The sun beat
mercilessly down on the back of Amelia Garcia's neck. She bitterly
regretted having her hair cut before coming out to Egypt to take part
in Professor Walter Hobart's dig. In fact, she was beginning to
regret coming on the dig at all.
As a child, Amelia had
dreamed of becoming an authority on Ancient Egypt, the period of
history which had fascinated her for as long as she could remember.
She'd imagined herself discovering long lost tombs full of treasure -
golden funeral masks encrusted with precious stones. Later on, she
imagined finding a significant tomb covered in hieroglyphs which
she'd translate and give the world new insights into how the Ancient
Egyptians lived. She'd be the face of Ancient Egypt on TV, fronting
all those programmes about the Pyramids and their mysteries.
The chance to work with
Walter Hobart had been a dream come true. Only now she was here, the
dream was turning into a nightmare. The sun burnt her pale skin;
she'd been eaten alive by insects and suffered numerous bouts of food
poisoning.
All that would have
been tolerable if only Professor Hobart had been a decent person to
work for. He wasn't. He sat in a cool tent while she slaved away, day
in day out, kneeling in the gritty dirt in the blazing sun,
painstakingly brushing sand from tiny stones. He berated her for
taking time out to cool down, or even to rush to the toilet when the
local food disagreed with her.
Only once so far had
she found anything that looked even remotely interesting - a shard of
pottery. Amelia had called him over, bubbling with excitement. Hobart
had peered at her find, and sniffed. "Nineteen fifties,"
he'd said. "Totally worthless, Miss Garcia. Kindly do not waste
my time with crap like this again." He'd tossed the fragment
over his shoulder and strutted back into his tent.
Amelia was reluctant to
approach him now, not that she'd found anything for days. She'd even
begun to think archaeology wasn't for her, and that as soon as she
got home, she'd change courses. Perhaps history of art or classical
literature would be a better fit.
A bead of sweat dripped
from the end of Amelia's nose into the hole she was working on. She
hastily brushed it away, hoping Hobart wasn't looking, for if he had
been, he would have berated her for contaminating the site.
As she did so,
something caught her eye. A smooth stone, like a pebble. It looked as
if it had either been smoothed by the ocean, which was hundreds of
miles from here, or ground smooth by human hands. She brushed off
more sand, and saw the markings on it. A type of cuneiform for sure,
but not one she recognised. She picked the stone up and brushed off
more sand, tracing the ancient writing with her fingertips, wondering
what it could mean.
The flash of light
startled her; there had been no sign of a storm gathering. Could it
have been the reflection of the sun on the windscreen of a jeep
driving by?
"Phew! Thank Thoth
for that!" A male voice said, with feeling. "I thought I
was going to be stuck in there for all eternity."
Amelia looked up and
saw him. His black hair and coffee-coloured skin marked him as an
Egyptian; he wore nothing but a loin-cloth and a headdress like those
worn by the people in the tomb paintings. He was well-muscled and his
face was handsome. He regarded her with velvet-brown eyes. Amelia
couldn't help blushing. Men, especially good-looking ones like this,
never usually looked twice at her, with her mousy hair and the puppy
fat she'd never quite lost.
"Thank you, my
lady," the Egyptian said, bowing low.
Amelia looked over her
shoulder, sure he must be talking to someone else, but there was
nobody there. "I am Khepri. Why have you summoned me?"
"I'm Amelia, and I
didn't summon you."
"Oh, but you did.
You rubbed the stone in which I was contained. You freed me and I am
here to do your bidding."
"You what?"
"Can you not read
the inscription? On the stone? Thousands of years imprisoned in
there, and I get summoned by an imbecile."
"Steady on! I got
seven A stars at A level, I'll have you know."
"I know nothing of
these seven stars. I specialise in wish fulfilment and vengeance. Is
there something you want? Has anyone wronged you?"
The Professor
humiliated me, Amelia thought.
"Show me this
Professor," Khepri said. "I will make him eat his own
testicles!"
"Really, that
won't be necessary," Amelia said, hastily.
He read my
mind!
Knowing her thoughts
were laid bare to this genie from the distant past, she tried not to
think of how attractive he was; and failed. "You seek pleasure?
If that is what you desire, I would be happy to oblige."
"Thanks, but we
only just met - so no."
"There must be
something I can do for you."
"All right. I'll
have world peace and a cure for cancer."
"Those are not the
things you really want," Khepri said. "They are the things
you feel you should be asking for. No, Amelia, my purpose is
to give you what you really want, for yourself. Fame, fortune,
revenge - that sort of thing."
"Okay. What I
really want is to make a name as an archaeologist. I want to make the
most significant find ever. Something even Professor Hobart has to
admit is important. Something the world will pay to go and see in a
museum."
"You already have
that," Khepri said. "You're holding it in your hand."
**
"Professor? You
need to see this."
"Another teapot,
Miss Garcia?" Hobart did not even look up from the book he was
reading.
"No. It's a stone,
with writing on it. Take a look."
"1970s graffiti, I
don't doubt," he said with a sigh and put the book down. "I
may as well look at it."
It was clear as soon as
Hobart saw it, he knew this stone was something special. Amelia saw
his piggy eyes widen with interest; but to Amelia, he merely said,
"You may go, Miss Garcia. Leave this with me."
As she left the tent,
Amelia could see him peering at it with his magnifying glass.
"Well?"
Khepri stood outside the tent.
"He's interested,
all right - but I know what's going to happen, now. He's going to
pass it off as his own find, and he'll get all the credit for it, so
you haven't granted my wish, have you?"
"Patience,
Amelia," Khepri said. "Have patience." With that, he
stepped inside the tent, leaving her outside.
**
Professor Amelia Garcia
smiled for the cameras as she cut the ribbon and declared her
"Secrets of Ancient Egypt" exhibition open.
The centrepiece of the
exhibit was an artefact which had been dubbed by the tabloid press as
"The Cursed Stone", believed to have belonged to Ramses
himself and to have been the secret of his wealth and success. It had
magical properties, the papers said. It was also cursed, for on the
very day it was found, Professor Walter Hobart had died of a heart
attack as he'd tried to translate the inscription.
They'd said he'd been
punished for disturbing it after thousands of years - until Amelia
put the record straight and told them it had been she who'd found it.
They changed their story then, and reported that Hobart had died
because he'd tried to steal it from her.
There had even been
rumours that Amelia had killed Hobart so she could claim the
discovery for herself. The autopsy showed conclusively it had been a
heart attack. Amelia must have known about his heart condition; but
there was no way of pinning his death on her.
She seemed to be doing
remarkably well for herself. Since Hobart's death, she'd risen
rapidly through the ranks to become a professor herself and a world
authority on all things Egyptian. Any TV documentary these days about
Egypt, the Pyramids, the Pharaohs or the gods of Ancient Egypt had
Amelia as its star presenter. She was the face of Ancient Egypt. She
was, as she'd always dreamed, a rich and famous archaeologist.
Of course, no woman who
is rich and famous is favourably reported in all the papers. There
were some which said, how dare a plain, middle-aged woman with thick
ankles and a boring hairstyle be so successful?
And how could a plain,
middle-aged woman with thick ankles and a boring hairstyle have
attracted such an exotically handsome and devoted lover, allegedly a
local man she'd met on that fateful dig. They knew nothing about him,
except that wherever she went, he was always by her side and seemed
to worship and adore her. They knew nothing about his past, or even
his full name. They only knew his first name - Khepri.
