Shadows on the Aegean Read online

  The article concluded with Renfrock’s challenge to establishment archaeologists to “have faith” and “believe in the truth of legends.”

  “Wasn’t there a legend about some stones the Hebrews had?” she asked, flipping idly through the rest of the paper.

  “Yes. They were called the Urim and Thummim,” Clyde said. He had a general Near Eastern background, as opposed to the strictly Egyptian dynastic education the rest of the team shared.

  “Strange names,” Lisa said.

  “In Hebrew, ‘im’ is plural. They mean Justice and Mercy. Or Lights and Perfections, depending on the translation,” Clyde said. “According to legend, David’s high priest used them to learn what battles he would win.”

  “David?” Brian asked.

  “King David? The guy who slew Goliath? Did any of you go to Sunday school?” Clyde asked with a smile.

  “You’re saying he could talk to God?” Jon asked. “What a load of bullshit.”

  “How did the stones work?” Cammy asked.

  “Well,” Clyde said, his cadence slowing, “no one knows how exactly they were used, but the high priest carried them around in his ephod, that jeweled breastplate he wore, and they kept Israel out of a lot of trouble.”

  “What happened to them? I’m assuming, since I’ve not heard of them in any museum or collection, that they were lost,” Lisa said.

  “The Bible doesn’t mention them after the dividing of the monarchy, i.e. after the death of Solomon in 930 B.C.E.”

  “So Renfrock got his dates wrong,” Jon said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “When did they come into being?” Brian asked.

  “They’re mentioned biblically with Moses and Aaron, though that could be anachronistic. It’s rumored that Saul had a pair and David had a pair. Heck, there are legends that say Noah had ‘em on the Ark and one of his sons took ‘em,” Clyde said.

  “Noah? His sons?” Jon asked.

  “Even I know this,” Brian said. “Noah had three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. All the peoples of the world—”

  “The world as seen by the Hebrews,” Lisa said. “I don’t think Asia or Australia were included.”

  “Nah, I doubt they were,” Brian said. “Shem became the father of the nations called Semites. Arabs and Jews, et cetera. Ham was father of Egypt, Canaan, Libya, and Ethiopia.”

  “Most of Africa, then,” Cammy said.

  “Japheth is credited with the northern peoples: his offspring populated the land from the Caspian Sea to the Greek Isles.”

  “Actually, Greece was fathered by Japheth’s son, Noah’s grandson Javan,” Clyde said. “In Hebrew the word for ‘Greece’ actually is ‘Javan.’”

  “So one of Noah’s sons stole the stones?”

  Clyde shrugged. “It’s just a legend. No verification anywhere.”

  “So Noah allegedly called God for a weather report using these stones?” Cammy asked with a chuckle.

  “One would hope that weatherman would be more accurate,” Jon said.

  “ ‘The forecast calls for rain,’” Brian said. “ ‘A lot of rain.’ ”

  Lisa chuckled. “ ‘Rain to last for weeks. Don’t plan on gardening, there won’t be any ground.’”

  Cammy wondered: Was it possible that Renfrock had really found this Urim and Thummim? “Is it—”

  “No. They were mystical talismans, probably just some pretty rocks, and David had unbeatable luck, so the legend grew,” Clyde said. “If Renfrock has found anything, it’s just—”

  “Poppycock,” Brian suggested.

  The conversation moved away from the news article, and the group discussed their options while the dig was closed. Since there was no end in sight and it was midseason, the team was scattering. Camille and her sister, Chloe, were due to fly out of Cairo at the end of the month, to meet their parents at the Kingsley villa on the Greek isle of Santorini. Cammy’s mom would be there, fresh from her new excavation in the Aegean. Cammy’s dad was still in negotiating mode, who really knew where. Brian was returning to Melbourne, Lisa to Chicago, and Jon was off to Turkey. Clyde had gotten a last minute job with a team in Israel.

  If only she hadn’t grabbed the ceiling, if only the dig hadn’t collapsed—Camille fought down her feelings of guilt. She struggled to look happy and wished them all a great season. Everyone left except Clyde. Recently they’d begun to play cards together. Cammy could stuff the cards in her cast and with her mobile right fingers select and discard. Clyde was good company, and she helped him with his Arabic while they played. Fatima was everywhere, fluffing pillows, fetching them tea and pastries with shy smiles.

