Eternal Journey. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ so Henenu could order more pieces cut, knock down a wall and make the temple larger. That might appease the mother goddess. But his men were not as numerous as the builders he’d commanded back home. It had taken several years to accomplish this much.

      And what would appeasing the goddess bring them?

      A bigger temple would not grant the promise of a rich afterlife. This land they’d found would forever prevent them from joining the gods.

      This land would consign them to the abyss.

      “Brother.” Khentemsemet had come down the temple steps and stood in front of Henenu, bowing respectfully and blocking the view to the entrance and the ruined slab. “The responsibility—I take it, Henenu. My fingers ached in weakness, and I lost my hold on the prayer stone. I will accept whatever punishment you—”

      Henenu rose and shook his head, looked around his younger brother and to the temple entrance again. His ire had cooled somewhat, seeing Khentemsemet’s penitent face and tear-filled eyes, and he let out a low breath that sounded like dry leaves rustling in a lazy wind. “No punishment, brother. I will carve another slab.”

      “The mother goddess…”

      “It was merely a piece of rock, dear Khentemsemet.”

      “But, Henenu…”

      “The next prayer I inscribe to Hathor, our mother goddess, will be more eloquent,” Henenu said. “In it I will pay better homage to she who is the wife of Horus. She is our only mother goddess.”

      Khentemsemet’s shoulders relaxed and he turned to regard the temple, his eyes avoiding the broken stone. The setting sun painted the walls a molten bronze, and the shimmering waves of heat that rose from the ground made the carved images on the building’s sides appear to move. The majority of creatures and the men and women depicted had cows’ heads or ears or horns. Hathor’s was the largest. Her bovine visage was enfolded in a sun-shaped disk, and her arms stretched up as if she were trying to grab her beloved Horus, the god of the sky and the noon sun.

      Similar figures were displayed on the handful of smaller buildings that spread away to the north, the etchings all deep, as there was little age to the structures and the wind had not had a proper chance to weather the stone.

      A few of the images on the temple were incongruous to the rest; they were smaller than the carved Egyptian deities, and they formed a line like a border along the base. They were of quadrupeds with large, muscular back legs, tiny front legs, long tails, and pouches where young ones poked out their heads.

      Henenu and Khentemsemet looked to the west to see a quartet of the sun-tinged animals hop across the horizon.

      “This escapeless hole,” Henenu pronounced again. “It will keep us from ascending.”

      1

      A wide-brimmed hat the color of wet sand shielded the archaeologist’s eyes from the sun and made it difficult for the cameraman to get a good shot of his face. The man worked steadily and carefully, sifting dirt and picking out what looked like unremarkable shards of pottery, all the while oblivious to the film crew around him.

      “Wes, look up once in a while, okay?” Annja Creed stood back far enough so her shadow would not encroach. “We’ve been over this a few times,” she reminded her colleague.

      “Yeah, yeah. No worries.” The archaeologist tipped his head up and smiled, showing an even row of bright white teeth that contrasted sharply with his well-tanned skin and scruffy beard. He winked at her.

      “Ah, sometimes I don’t know Christmas from Bourke Street, Miss Creed,” he replied. “I get my head into this and I forget all else.”

      Annja put Wes somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, his hair graying, but his face unlined and his eyes bright. He was dressed in the traditional khaki pants most archaeologists wore, but his shirt was a brilliant lake-blue, new and with sharp creases; he’d worn a new shirt each day of the shoot, and had polished his shoes. He’d stubbornly refused to give his age and many other details about his personal life, saying, “I don’t need the world to know all of that, Miss Creed. I’m not important. This site is, though.”

      She could have gotten all the biographical information she wanted for her piece from the foundation funding the dig—about Dr. Wesley Michaels, his wife and the handful of other archaeologists. She could have gotten Wes’s age, weight, favorite beverage, and even the name of his first pet if she’d pressed. But he was right…the site deserved the spotlight.

      “Besides, don’t you have enough pictures of me, Miss Creed? I thought you finished up yesterday.” Wes gave her another wink and returned to his sifting, the angle of his hat again obscuring his face.

      Annja loved to hear Wes talk. He had a thick Australian accent, perhaps exaggerated for her benefit.

      “Just about finished, Dr. Michaels,” the cameraman pronounced. “A few more pans, Annja, and it’ll be a wrap, as they say.”

      “Thanks, Oliver.” Annja pointed to the north. “Could you get some more on the skeletons, please. That fellow working over there by himself. He’s uncovered quite a bit this morning. You can see the whole skull now.”

      Oliver made a face. “More bone shots. Sure.”

      The archaeologists labored in a long bowl-like depression, concentrating on a section of midden at the base of a hill, a layer of soil that was stained dark by the decomposition of refuse left behind by people who lived a long time ago. The southern section had fragments of stone tools, bits of crude jewelry and pottery chips, the latter of which obviously fascinated Wes. He was attentive with even the smallest piece.

      Annja watched him with detached envy. It was a fascinating dig, and a part of her wished she was working it, not just hosting a television segment highlighting the site. Three and a half days of filming and interviews for a one-hour slot on Chasing History’s Monsters. She held back a laugh; there’d been no monsters here in this desolate stretch in a forest preserve northwest of Sydney, but she knew her producer would fabricate one. He’d come up with some beast that supposedly either lured the ancient Egyptians to Australia or prevented them from leaving—some creature that had enough myths and legends swirling around it to attract good viewing numbers.

      The features of the midden drew Annja’s thoughts back. Discolorations spoke of the human impact here, such as spots where posts had been set for houses and hearths had been dug for cooking. Most fascinating were the unearthed stones covered with carvings.

      Egyptian hieroglyphs, these archaeologists were certain. Others disputed it, claiming they were merely unusual aboriginal petroglyphs. She’d seen plenty of petroglyphs in books and on various Internet sites, and pictographs—paintings on rocks that usually held some religious meaning. She had to side with Wes. They certainly did look like Egyptian hieroglyphs. One of the more distinct carvings was of a slight woman with the head of a cow. One of her arms was stretched above her head; the other arm had been chopped off when the stone broke.

      “Hathor,” Wes had explained. “The wife of Horus. She was an ancient goddess, dating to dynastic times, maybe earlier. Nothing aboriginal about her and Horus.”

      Annja and her crew had agreed not to give the exact location of the dig. Wes and the foundation had been adamant about that. They had enough problems with errant hikers trudging over out of curiosity. Too much publicity would mean they’d СКАЧАТЬ