Page 53 of Tomb of the Sun King

Mr. Al-Ahmed bristled, holding up a defensive hand. “I am not saying that I have seen any… glowing bones. Only that my father might have mentioned such things to me before, when I was a boy.”

“Your father?” Ellie pressed.

“Kamal Hussein Al-Ahmed. He was…” Mr. Al-Ahmed drew in a breath as though struggling to think of how best to complete the sentence. “He served as a foreman on digs throughout both Upper and Lower Egypt. He told me once that he had found artifacts that held flashes of the old powers described in the ancient stories.”

He cast a quick, uncomfortable glance at his audience, clearly nervous as to how his revelation was being received. Constance had set her elbows on her knees, leaning forward eagerly. Mrs. Al-Ahmed’s expression was more hooded—enough that Ellie found it hard to guess what she was thinking.

Neil looked betrayed, gaping at his foreman from behind his smudged spectacles.

Mr. Al-Ahmed’s jaw tightened at the look. “They were just a few things in glass cases in the museum. I remember a bronze amulet inscribed with a spell of protection against snakes, along with a senet board. My abba… claimed it might receive messages from the dead.”

“But that’s a load of superstitious nonsense,” Neil blurted, obviously bewildered. “I thought your father was a scholar.”

“Hewasa scholar.” Mr. Al-Ahmed’s eyes briefly flashed with hurt. “A scholar, linguist, and scientist. And he was not the sort of man who teased children with a bit of fancy. He was not fanciful.”

He looked at the rest of them as though challenging anyone else to echo Neil’s accusation. “My father told me that he had worked very hard to make sure those pieces stayed here in Egypt instead of going to the partage share and disappearing into Germany or America. He would not have taken that risk out ofsuperstition.”

Ellie was familiar with the system of partage—the law that dictated which of the artifacts found in Egypt stayed there and which belonged to the foreign museums or investors who funded the various excavations.

Any artifacts of significant historical or archaeological value were supposed to go to Egypt’s share, with duplicates or less-important pieces granted to the excavators and their sponsors—but that wasn’t always how it worked. The network of powerful men who dominated Egypt’s archaeological scene was small and close-knit, and those sorts of ties could result in ‘favors’ being done… or there was always bureaucratic incompetence or deliberate fraud to help a desired artifact escape the country.

For an Egyptian foreman to go up against that system and win spoke of careful brilliance and a great deal of quiet ingenuity.

Mr. Al-Ahmed looked to Ellie—and almost defiantlynotat Neil. “I cannot dismiss what you claim as impossible.”

Neil stood. He crossed over to the door, looking into the open-air courtyard with his arms crossed over his chest as he oozed silent frustration.

“In British Honduras,” Ellie continued, “Mr. Bates and I were drawn into an effort to prevent one such artifact from falling into the hands of the gentleman you briefly met this evening, Professor Dawson, and his… rather unsavory colleague, Mr. Jacobs.”

“I had a brief run-in with Mr. Jacobs in London before Ellie left,” Constance added with a note of relish. “I can confirm that he is desperately intimidating, even when one has only seen the top of his head.”

“And he is thankfully not here,” Ellie added. “If he had been, our escape from the tomb would have been far more…complicated,” she finished with an awkward look at the obviously disapproving Mrs. Al-Ahmed.

“That guy turns up like a bad penny,” Adam cut in grimly. “I wouldn’t count on having seen the last of him.”

“In British Honduras, we were able to keep Dawson and Jacobs from acquiring the object they sought, but it was destroyed in the process. Along with… a great deal more,” Ellie admitted with a wince and a burst of guilt.

It still horrified her to remember the sight of the city of Tulan crumbling into oblivion—as a direct result of her own actions. She had spent many nights lying awake as she wondered whether there might have been a different way for her to stop the Smoking Mirror from falling into Dawson and Jacobs’ hands. Surely she should have been able to think of something—though she couldn’t entirely take credit for the course of action that shehadtaken.

The words of an old priest echoed through her mind.

You followed the path the mirror set for you. You buried it with the bones of all its dead.

“This Dawson,” Mr. Al-Ahmed asked slowly. “What does he mean to use these…”

“Arcana,” Ellie filled in, even though it irked her to have to use Dawson’s word for it. She hadn’t been able to think of a better one.

“…thesearcanafor?” he finished.

“That jackass isn’t using them for anything,” Adam replied. “He works for somebody else.”

“We don’t know who,” Ellie quickly added, anticipating the next question. “Only that it’s some sort of secretive organization… one that doesn’t mind resorting to theft or murder to achieve their goals.”

“I suppose that assessment is confirmed by the… er, very slim possible presence of perhaps a gunshot or two in the tomb this evening,” Mr. Al-Ahmed said, flashing an uncomfortable look at his wife.

Her mouth thinned.

“And clearly, Julian Forster-Mowbray is working with them,” Constance noted. “Though I still find it hard to believe that Julian is half so interesting as all that.”

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