The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 85
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been lightly bitten by the bug, compared to others I could name. Those
other two on Duraid's list, for instance."
"Peter Walsh and Gotthold von Schiller," she reeled off the names.
"Those two are homicidal collectors,," he confirmed. "I -am sure neither
of them would hesitate to kill for the chance of having Pharaoh Mamose's
treasure to themselves."
"But from what I know about them, both of them are billionaires, at
least in dollar terms."
"Money has nothing to do with it, don't you see. If they laid hands upon
it, they would never ever dream of selling a single artefact from the
hoard. They would lock it all away in some deep vault, and not let
another living soul la eyes upon it. They would gloat on it in private -
it's a bizarre, masturbatory passion."
"What an odd word to describe it," she protested.
"But accurate, I assure you. It's a sexual thing a compulsion, like that
of a serial killer."
"I love all things Egyptian, but I don't think I can even imagine a
craving that intense."
"You must remember that these are not ordinary men whom we are
considering. Their wealth allows'them to pander to any appetite'. All
the normal, natural human appetites soon become jaded and satiated. They
can have anything they want. Any man or any woman. Any thing, any
perversion, whether legal or not. In the end they have to find something
that no one else can ever have. It's the only thing that can still give
them the old thrill."
"So in whoever is behind Pegasus we are dealing with a madman?" she
asked softly.
"Much more than that," he corrected her. "We are enormously wealthy and
powerful dealing with an maniac, who in his disease will stop at
nothing."
They picked the cold carcasses of the roasted pigeons for their
breakfast. Then, while the other one tactfully went to the back of the
cavern an averted his or her gaze, they took turns to strip naked and
bathe under the waterfall.
After the heat of the gorge the water was icy cold. It battered them
with the force of a fire hose. Royan hopped on her good leg, gasping and
whimpering under the torrent, and emerged covered in goose-pimples and
shuddering blue with cold. However, it refreshed her, and even in her
filthy, sweat-stinking clothes it gave her heart to start out on the
last bitter climb to the summit.
Before leaving the cavern they examined each other's injuries again.
Nicholas's scalp wound was heating cleanly, but Royan's knee was no
better than the previous day. The bruises were starting to turn a
virulent puce, the colour of decomposing liver, and the swelling was
unabated. There was very little he could do for it, other than strapping
it again with the bandana.
At last Nicholas admitted defeat, and abandoned his burn-bag and the
roll of dik'dik skin. He knew that he was reaching the limit of his
physical reserves, and he realized that, light as these items were,
every extra pound that he carried today might mean the difference
between reaching the summit or breaking down on the trail. He retained
only the three rolls of undeveloped film, each in its plastic capsule.
These were their only record of the hieroglyphics' on the stele in
Tanus's tomb. He dared not risk losing them, so he buttoned them into
the breast pocket of his khaki shirt. He tucked both the bag and the
skin into a crack in the wall at the back of the cavern, determined to
retrieve them at some later date.
And so they started out on the last but most onerous leg of the trail.
To begin with Royan was on her own two feet, but leaning heavily on his
shoulder. However, before the first hour was over her knee could no
longer take the strain, and she subsided on to a rock on the edge of the
pathway.
"I am being an awful nuisance, aren't I?
"Come on board, lady. Always room for a small one." With Royan perched
on Nicholas's back, her injured leg sticking out stiffly in front of
her, they toiled upwards, but their progress was even slower than it had
been the day before. Nicholas was forced to pause and rest at shorter
and shorter intervals. On the easier pitches she dismounted and hopped
along on one leg beside him, steadying herself with one hand on his
shoulder. Then she would collapse, and he had to lift her to her feet
and pull her up on to his back once again.
The journey descended into nightmare, and both of them lost all sense of
the passage of time. Hours blended with hours into a single unremitting
agony. At one stage they lay beside each other on the path, sick and
nauseated with thirst and exhaustion and pain. They had emptied the
water bottle an hour ago, and there was no more on this section of the
path - nothing to drink until they reached the summit and were reunited
with the Dandera river.
"Go on and leave me here, she whispered hoarsely.
He sat up immediately and stared at her. "Don't be silly. I need you for
ballast."
"It can't be much further to the top," she insisted. "You can come back
with some of Boris's men to help carry me."
"If they are still there, and if Pegasus doesn't find you first." He
stood up a little unsteadily. "Forget it. You are coming along on this
ride, all the way."And he hoisted her to her feet.
He made her count aloud every step he took, and at every hundredth he
paused and rested. Then he started the next hundred, with her counting
softly in his ear, clinging with both arms around his neck. The whole
universe seemed to shrink in upon them to the ground directly at his
feet. They no longer saw the rock cliff on one side nor the deep void of
space on the other. When he lurched or jolted her and the pain shot
through her knee, she closed her eyes and tried not to let her voice
betray it to him as she kept counting.
When he rested, he had to lean against the cliff face, not trusting his
legs to get him up again if he lay down. He dared not lower her to the
ground. The effort of lifting her again would be too much. He no longer
had the strength for it.
"It's almost dark," she whispered in his ear. "You must stop here for
the night. It's enough for one day. You are killing yourself, Nicky."
"Another hundred, he mumbled.
"No, Nicky. Put me down!'
For answer he pushed off from the rock wall with his shoulder and
staggered on upwards.
"Cound' he ordered.
"Fifty-one, fifty-two," she obeyed. Suddenly the gradient altered so
sharply under his feet that he almost fell.
The path had levelled out, and like a drunkard he reached up for a step
that wasn't there.
He staggered and then caught his balance. He stood teetering on the
brink of the precipice and peered into the dusk ahead of him, at first
unable to credit what he was seeing. There were lights in the gloom, and
he thought that he had begun to hallucinate. Then he heard men's voices,
and he shook his head to clear it and bring himself back to reality.
"Oh, dear God. You have made it. We are at the top$ Nicky. There are the
vehicles. You did it, Nicky. You did it.
He tried to speak, but his throat had closed up and no words came. He
reeled forward towards the lights, and Royan cried out weakly on his
back.
"Help us here. Please help us." First in English and then in Arabic.
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