Part 12 (1/2)
”The pharaoh-King Tut.”
The guard lowered his eyes. ”You can't save him.”
He was right about that. Only Quinn could save Quinn. I knew that. But if he was still alive, perhaps I could give him the means to save himself. ”Where would he be now? Where would they take him?”
”It doesn't matter,” he said flatly. ”King Tut dies-King Tut always dies. You can't change the ride.”
Well, we'd see about that. I started to follow the guard out, but in the corner of the room the phantom image of my father began to speak.
”Blake?”
His face was still fuzzy and unclear, but I had to admit his voice was the voice I remembered.
”I told you what you wanted to know. Now you have to do something for me.”
”What?”
”Let me out of here,” he said. ”Please. I've been in this place for a long, long time.”
In the torchlight I could see how truly helpless he was in those shackles. It was a fair request. Whatever he might deserve, I didn't think he deserved this tomb. I picked up a stone lying on the ground and smashed the chains until the links broke.
Once he was free, he left. Simple as that. Just like he did all those years ago. No apologies, no thank-yous, no good-byes. Still, it didn't change the choice I made to let him go.
12.
No Guts, No Glory The room where they had taken Quinn was a long chamber full of stone tables, and you can guess what was on each of those tables. The process of mummification is not pretty. Making one mummy is bad enough, but here, where there was a new King Tut every evening, it was an a.s.sembly line-or a disa.s.sembly line, I guess you might say. On each table was another unfortunate rider in some stage of the process. Quinn was in the earliest stage, and still, to my relief, very much alive.
The temple guard and a few of his conspirators had smuggled me in, but in my current hiding place I couldn't do anything to help my brother. Not yet, anyway. He was just a few yards away from me, but all I could do was watch. He was still groggy from the drugs he'd been given, but even if he'd had all his strength, he wouldn't have been able to tear free from the ropes that tied down his arms and legs. He glanced at the fully wrapped mummy on the slab next to him.
An old woman with red cheeks tended to him. She seemed pleasant enough, humming to herself as she removed Quinn's facial rings, and put them on an alabaster tray.
”Who said you could take those?” Quinn said, defiant to the last.
”You just relax, dearie,” she said, sounding like someone's grandma. ”I'll take care of everything.” She smiled at him and gently patted his hand. He pulled his hand away.
”So am I dead now?” Quinn asked. ”Is this what death is?”
”No, you're just drugged. In this heat it's always best to keep you alive until we begin work, there being no refrigeration and all.”
Quinn thought about this while Madame Embalmer continued humming to herself, measuring Quinn with some sort of ruler shorter than a yardstick. Maybe it was a cubit stick.
”What are you doing?” Quinn asked.
”Measuring you for your sarcophagus, dearie.” She turned and shouted angrily at one of her a.s.sistants. ”ACHMED!” she yelled. ”Easy on the salt!”
Her gawky a.s.sistant, who didn't look much older than me, had shoveled a mountain of sea salt over an ex-Tut who was already well on the way to long-term preservation. ”Yes, ma'am,” Achmed said dutifully.
Madame Embalmer shook her head and looked down at Quinn. ”Waste, waste, waste! The way he uses that salt, you'd think the Dead Sea were around the corner!”
That's when Ca.s.sandra showed up, still decked out in her Egyptian glory. I flinched and then realized that even a flinch could give me away. But I was lucky. No one saw me.
She looked at Quinn and kissed him on the forehead. ”I want him put on the fast track,” she told Madame Embalmer.
”Was he a good Tut?” she asked.
”Oh, completely incompetent,” Ca.s.sandra said.
I could see Quinn's eyes getting moist, but his jaw was still set hard. I wonder what he was feeling. Shame? Humiliation? The realization that this truly was the end of the line? Suddenly he pulled against his bonds, but Madame Embalmer was right there to comfort him.
”There, there. Don't you worry.”
”Wh-What's going to happen to me?”
The old woman looked at Ca.s.sandra for permission before speaking.
”Well, it's really rather simple,” said Madame Embalmer, taking on a singsong tone of voice, as if she were reading him a bedtime story. ”First we disembowel-”
”Disembowel?”
”Yes. We take out your heart, lungs, liver, kidneys-every organ-and tuck them nicely away in their own little jars. Except, of course, for your brain. We pull that out through your nose with a hook.”
Quinn whimpered.
”Then,” continued the old woman, ”when you're nice and empty on the inside, we cover you with salt, to dry you up.” At the sound of a nasty splat, she turned to her a.s.sistant.
”ACHMED!”
Achmed picked up something from the floor and fumbled with it in his arms. I couldn't quite make out what it was, but it looked suspiciously liverlike. ”Sorry, ma'am.”
”b.u.t.terfingers!”
Achmed slipped the thing carefully into an earthen jar with a sickening slosh. I closed my eyes and grimaced. Now I had a legitimate reason never to eat my mother's liver-and-onions again.
There were tears rolling down Quinn's cheeks. He was afraid, and maybe for the first time in his life he was admitting that he was. ”I don't want to be empty on the inside,” he cried. ”Please . . . please don't do this.”
For a moment I thought I saw compa.s.sion in Ca.s.sandra's gaze, but it only lasted for a moment. ”Shut him up,” she said. ”I don't like it.”
”I'll go get a gag for him.”
The old woman left, and Ca.s.sandra strode down to the far end of the hall, where the mummies could no longer talk back.
This was my chance. I rose from the table where I'd been lying and hurried to Quinn. When he saw me, his eyes bulged, and he opened his mouth to scream. I clamped my linen-covered hand over his mouth before he could make a sound.