The Sleeper in the Sands Read online

  Intrigued, I asked him to explain himself.

  Ahmed shrugged a second time. ‘It is believed, when a tomb is uncovered in the Valley, that one of these symbols must be left upon the mummy, so that the spirits of the Kings will not be woken from their sleep.’

  I frowned. ‘Why would they be woken?’

  ‘It is nonsense, sir, all nonsense.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I pressed him, ‘but what do people say?’

  ‘There is an old story . . .’ Ahmed paused to glance down at the mummy -- ‘a very old story . . . that, long, long ago, a tomb was discovered. Great treasures were found inside it -- unimaginable wealth - but also a secret of terrible evil . . .’ He swallowed and paused again, appearing suddenly uncomfortable; but I could not permit him to halt now, so I insisted that he continue. ‘The secret?’ I demanded. ‘What was the secret?’

  Ahmed frowned at me, then suddenly laughed. ‘Why, sir, what do you think? In these foolish stories of ours, wherever there is treasure there must also be a demon. This particular demon had once been a Pharaoh, buried in his tomb. When he was disturbed, he punished those who had released him, for he had the power to summon up the spirits of the dead.’ Ahmed paused again, and bent down closer by the mummy in its coffin. ‘The demon, by Allah’s grace, was destroyed in the end. And so it was, you understand, sir, that the tomb which had been disturbed was sealed up once again, and for many years the Valley was left well alone -- for it was feared that wherever treasure might be uncovered, there also the demons would certainly be found.’

  ‘Whereas now . . .’

  Ahmed glanced up at me inquiringly.

  ‘Whereas now,’ I repeated, ‘people no longer seem afraid of any demons.’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ Ahmed whispered, his face suddenly solemn, ‘they are still afraid.’ He raised his candle to inspect the amulet. ‘But has it not ever been this way?’ He smiled faintly. ‘That greed, in the end, will always conquer fear?’

  Well, I reflected later, that was a pertinent enough warning for any Chief Inspector to be offered, and I certainly had no intention of ignoring it. I duly installed gates upon the most prominent tombs, but, alas! - Ahmed’s words were to return to haunt me all the same. Barely months after he had spoken them, the very tomb in which we had been standing together was brutally ransacked, with even the wrappings being torn from the mummy. Fortunately, there had been no valuable objects left upon the body, and the damage to the tomb itself was only very slight. I could not help but understand fully now, however, what a task of conservation I had before me, and so I was careful to fit the gates even more securely than before, and to install electric lights. I also stepped up my night patrols and to be sure, roaming across the cliffs alone and unarmed, always on the lookout for the marks of clandestine excavations, did not want for excitement. At such moments, with the blaze of the stars above me and the tombs all around, it did not seem so hard to believe in demons after all!

  Nor, if truth be told, had the proof of the tomb-robbers’ continuing interest in the Valley altogether disappointed me. I had been in the area of Thebes long enough now, and grown sufficiently familiar with the habits of its natives, to have developed a healthy respect for their lore. I could not, of course, readily admit this to my colleagues in the government service, who would have viewed such a trust as both degrading and foolish -- yet I had grown convinced that superstitions might sometimes veil the germs of fact. Certainly, the tradition to which Ahmed Girigar had alluded - that a tomb filled with treasure had once been found by the villagers - appeared exceedingly plausible; and if one such tomb had already been found, then why should not a second be uncovered in the future? On this point, at least, the logic of the tomb-robbers struck me as being perfectly sound - so sound, indeed, that I was eager to follow it myself.

  Yet it was not merely the prospect of treasure which served to preoccupy my thoughts. Despite Ahmed’s explanation of their function, the amulets I had discovered within the royal tombs continued to perplex me, for the mystery of their origin, and of their apparent connection to Akh-en-Aten’s sun, appeared beyond explanation. I was tempted to dismiss them as either a hoax or coincidence; yet there was, after all, one other explanation which presented itself. Suppose a tomb with treasure had indeed once been found -- might not the image of the Aten have been uncovered with the gold?