  Cammy was losing by two hands when Chloe walked in.

  Clyde was head over hiking boots in love with Cammy’s sister. In normal circumstances, Cammy would have been thrilled. However, Cammy hadn’t really liked her sister much in the past year. The intimacy they’d once shared was gone, just when Cammy really needed it, too.

  “How are you feeling?” Chloe said, brushing a kiss over Cammy’s cheek. She was wearing a short skirt, heels, and a clinging top. It was bare and daring for the United States, absolutely scandalous in the Middle East. Chloe’s cultural sensitivity had flown out the window along with her artistic ability, sweet nature, and sardonic tongue. Her long red hair fell over her shoulders, and her lipstick and heavy eyeliner underlined a sensuality Cammy had only recently seen in her sister.

  Clyde went mute. He never knew what to say around Chloe. His neck turned red, and sweat beaded his upper lip. A soft touch on his shoulder and another on his knee made him drop his cards. Cammy had witnessed this drama for the past weeks. Had Chloe always had this effect on men? It was odd, but Cammy sometimes felt as though someone else watched the world from behind Chloe’s eyes.

  Of the things that had changed in the past year, the changes in Chloe were the oddest. About a year ago, the Kingsley family had suffered a terrible scare. Chloe had gone missing on her birthday. Anton Zeeman, a Dutch doctor, was the last person who had seen her. When a chamber in Luxor Temple had been found splattered with blood, he had been held for her murder.

  Tests had shown that of the two types of blood present, neither was Chloe’s rare AB-negative. Cammy had been consumed with guilt. Chloe had been in Egypt at Cammy’s request. Despite the fact that Chloe was an adult, a military officer, and an entrepreneur, she was still Cammy’s kid sister. Cammy still felt responsible. Anton had gone free once the bloods were analyzed.

  Cammy shivered as she remembered the night he’d shown up at her door, pleading with her to believe him, to let him help. He hadn’t killed anyone. Not only had she forgiven him, but they had somehow wound up in bed, having the most cataclysmic sex Cammy had ever experienced.

  Don’t even go there, she admonished herself. Anton had realized it was a mistake; he’d never even called. Sick with guilt and worry, Cammy had returned to her dig and buried herself in work. Chloe had been found in early March. The feeling of relief was something Camille would never forget.

  Nor would she forget the eerie sensation of Chloe’s hysterical blindness or the fact that her sister’s eyes, once green as palms, were now brown. Concussion, the doctors said. Severe trauma related to a concussion. Odd, but not completely unheard of.

  Eye color was the least of the changes. Chloe, an artist to her very core, had not picked up a pen or paintbrush in almost a year. Moreover, she refused to leave Egypt, draining her accounts in Dallas. She had moved in with a young Egyptian named Phaemon, a man Cammy had never even met. She exhibited a stunning disregard for her parents’ feelings and their father’s reputation.

  In the Middle Eastern mind, one’s daughters were the honor of one’s household. Chloe was performing a slow hatchet job on their father’s role as a negotiator in the elaborate Middle East peace knot. Chloe knew that the Arabs, Palestinians, and even the Israelis were losing respect for her father, but she didn’t seem to care. She treated him like a stranger when he came to see her. They’d never had the best
of relationships, but this was extreme, even for them. Chloe had adamantly refused counseling, or talking to anyone, even family. She claimed she remembered nothing, she just wanted to be left alone.

  Aside from her height and her red hair, Chloe was unrecognizable.

  Camille still felt responsible. She also wasn’t sure she even liked her sister anymore.

  “Who is winning?” Chloe asked, resting her long-fingered hands on Clyde’s shoulders. Cammy pitied him: he was obviously fighting for composure, and when Chloe began kneading his shoulders, telling him how tense he was, Cammy wanted to scream. Deliberately she lost her hand and yawned.

  Clyde, with his Carolina manners, rose immediately. Holding his jean jacket in front of him, he wished them both a good day. Chloe brushed a kiss on his cheek, and he stumbled from the room, crashing into Fatima and making his confusion worse. The door slammed behind him, and Cammy listened to his footsteps retreating up the hall.

