With renewed enthusiasm Erica slowly enlarged the opening. She worked in the dark, not willing to sacrifice any more matches. Finally the hole was deep enough to allow her to stick her head in. After locating a few pebbles, she lay prone on the floor of the chamber, shoving her head into the opening. She let the pebbles go and listened for the impact. The room did not seem deep, and appeared to have a floor of sand.
Erica emptied her cigarettes from the pack and lit the paper. When it was flaming, she pushed it into the hole and let it go. The flames went out, but the ember sank in a spiral. When it landed, it was about eight feet away. Erica found more stones, and with her head in the hole she tossed them in various directions, trying to get some idea of the space. It seemed to be a square room. And what pleased Erica, there was a constant movement of air.
Sitting in the inky blackness, she debated what she should do. If she lowered herself into the room she’d found, there was a chance she would not be able to get back into the tomb she was in. But what difference did that make? The real problem was finding the courage to go into the hole. She had only half a pack of matches left.
Erica picked up her tote bag. Counting to three, she forced herself to drop it through the opening. On all fours she backed up to the wall and lowered her legs into the hole. She had an image of being swallowed. Slowly she wriggled farther and farther into space, until the tips of her toes touched a smooth plastered wall. Like a diver trying to get himself to plunge into cold water, Erica forced her body to slide through the hole into the black void. As she fell for what seemed forever, her arms flailed in the air, attempting to keep her feet first. She landed off balance but unhurt, and fell over backward on a rubble-strewn sand floor.
Fear of the unknown made her stumble to her feet, only to lose her balance again and sprawl forward. There was a tremendous amount of dust choking her. Her outstretched right hand fell on an object that she thought was a piece of wood. She held onto it, hoping it would ignite like a torch.
Finally she managed to stand up. She switched the piece of wood to her left hand in order to get her matches from her jeans pocket. But the object no longer felt like a piece of wood. Touching it with both hands, she realized she was holding a mummified forearm and hand, trailing wrappings in the darkness. With disgust she threw the object away from her.
Shaking, Erica pulled the matches from her pocket and struck one. As its light filtered outward in the dust, Erica found herself in a catacomb with bare, unadorned walls and filled with partially wrapped mummies. The bodies had been broken apart and stripped of any valuables, then rudely discarded.
Turning around slowly, Erica saw evidence that the ceiling had partially caved in. In the corner she saw a low dark doorway. Grabbing her tote bag, she struggled forward in the knee-deep debris. The match burned her fingers, and she shook it out, moving forward with her hands groping for the wall, then the doorway. She passed into the next room. Lighting another match, she found herself in a room filled with equally grotesque images. A niche in the wall was filled with decapitated mummified heads. There was evidence of more cave-ins.
On the wall opposite Erica were two widely separated doorways. She worked her way into the center of the room, and holding the match ahead of her, decided the air was coming from the smaller passage. The match went out, and she moved forward with her hands ahead of her.
Suddenly there was a great commotion. A cave-in! Erica threw herself forward against the wall, feeling particles hit her hair and shoulders.
But there was no crash. Instead the commotion in the air continued and the atmosphere became saturated with dust and high-pitched screeches. Then something landed on Erica’s shoulder. It was alive and clawing. As her hand swept the animal off her back, she touched wings. It wasn’t a cave-in. It was a million disturbed bats. She covered her head with her arm and crouched low against the wall, breathing as best she could. Gradually the bats quieted and she was able to move into the next room.
Erica slowly realized that she had fallen into a maze of tombs of the common people of ancient Thebes. The catacombs had been progressively cut into the mountainside in the form of a labyrinth to make room for the millions of dead. Sometimes they had inadvertently connected with other tombs, in this case with the tomb of Ahmose, in which Erica had been interred. The connection had been plastered over and forgotten.
Erica pushed on. Although the presence of the bats was horrifying, it was also encouraging. There had to be a connection with the outside. Eventually she tried lighting the mummy wrappings and discovered they burned briskly. In fact, Erica found that the pieces of mummies with their wrappings burned like torches, and she forced herself to pick them up. The forearms were best, because they were easy to hold. With the help of better light she worked her way through many galleries and up several levels until she felt fresh air. Dousing her torch, Erica walked the last feet by the light of the moon. When she emerged into the warm Egyptian night, she was several hundred yards from the place she had entered the mountain with Muhammad. Directly below her was the village of Qurna. There were very few lights.
For a time Erica stood trembling at the entrance to the catacomb, appreciating the moon and the stars in a way she’d never done. She knew she was enormously lucky to be alive.
The first thing she needed was a place to rest, pull herself together, and have a drink. Her throat was raw from the suffocating dust. She also wanted to wash, as if the experience clung to her like dirt, and most of all she wished to see a friendly face. The closest source of all these comforts was Aida Raman’s house. She could see it up against the hillside. A light still shone in the window.
Stepping from the seclusion of the catacomb, Erica walked warily along the base of the cliff. Until she got back to Luxor, she would take no chance on being seen by Muhammad or the Nubian. What she really wanted to do was get back to Yvon. She’d tell him as best she could the location of the statue and then get out of Egypt. She’d had enough.
When she was directly above Aida Raman’s, Erica began the descent. For the first hundred yards it was deep sand, then loose gravel, which frightened her by shifting noisily in the bright moonlight. Finally she reached the back of the house.
Erica waited for a few minutes in the shadows, watching the village. She saw no movement. Satisfied that it was all clear, she walked around the building into the courtyard and knocked at the door.
Aida Raman shouted something in Arabic. Erica responded by calling out her name and asking if she could talk with her.
“Go away,” shouted Aida through the closed door.
Erica was surprised. Aida had been so warm and friendly. “Please, Mrs. Raman,” she said through the door. “I need a drink of water.”
The door unlatched and swung open. Aida Raman was clad in the same cotton dress she had on for their first meeting.
“Thank you,” said Erica. “I’m sorry to trouble you. But I am very thirsty.”