*
Sunrise, The Next Morning
Waking with a jolt, Ardeth sat bolt upright, an action he instantly regretted. Bringing a hand up to his throbbing head, he winced and closed his eyes in a fruitless attempt to ease the splintered pounding inside his skull.
"God be merciful," he muttered, reasoning he was suffering from what Rick O'Connell would probably call 'the mother of all hangovers'.
Cracks of tepid sunlight filtered through the tent flap, the stillness of the encampment telling him it was barely daybreak. Kneading the bridge of his nose, the Med-Jai commander clambered to his feet and cursed as the world tipped at a crazy angle. Splashing cold water onto his face from the half-full pitcher, he squinted through water-beaded eyelashes at something shining on the woolly rug. Bending, he picked it up between thumb and forefinger. It was a tiny gold disk, no thicker than paper. Groaning inwardly as he realised the visitation by the white lady, a title he now automatically assigned the inscrutable woman, had not been a dream, he shuffled to the tent flap.
He had slept through the night, although he could not recall lying down. His last cognizant thought had been to wake his lieutenants, increase security and rouse the Elders. Warily, he opened the tent flap and peered out into the cool early morning. Tranquil against the steadily brightening carmine-streaked sunrise, the camp was beginning to stir. Here and there, flaps opened and sleepy occupants emerged, stretching, yawning and thinking of breakfast. No scene of carnage greeted him, and he realised he had not really been expecting such a thing. Stumping back inside his tent, he set about dressing, finally pulling on his boots. Some minutes later, the impatient snort and whiney of horses caught his attention. Ducking beneath the flap, fastening his bandoleers as he did so, he saw a group of three coal black stallions cantering through the encampment.
"Mawlana!" the nearest rider called, pulling his kuffiyeh away from his face. "News from Cairo!"
Ardeth waited for the riders to approach, noting the sweaty glisten of the stallions' coats. It seemed they had ridden hard throughout the night. Catching hold of the leading horse's bridle as the rider pulled it up, Bey patted the panting animal's muzzle soothingly, calling for water.
"What news, my friends?" he asked, stepping aside to allow through hurrying boys bearing buckets of water for the exhausted mounts.
Jumping down from horseback, the leader of the scout band touched his brow in greeting. Desert dusty, face seamed with sweat cemented sand, he appeared concerned.
"Azim Fahrer, the antiques dealer, is dead," he reported. "He was found last night by the servant boy he employs… he was covered in hundreds of asp bites, but though the shop was locked, not a single snake was found. His tongue was also removed."
Ardeth absorbed the information wordlessly, expression darkening. Smelling the smoky tang of newly lit wood fires as wives and daughters began their daily chores, he swallowed a sudden wave of nausea. Resolving to visit Aziza and ask for one of her famous herbal remedies, he ignored the plaintive complaint of his body and stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"His loose tongue," he hypothesised sombrely. "Tell me, have you spoken with the boy?"
"Yes, and that's why we came so quickly," the other man nodded. "It seems there was more than one white woman searching for relics of Isis – the boy says there was a visitor to the shop, an English lady by the name of Rhiannon Ward…"
The scout leader paused and grimaced regretfully, exchanging glances with his fellow riders. Through their travel weariness, a certain unease was evident in the way their hands unconsciously rested near their scimitar hilts.
"Yes?" Bey prompted.
"We traced her to her hotel, Mawlana – the Royal Ibis. We're not sure how, but she has the Horn of Isis. It was described on a customs inventory with other insignificant items, but not named… she left for England last night, and this morning the staff attending her suite were found dead from asp bites."
Feeling an icy knot form in his stomach, Ardeth sighed resignedly. The Horn of Isis was a fabled magical talisman rumoured to contain the essence of the goddess. Supposedly a solid platinum cow's horn engraved with spelled hieroglyphs that required an occult Rosetta Stone to release the powers contained within, it had never been seen.
"This Miss Ward, she is an archaeologist, an academic?"
"We think so. According to the hotel manager, she is a 'frighteningly clever woman' who had all the trappings that go with tomb raiding… she could have explored the Tomb of Isetnofret before we set guards on it, Mawlana. She has been in Egypt for over two months."
Gritting his teeth at the implications, realising the Med-Jai had failed in their holy duty to keep magical relics out of ignorant or misguided hands, Ardeth schooled his features into a neutral mask. The Tomb of Isetnofret was often visited by curious foreigners who bounced uncomfortably atop ill-tempered camels like sacks of grain. To his knowledge, it had never contained anything magical, but as with all things, mistakes were sometimes made.
"Miss Ward has acquired a dangerous 'museum piece'… we must retrieve the Horn before others come looking for it," he stated.
"Like the white lady of Isis," the scout leader observed, somewhat unnecessarily. "Allah protect this archaeologist, or she may end up like Fahrer."
Eyes dark and unreadable, Bey turned to regard the horizon, which already shimmered with the days growing heat. Cairo was a day's ride away and England further still, each hour lost increasingly the likelihood of pursuit.
"The safety of this woman is the least of our concerns if the legends about the Horn are true," he said softly. "In the wrong hands, it could empower to the level of the Creature."
Without comment, the Med-Jai broke company and scattered, black shadows against the harsh sunlight. Re-entering his tent, Ardeth scooped up his scimitar and thrust it through his sash, searching through a brown leather folder filled with documents written in sprawling Arabic. Finding travel permits and a fake passport, he tucked them securely away and left, anticipating his forthcoming trip to England would be as eventful as the last.
*
That's all for now. Hang about for the sequel.
The Duchess xxxGRRR!