  “What a geek!” Chloe said, throwing herself into the chair by the bed.

  “If you don’t like him, why do you lead him on?”

  She shrugged. “It amuses me.”

  “He’s a colleague of mine, but more important he’s a nice, sweet, aboveboard guy. Leave him alone, Chloe.”

  “He’s a big boy. If he doesn’t want to play, he will tell me.”

  He doesn’t stand a chance with you, Cammy thought. You’ve turned into a man-eating predator! “Do you and Phaemon have holiday plans?”

  Chloe frowned for a moment, as though she didn’t understand Camille.

  “Is he joining us in Santorini?” Cammy said.

  Her sister’s fair skin flushed a little. “Phaemon is another religion, not sharing in these holidays, so I will be with him.”

  “What religion is he? Do you realize that you’ve been with him almost a year and I’ve never officially met him?” Other than the time I walked in on you two having sex in my bedroom and you invited me to join you. Cammy felt her own cheeks heat. What had happened to Chloe? It was enough to make one believe in alien abductions, she thought, glancing at the tabloid.

  Chloe dug into a stack of fashion magazines she’d brought. “He is rather, uh, shy.”

  “What does he do? Where is he from? Phaemon is an interesting name, ancient almost.…”

  “You are very inquisitive this morning, Cammy. You are feeling better, and this is how you repay my willingness to drive halfway across this barren land to be with you?” Chloe’s voice was raised, her brown eyes unreadable.

  The tension hovered while Chloe flipped through her magazines and Cammy replayed her words. She hadn’t been that harsh, had she? Weary from unease, she closed her eyes and turned toward the window. What she wouldn’t give to be back on her dig.

  Gold, dust, darkness … What had she seen?

  PART II

  CHAPTER 3

  ANCIENT EGYPT

  USER-AMUN SIGHED AND SCRATCHED HIS HEAD. His scalp itched. The solution that felt so refreshing when his head was just shaved made it itch horribly once it was dry. He rubbed his wiry fingers along the base of his neck and behind his ears. A loud meow made him open his eyes. His cat, Ner, sat before him. “You think I should pet you before scratching myself?” he asked, running his fingers over her pointed ears until the low resonance of her purr filled the room.

  Someone knocked at his door; User bade him enter. The priest was young, not fifteen Inundations, his pale brown eyes wide. “Life, prosperity, and health to you, noble User-Amun, netter of the House of Life. I am to bid you come to the temple. There has been an accident.”

  User placed Ner on the floor and rose, tightening his sash around his sagging belly. “What kind of accident?” he asked, pulling vials and ointments from the shelves that lined the room.

  “A man, trampled by an Apis bull,” the boy said. “There was another, but she is dead.”

  The physician turned, pausing for a moment. “This man still lives?”

  “He was pressed into manure and mud,” the boy said. “He managed to shield his face and let the mud take his body. Still, he has traveled far in his journey to the Afterworld.” The boy looked down. “Even now he may be at Anubis’ gates.”

  User handed his heavy parcels to the boy and drew the door closed behind them. “Which priest is it, son?”

  The boy shrugged. “I know not, my lord.”

  After the appropriate greetings, User was led to the victim. One look at the man’s body and the physician knew any aid would be in vain. Burning with fever, he was near death. His pulse was jumpy, his body stinking of manure. Bruises mottled his chest, legs, and arms. He would not live; it would be a waste of time and energies to care for him. The living needed the little food available in this time of famine. Better to let him embrace Anubis. “How did you find him?” User asked.

  “He was lying on his belly in the mud, his face turned into his shoulder, his hands protecting his sex,” the priest said.

  User picked up one of the victim’s long-fingered hands and saw a heavy tiger’s eye—and-gold scarab ring. Was this man a royal scribe to wear such fine jewelry? He had hair, so he was certainly no priest. Two of four fingers were broken; at least User-Amun could set them. When he pried open the man’s fist, a string-tied papyrus package fell from his palm.