  Such a solution, of course, could only be tentative. Nevertheless, it was confirmed for me by one particular episode, which may strike the reader as trivial, but which affected me strongly. It happened one night, as I was out patrolling the cliffs above the Valley, that I heard a muffled scrabbling sound such as I knew could mean only one thing. The noise was coming from a narrow ravine just below me; and so, as quietly as I could, I descended the cliff and walked up the ravine. Just ahead of me, and illumined by the very faint flickering of a torch, I could make out the doorway of a hitherto unrecorded tomb. The scrabbling was coming from within it, and as I paused by the doorway I could make out two voices whispering together. One was a man’s, very peremptory and impatient; the other, shrill and almost hysterical with fear, seemed to belong to a boy.

  I peered round the corner of the doorway. Two figures, one very slight, both cloaked in black, were standing in a passageway; ahead of them, its doorway half-sealed by a pile of dust and stones, loomed the darkness of a further chamber. The man, so it appeared, had ordered his companion to pass through the gap, but the boy was wailing and shuddering with dread. Through his sobs, I could make out choking references to demons - for it seemed he was afraid he might disturb the sleeping dead. Then he turned and raised his arm to point at an image painted on the wall, and as he did so, I caught the glint in his eyes and I started, for I thought I had never before seen a look of such fear. Unfortunately, my sudden movement disturbed a trickle of pebbles and the two thieves were alerted to my presence. I attempted to apprehend them, but the elder at least was a seasoned villain and, by the simple expedient of producing a knife, was able to effect a speedy escape for himself and his boy. I was disappointed, naturally, but relieved as well to have secured a fresh tomb. Summoning Ahmed Girigar, I ordered him to prepare it for excavation, and placed well-armed guards on either side of the door.

  In the event, the tomb proved to have been plundered in antiquity, for there was little to be found in the burial chamber save only the fragments of funereal furniture and jars. Certainly, I discovered nothing which might have justified the expression of terror I had glimpsed upon the youthful tomb-robber’s face; yet so striking had it been, so evident and vivid his fear, that I could not believe it had been caused merely by shadows. Had he known of the tale which I had heard from Ahmed Girigar? Was it that which had caused him to seem so afraid? The evidence was circumstantial; but present all the same. For the image on the wall which had so startled him proved to be a figure of Osiris - that same god who, in the Ancients’ mythology, had been the King of the Dead, and before whom, in all the other tombs, an amulet with an Aten had been carefully laid. And sure enough, some two days after my initial discovery of the tomb, the same thing occurred: entering the passageway I found, placed before the figure of Osiris, an amulet stamped with the figure of the Aten. As to who might have laid it there, I could find no clue at all.

  Nevertheless, I was strongly encouraged, for I was almost certain now that my initial hypothesis had been correct and that the natives, however long ago, must indeed have found a tomb adorned with the Aten. The discovery could only have had a profound effect upon them - how else to explain the continued use of the Aten as a charm into the present day, against the demons imagined to lurk within the tombs? It amused me to think that these demons were associated by the natives with the figure of Osiris. What had led them to make such a connection I could not imagine, but I was sure that Akh-en-Aten’s spirit at least would not have disapproved!

  Of course, I could not be certain whose resting-place it had been which the natives had disturbed. One candidate, indeed, was already known to archaeo
logy -- the tomb of Akh-en-Aten’s father, Amen-hetep the Third, long since plundered and abandoned as empty. That still left other possibilities, however, which had not been found: the tombs of Akh-en-Aten’s mother, his children, perhaps even his wife. If only one of these had been broken into by the natives, then the others, so I trusted, might still be intact. All I needed now were time and resources, and I felt hopeful that I might indeed make a wonderful discovery, so that my name would be rendered famous in my chosen field for ever more. Time, I supposed, would not be a problem; only resources appeared to threaten my plans, for the Service des Antiquites did not pay well and, of course, I had no private funds of my own. I could not, though, endure to have my ambitions frustrated; and, indeed, eager and almost confident as I was, I had already cast my eyes upon a possible solution.

  The moon tonight is full. As I sit here at my desk, I can see through my window that the very mountains seem touched by a ghostly silver. On a night such as this, one might almost believe in the spirits of the dead: that they are gliding along the road as it curves past my house, in sheeted, silent crowds, towards the pass which leads into the Valley of the Kings. Of course, it is not the custom for archaeologists to admit to such fancies; yet if they are honest, I think, they will not deny altogether that they have them. For what, after all, is the great hope of our calling if not the faith which we share with the Ancients themselves -- that the past may be restored to the dimension of the living, that life may be breathed into that which is gone?

