all terribly hard to accept, but if you have ever had any faith in my intelligence and judgment, I am begging you to do what I am asking.”

Neil gazed at her helplessly. “I… I’m not… I don’t…”

Something inside of Ellie started to crack like a delicate fault in the surface of an old vase.

---