  Using linen bandages, ointment, and heavy rush stems, User flattened the man’s hand into something resembling human. It would not do to enter the underworld without use of one’s left hand. He prayed in a sonorous tone from the Book of the Dead: “ ‘Fix tightly the bones in my neck and back. Let the linens embrace me.’ ”

  User ran sensitive hands over the body. Though the lung was not pierced, a rib or two were broken. The man’s ankle was swollen, and User administered cooling waters and bandages for it. “Give him to the House of Eternity,” he said. “He sleeps too deeply and his wounds are too extreme. He will die soon. ’Together my arm, wrist, and elbow are joined,’” he intoned.

  The priests covered his body and prepared to carry him. “My lord,” the sem -priest said, “there is also a woman to take to the House of Eternity.’

  “A woman?” User frowned at the man. How did a woman come to be in the bowels of the sacred bull’s running ground in an all-male temple? Beckoning, the man walked into another room. Again the stink of manure.

  She was so mangled that even in the afterlife her body would be of no use to her. Hooves had pounded her body into a pulp, bruised beyond identification. “No rings, no indication of who she was?” User asked.

  “Nay, my lord. All of the priests on duty have been questioned.”

  “Her linen is fine stuff,” User-Amun said, touching the once bright sash wrapped around her waist. Good-quality leather sandals shod her feet, and her hair was real, not a wig. User looked more closely at her body.

  Strangely enough, neither of the victims had the appearance of famine sufferers. Both were firmly built, with clear skin beneath the muck, hair that was lustrous and well rooted in the scalp. User picked an instrument out of his basket and opened the woman’s mouth.

  The priest hissed in shock. Never had either of them seen such healthy teeth! Strong, white, and not even one missing! Fear pricked User-Amun’s spine, and he made a gesture against the Evil Eye. Her face was pummeled, her eyes blackened. On pure impulse he drew back an eyelid.

  In his thirty Inundations of serving the House of Life, User had never been so frightened. “Isis! Protectress!” he pleaded.

  The woman’s eyes were blank. Not just sunken or rolled into her head. She had no irises … just white orbs.

  The priest had stepped away, fingering his udjet eye amulet. User looked at the woman’s body again. Something unearthly was being played here.

  “When was she found?”

  “The twenty-third of Phamenoth.”

  The most fearful day in the Egyptian calendar. Khaibits, fanged shades, and khefts, laughing demons, roamed the night. Unexplainable things happened. Wise men locked their doors and prayed
for Ra’s light. Why had the priests waited so long to summon him? Death was so common in the two lands now that even the priesthood was behind schedule. “Destroy her,” he said in an undertone.

  “My lord?”

  “Her ka fled her body before death. Her eyes, the windows of her soul, are empty. She is a shell, abandoned. Her body is broken, of no use in the afterlife. Something beyond our knowing has happened.” He looked at the scared priest. “We must protect ourselves and destroy her corpse!”

  “We cannot do that here, my lord. We are a temple! Perhaps the House of Eternity …”

  “Nay, fool! They will seek to preserve her. We cannot let that happen. Come. Now. We’ll offer her to the Nile.”

  The priest slowly nodded agreement, his hand never leaving his amulet.

  “Nay, wait,” User-Amun said. “Tonight. We’ll do it tonight.”

  “So where does she stay?” the priest asked, frantically backing away from the corpse.

  “I have the responsibility of the man, the woman is yours until tonight.”

  “Why must we do this?” the priest whispered.

  User-Amun paused in the doorway. “Her ka will not return to this body. Should a khaibit or kheft wish to, however, they could bring ukhedu life to her.”

  The priest blanched. Ukhedu was vile poison. It filled a body when someone was sick. Medicaments and prayers fought the ukhedu for possession of the body. It was the basis of evil in the human condition. It brought madness, destruction, uneasy death. A body under the control of the ukhedu would upset the balance of Ma’at, the equilibrium of the universe.

  Once on the other side of the door, the sem-priest barred it. With trembling fingers he set his seal in the wax, forbidding entry. Two w’rer -priests were assigned to help User-Amun with the man’s body. Together they began to make their way to the House of Eternity.

  “My lord! My lord!”

  User paused. They had just left the mud-brick tenemos walls of the temple, carrying the wrapped body of the victim between two shavenheaded priests. A w’eb -priest ran up. Cow dung and mud covered his feet and hands, and he quickly crossed his chest in respect.