  Certainly, although it has often angered me in its more idiotic manifestations, I have never despised that lure of romance which attracts so many to this land. Why should I? It is a foolish man who would ignore a source of income. For indeed it was upon a night just like tonight, when the moon shone full upon the temple of Karnak and cast the monstrous structures a pale and deathly silver, that I secured the funding I had been so desperate to obtain. In my role as a guide to the rich, I had long since discovered how there is nothing like mystery to open up a wallet; and Karnak more than anywhere, when lit by a spectral gleam, can seem a place much haunted by the spectres of the past.

  My companion on that night, wandering through the empty courtyards and halls, was an American by the name of Theodore Davis. A retired lawyer, he had come originally to Egypt for the sake of his health but, having rapidly grown fed up with lingering on his house-boat, he had taken instead to poking about Thebes. He had soon become a familiar sight in the Valley as he strode between the tombs, his white moustachioes bristling, a cigarette forever clenched between his teeth. He was a tiny, restless, eccentric man -- but he was also, it so happened, both bored and very rich.

  It is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that his interest in the Valley had not gone unnoticed by me. Indeed, I had always been most careful to guide him through the freshest discoveries and had lately begun to observe, as I discussed my work with him, how fiercely his bright eyes had taken to gleaming. ‘But there must be more to discover!’ he would bark at me impatiently. ‘There must be more to find out!’ I had never denied it; nor, though, until that night at Karnak, had I done more than hint at my own private speculations. I had preferred to leave the bait dangling - and thereby make all the more certain of pulling in my catch.

  I could tell, as we stood amidst the temple’s massive columns that evening, that he was impatient to bite. ‘Dammit, Carter,’ he exploded suddenly, ‘dammit to hell but this whole damn place seems a mystery.’ He waved his arms expansively, his cigarette scattering sparks as he did so. ‘What business does it have with being so vast?’ He glared at me accusingly, as though he were in some courtroom again and I an obstructive witness. ‘Well,’ he pressed me, ‘what do you say?’

  ‘We know,’ I shrugged, ‘that it was sacred to Amen, the greatest of the gods.’

  ‘But look at it . . .’ -- he waved with his arms again -- ‘this was sure as hell something more than a temple. This was. . . well ... a whole damn city!’ He began to walk forward, past the silhouettes of obelisks and tumbled granite blocks. ‘Imagine it, Carter! The wealth, the power those priests must have had! Where did it come from?’

  ‘It is true,’ I answered, accompanying him, ‘that Amen was a somewhat mysterious god.’

  Davis’s eyes darted beadily back at me. ‘How so?’

  ‘How?’ I smiled faintly. ‘Because mystery was the very heart of his cult.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I stared into the darkness of the ruins ahead. ‘The name of Amen,’ I murmured, ‘translates into English as “the hidden one”. His titles too -- “unknown”, “unknowable”, “mysterious of form” -- all appear to suggest the same thing: that his true identity could never be revealed; that his hidden nature was incalculably strange.’

  Davis frowned at me. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It is clear enough, I think, that his priests imagined themselves the guardians of some secret -- some magical source of wisdom and power, derived from an incalculably ancient source.’

  ‘Your evidence for this, Mr Carter?’

  ‘We have a papyrus,’ I shrugged, ‘found some forty years ago, which relates how Isis, the sister of Osiris and Seth, became “Weret Hekau”, or “Great of Magic”. It appears that she achieved this by blackmailing Amen, and gaining from him the knowledge of the secret of his name. But what was that secret? The papyrus does not say. Nor is it the only one to drop such tantalising hints. In another papyrus, a hymn to Amen, it is proclaimed how the god is “too great to be inquired after, too powerful to be learned”, that “people fall down all at once for fear, lest his true name be revealed”. Evidently it was believed that, in the whole of the universe, there was nothing of greater or more magical power. That was what the priests of Amen claimed to guard. And that was the source’ -- I gestured -- ‘of the splendour of this place.’

