The Pharaoh Key

36

THEY MANAGED TO make it back just before sunrise, dusty and exhausted. As they passed through camp—with no game to show for their nocturnal efforts—they endured a certain degree of ribbing from the other hunters. It seemed other hunts had been more successful: many small boars, gutted and strung from poles, were hung about the camp or were being skinned and dismembered, the haunches salted, ribs and chops smoking over the fires.

Garza hustled back to the tent he shared with his wife as the sky turned red in the east. Jelena was already up and putting on her special robes, long dark hair swinging as she worked. Instead of scolding him for the failure of their hunt, she indicated to him—with the gestures and pidgin talk they used to communicate—that he was to hurry up, cast off his filthy garments, and get dressed for some event, the nature of which he couldn’t quite understand but seemed to involve her father, the chief. To his alarm, it also seemed to involve him, and if he understood Jelena correctly would be another kind of important announcement.

As he put on fresh robes—now familiar garments that had once felt so foreign to him—his head was still brimming with the images of what he’d seen in the treasure chamber. He had no idea of the meaning, or importance, of what Imogen had found inside the golden cabinet—they’d been so rushed scampering back to camp that they hadn’t had time to talk.

As the sky brightened, Garza followed his wife up the path to the chief’s tent. People were streaming out into the sunshine, dressed in whatever passed as their finery. Something big was clearly up, but try as he might, Garza could still only understand bits and pieces of Jelena’s speech.

As they approached, two men carrying spears came and escorted them around the growing crowd to a small area in front of the chief’s tent, beside the promontory where the old man made his pronouncements. They took their place next to Lillaya, who, nodding and smiling, gave him a friendly welcome in her broken English. Looking about, Garza saw Imogen and Gideon among the assembled multitudes.

A moment later, a hush fell. The chief’s tent flap was drawn aside and the chief himself came out, moving slowly, staff in hand, his face lined with care, supported by a single soldier. He advanced to the promontory, then extended his hands, palms upward. A gong was struck to mark sunrise, and as the first rays of golden light streamed into the valley, he began to speak.

His voice was low, and because he spoke more slowly and haltingly than usual, Garza was able to follow the gist of his words. The chief began with a flowery gesture toward Garza. He told the story of how Garza saved his daughter’s life. As Garza listened, he began to feel awkward and not a little guilty—given where they’d just returned from—and wondered where his new father-in-law was going with all this. The chief then went on to extol how Garza had brilliantly accelerated work on his tomb, so that when the end came he would not suffer any wait in reaching the afterlife.

The chief paused often to recover his breath, gasping a little between sentences, and he looked weaker than he had during the wedding ceremony. But still he continued, gamely heaping praise on Garza and speaking about how he had proved himself a valiant warrior as well as an inventor of new weaponry to help keep the citizenry safe. At this, Garza looked around nervously for Mugdol, but the man and a scattering of his most loyal cronies were nowhere to be seen, thank God. Maybe he’d decided that self-imposed exile was preferable to humiliation.

Still the chief went on, now shifting to the subject of his daughter. Based on Jelena’s blushes, he was extolling her virtues, as well. Garza found himself growing increasingly worried—about not only where this speech was heading, but also the chief’s increasing difficulty in speaking. Apparently the audience had noticed it, as well, because Garza could hear low murmurings of concern among them.

The chief halted again, but this time the silence stretched on…and on. The murmur from the crowd grew.

And then, quite suddenly, the chief keeled over. As the guards rushed to his side, he hit the stony ground, rolled over once, then lay still.

A huge outcry went up and Jelena rushed to her father with a shriek, Garza at her heels. The uproar continued as the crowd surged forward. The guards were trying to raise the chief, but Garza gestured sharply to them to leave him. He knelt and, alone, took the chief in his arms, supporting him gently, while the man stared up at him, lips moving silently.

“Water,” said Garza. “He needs water.” He racked his brains for the word. “Soah! Soah!”

Water was quickly proffered and Garza held the cup to the old man’s lips. He took a sip, then winced, dropping the cup and clutching at his chest in pain.

“Samu,” he said in a whisper, raising his hand from his chest so that he could lay it on Garza’s own. “Samu.”

At this the crowd fell silent. Samu, Garza knew, was the word for “son.”

“Epourou!” the chief cried, and with his remaining strength he struck Garza forcefully on the chest.

And then, with a convulsive spasm, his body sagged, his arm slipped to the ground, and he died.

The crowd, which had gone abruptly silent, now just as abruptly began to speak again. Epourou, they began to repeat: Epourou, epourou. Garza, still cradling the dead chief, dazed by this sudden development, looked around. Everyone was staring at him, repeating the same word over and over: Epourou. Even Jelena, though clearly distraught, was looking at him rather than her father.

And now here was the crone, leaning toward him on her two canes, an odd, approving smile creasing her ancient face, a claw-like hand reaching out to grasp his own.

“What…what does epourou mean?” he asked.

“Epourou,” she said. “It means…‘chief.’ It means you.”