Chapter12
A Frightful Face
Meanwhile, inside the burial chamber
Although a wide-eyed face lit by herfanooswas enough to have Diana’s heart rate racing in surprise, it was David’s reaction that truly scared her.
Never in her life had she heard such a frightening sound as what had come out of his throat.On top of that, the yowling scream’s echo continued to reverberate through the burial chamber long after it had first sounded.
“David!”she admonished.“You’ll wake the dead.”
Behind her, the eventual heir to the Devonville marquessate stood wide-eyed with fright.“Isn’t he already?”
She gave him a quelling glance.“It’s just a boy,” she said, lowering the lantern so the youngster didn’t appear as a disembodied head.Bronze-skinned and thin, he was familiar and displaying an expression of amusement.“You were tending to the camels,” she said, not making it a question.
The boy nodded.“Ari,” he said, pointing to his chest.
“Diana,” she said, placing a hand on her chest.She moved it to David’s shoulder.“Lord Penton.”She noticed how at the mention of “Lord”, the young boy’s eyes widened, as if he recognized the English title to be one of importance.He immediately sobered and bowed low.
Diana gave a start when she realized the boy didn’t have a source of light.“Where is your lantern?Uh…fanoos?”she clarified, lifting hers slightly.
Ari shrugged.“No light, but I carry for you,” he offered.“Escort you out.”
Diana exchanged a quick glance with David, realizing the boy had negotiated the passages in the pitch black.He had probably done so since he could walk.“Don’t we go out the same way we came in?”
He nodded.“Salman sent me.In case you are lost.”
Bristling at the comment, Diana was about to put voice to a protest but instead said, “I wish to see the relieving chambers,” she said, pointing up.“The ones that were discovered a few years ago.With the red-painted walls?”she added, hoping the boy understood.
Ari shook his head.
“What are the relieving chambers?”David asked, keeping his query low given how every sound echoed so loudly in the chamber.He had unrolled the map Salman had given him and was holding it in the light of his lantern.
“Above the burial chamber,” she said, pointing to the crude rectangles in the drawing.“Apparently meant to safeguard the king’s chamber should the roof collapse.
“That could happen?”David asked in surprise.
“The fact that they planned for the possibility is rather telling,” she replied.“But then this was one of the early straight-sided pyramids, so they were probably still learning how to build them.”
“What do you know of the relieving chambers?”
“Nathaniel Davison discovered the lowest one eighty years ago, and Howard Vyse found the others when he was last here in thirty-seven,” she replied.“He, uh, used gunpowder to open up some passageways that lead up to the other four chambers,” she added, grimacing at the thought of the interior masonry being disturbed.“He wrote that the walls of the upper chambers are covered in graffiti painted with red ochre,” she explained.“Possibly with the names of the workers who built the pyramid, because they were painted prior to being put into place.”
“How would he know that?”David asked, his gaze darting to see that Ari was listening intently to her words.
“Some of the inscriptions are upside down or sideways, and some are partially obstructed by other blocks,” she explained.
David turned to the boy.“How do we get up there?”he asked, lifting his lantern in an attempt to illuminate any openings.
“The tunnel is high,” Ari replied, pointing back toward the grand gallery.“No ladder.Not allowed.”
“Can you show me where it is?”Diana asked.“The tunnel?”
“Diana,” David said in a whisper.“We don’t have the means to climb,” he argued.
“I just wish to seehowDavison got in,” she replied.
“Lead the way, Ari,” David said.
