The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 145

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Sapper shrugged. "Somebody forgot to tell the weatherman."

"Has it set in?" Nicholas asked. "What's the state of the river? Has the

level started to rise yet?"

"That's what I came to tell you. I am going up to the dam, taking the

Buffaloes with me. I want to keep an eye on it. As soon as it gets

unsafe I will send a runner down to you. When I do that, don't stop to

argue. Get out of here fast. It will mean that I expect the dam to burst

at any moment."

"Don't take Hansith with you," Nicholas ordered. "I need him here."

When Sapper had gone, taking most of the workers from the tunnel with

him, Royan and Nicholas looked at each other seriously.

"We are running out of time fast, and Taita still has us in a tangle,'

Nicholas said. "One thing I must warn you.

When the river starts to rise "

She did not let him finish. "The river!" she cried. "Not the sea! I was

mistaken in the translation. I read it as "tide".

the sea, but it should have I assumed Taita was referring to been

"curyene,.The Egyptians made no distinction between rds."

the two wo They both rushed back to the desk and her notebooks.

C4The current behind me and the wind in my face Nicholas changed the

quotation.

on the Nile," Royan exulted, "the prevailing wind is lways from the

always from the north, and the current a south. Taita was facing north.

The north castle."

"We assumed the symbol for the north was the baboon,'

he reminded her.

"No! I was wrong." Her face was alight with the fires of inspirations

"', my beloved, the taste of you is sweet upon my lips." Honey! The bee!

I had the symbols for the north and south inverted." we find there?"

"What about east and west? What can with fresh enthusiasm. "'MY

He turned back to the texts  of bronze sins are red as carnelians. They

bind me like cUns the They prick my heart with fire, and I turn my eyes

towards evening star."'

"I don't see ation," he stuttered eagerly. -Prick" is the wrong transi

ing towards the qt should be "sting". The scorpion look the west. The

evening star. "Me evening star is always in rn castle, not the eastern

castle." scorpion is the wester

"We had the board inverted." She jumped up excitedly.

"Let's play it that way!'

"We still have not determined the levels," he objected.

"Is the sistrum the upper level, or is it the three swords?"

"Now that we have made this breakthrough, that is the only variable. We

are either right or Wrong. We will play work upper level, and if that

doesn' the sistrurn first as the lay it the other way round."

we can  tricacies of the maze It was so much easier now. The in had

become less forbidding with familiarity. There were the large white

chalk signs in Nicholas's handwriting on each corner and at each fork

and T-junction of the tunnels.

They moved swiftly through the complex twists and turns, their

excitement rising sharply as they followed each notation and "i6und the

way still clear before them.

"The eighteenth move." Royan's voice trembled. "Hold both thumbs. If it

takes us into one of the open files that threaten the opponent's south

castle, then that will be the check coup." She drew a deep breath and

read it aloud to him. "The bird The numbers three and five. With the

lower level symbol of the three swords."

They paced it out and passed the five junctions into the lowest level of

the maze, reading their position from the chalk marks on the stone

blocks of the walls at each fork. "This is it!" Nicholas told her, and

they stood together and looked about them.

"There is nothing outstanding about this spot." Disappointment was

bitter in Royan's tone. "We have passed over it fifty times before. It

is just like any of the other turns."

"That is exactly what Taita would have wanted. Hell!

He wouldn't have put up a signpost saying " marks the spot", would he

now?"

"So what do we do?" She looked at him, for once at a loss.

"Read the last epigram from the stele."

S he had her notebook in her hand. "'From the black and holy earth of

dus very Egypt the harvest is abundant. I whip the flanks of my donkey,

and the wooden spike of the plough breaks new ground. I plant the seed,

and reap the grape and the ears of corn. In time I drink the wine and

eat the loaf. I follow the rhythm of the seasons, and tend the earth."'

She looked up at him. "The rhythm of the seasons? Is he referring us to

the four faces of the stele? The earth?"

she asked and looked down at the slabs beneath their feet, "The promise

of reward from the earth? Under our feet, perhaps?" she asked.

He stamped his foot on the slabs, but the sound was dull and solid.

"Only one way to find out." He raised his voice and it echoed weirdly

through the labyrinth. "Hansith! Come down here!'

apper sat on the high seat of his yellow frontend loader in the rain and

cheerfully cursed his gang of Buffaloes, secure in the knowledge that

they understood not a word of his insults. The rain swept over them in

intermittent gusts off the high mountains. It was not yet the solid,

drenching downpour of the true wet season. However, the river was rising

sullenly, turning dirty blue'grey with the mud and sediment that it was

bringing down.

He knew that the flood had not yet begun in earnest.

The thunder that growled ominously along the mountain peaks like a pride

of hunting lions was only the prelude to the vast celestial onslaught

which would soon follow.

Although the river was lapping the top course of gabions "s dam, and was

roaring through the bypass that of Sapper he had cut into the side

valley, he was still holding it at bay. His Buffaloes were packing more

baskets with aggregate, using up the last of the steel mesh from the

stores in the quarry. As soon as each of these was filled and wired

closed, Sapper picked it up in the front bucket of the tractor and drove

it down the bank of the Dandera. He reinforced all the weak spots in the

dam wall, and then he began raising it another course. Sapper was fully

aware of the overturning effect that the river would exert once it began

to pour over the top of the wall. Nothing would be able to withstand its

power once this happened. It would carry away a rock-filled gabion as if

it were the branch of a baobab tree. it needed only a single breach in

the wall to bring the entire structure tumbling and rolling down. He had

no illusions as to just how swiftly the river could do its fatal work.

He knew that he dared not wait for the first breach to develop in the

wall before he warned Nicholas and Royan in the chasm downstream. The

river could easily outrun any  messenger he sent, and once the wall began

to go it would already be too late. It would be a matter of fine

judgement, and he slitted his eyes against another gust of slanting rain

that blew into his face. His instinct was to call them out of the chasm

now - there was already less than twelve inches of free-board at the top

of the wall.

However, he knew that Nicholas would be furious if he was made to

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