  Davis stared at me in wide-eyed silence for a moment, then snorted impatiently. ‘Yes, but that’s only old stories and myths,’ he complained. ‘What about hard facts? Isn’t that what your own profession’s for? What light has archaeology been able to shed on all this?’

  ‘Remarkably little,’ I replied straight away.

  ‘Well dammit, Carter,’ he barked, gesticulating at the ruins with his arms once again, ‘there must be some clues in a place this damn size!’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but though the complex was vast, the innermost shrine was remarkably small.’ I began to walk forward again, Davis accompanying me, almost, I thought, as though I were some ancient priest, and he an eager acolyte, drawn by me into great mysteries. We passed the shattered base of a mighty gate, and then I turned to gaze back at the route we had taken. Gateway after gateway, hall after hall, the ruins stretched away. ‘The most magnificent processional route in the world,’ I murmured. ‘And yet where does it lead us? It leads us to -- here.’ I turned again, and gestured. I saw how Davis frowned. For where I had pointed, there was nothing to be seen: nothing but dust and fragments of stone.

  Davis’s frown deepened. ‘What are we looking for?’

  I bent and scooped up a handful of the dust. ‘If only we knew’

  ‘What are you saying, Carter? That this is where the shrine of Amen once stood?’

  ‘The most sacred place in Egypt, Mr Davis - the veritable Holy of Holies. Yet as you can see . . .’ -- I flung the dust away, so that it was scattered on the breeze -- ‘there is not a trace of it left. No hint of what the mysteries of Amen could have been.’

  Davis stared at me in silence a long while, then, with great deliberation, he finished his cigarette and ground the butt into the dust with his heel. ‘So tell me, Carter . . .’ -- he narrowed his eyes - ‘what exactly is it you are getting at?’

  ‘You were a lawyer, Mr Davis,’ I answered him slowly. ‘It is a principle of law, is it not, that the testimony of the prosecution must be as valid as that of the defence?’

  Davis reached in his pocket for another cigarette. ‘Go on,’ he nodded, striking a match.

&n
bsp; I watched as the flame hissed and spurted. ‘You have asked me,’ I murmured softly, ‘what might have been the secret guarded by the priests. Certainly, we know that whoever -- whatever - Amen may have been, even the greatest of the Pharaohs stood in awe of such a god. All the Pharaohs . . .’ -- I paused -- ‘save only one.’

  Davis breathed out a thick plume of smoke. ‘You are referring, I presume, to King Akh-en-Aten?’

  ‘Very good,’ I nodded, ‘so you know of him. Then you will also know, perhaps, how after his death his name, his religion, his very line were extirpated utterly by the vengeful priests of Amen. Yet the oblivion which fell upon his family, the attempt to wipe them from the record of history, may have served by great irony to have kept their tombs intact.’

  Davis puckered his brow. ‘You have proof of this?’

  ‘Let us say, I have weighed the probabilities.’

  ‘And in these tombs -- supposing they are indeed unplundered -- what exactly is it you’d be hoping to find?’

  I breathed in deeply. From far away I heard the sudden crying of a jackal, faint but distinctive, its mournful tones borne across the sands on the wind. ‘What might we find in the tombs?’ I murmured. ‘Secrets, perhaps. Clues as to the power which the priests of Amen worshipped, and which Akh-en-Aten sought to destroy. Clues long buried, these three thousand years.’ I paused, for the jackal had started to howl once again, and this time so unearthly did it sound that it served to freeze my tongue. Then the breeze dimmed; and I felt myself oppressed by an unexpected sense of closeness, as though the stars were crowding the rubble-strewn dust and the gateways behind us were breaking like a wave. A nausea clouded my thoughts, so that I half-stumbled and had to support myself against a toppled column. I had not felt such a strange and irrational horror, I thought, for a long while -- not since I had stood in the chamber of Akh-en-Aten’s tomb and gazed upon the face of the painting of his Queen. Yet even as I recalled this, I felt the horror fade, and I could hear, not the howling of a jackal now, but the more comforting noises of an Egyptian night, the whispering of palm trees, the swaying of crops. I turned back to Davis. ‘In truth,’ I said softly, ‘who knows what we may find? For a mystery must stay a mystery until brought into the light.’