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His eyes began to adjust. Just enough distant light filtered down through the fractured stone to let him make out the vaguest form of the space around him. He instinctively fumbled at his pocket for his spectacles and slid them on… which made absolutely no difference at all. He was left with only the dim impression of a still, silent space that had more in common with a grave than anywhere else.
He brushed his burning palms on his trousers and waited, trying not to feel utterly abandoned in the dark.
A soft glow rose from above him. Neil breathed a shuddering sigh of relief as he looked up to see the lantern bobbing down through the fissure.
As it reached the bottom, illumination spilled over the space that surrounded him. It burst into startling color—blue, green, and gold leaping out at Neil from the walls.
Palm trees bent over stands of papyrus flowers. Courtiers rode on barges rowed by lines of slaves with glossy, curling hair. Spears flashed over charging chariots while leopards lunged toward waiting prey.
A mother held a child to her breast. Worshipers piled up offerings under a golden sun.
Neil wasn’t in a cave. He was standing in a gallery—a long hallway painted in rich color from floor to ceiling.
“Well?” Ellie’s urgent tones echoed down to him from above. “What do you see?”
“Everything,” Neil replied, his voice thick with wonder.
The images were bold and pristine as if someone had just paused working on them to step out to lunch—as if Neil might turn and find a paintbrush discarded on the floor, its tip still wet with rich red ocher.
His gaze stopped on an image of the sun. Some of the plaster below had broken away with the weight of time, taking part of the artwork with it, but Neil could still see the myriad rays that fell down from the golden disk, ending in delicately cupped hands. One of them caressed the remains of a linen-clad shoulder. Another brushed against the distinct curve of a crown—the white hedjet of Upper Egypt.
“It’s a tomb,” Neil forced out through the shock and awe that had paralyzed him, his voice hoarse. “An Amarna period tomb.”
A whispered, excited consultation sounded from atop the fissure, and Sayyid’s wife called down again.
“Does it look as though it is about to fall in on you?”
Neil tore his attention from the paintings to answer her question. He skimmed past the art to look at the walls themselves, picking out the fine lines in the plaster before he raised his gaze to the ceiling.
It was covered in glittering golden stars. The sight of them stole his voice.
“There are hairline fractures,” he reported when he was able to speak again. “I can see two places where some of the plaster has broken away. And the fissure in the ceiling goes another several yards down the hall.”
He thought nervously of just how much stone must be pressing down on that crack from above. Neil swallowed thickly. “But nothing appears to be actively unstable.”
Neil startled as a pair of sandaled feet slipped through the gap above him, and Zeinab slithered down the rope like a gymnast.
A small pile of rubble lay by Neil’s boots, fragments of the ceiling that had crumbled to the ground with whatever minor seismic activity had opened the crack in the first place. Neil skipped around it to make way as Zeinab landed.
She automatically stepped aside, the line of her mouth tightening with worry as she studied the murals.
Ellie descended behind her. Her eyes went wide as soon as she dropped past the ceiling. “I see archers!” she exclaimed. “And wine makers! And a temple dancer!”
The rope spun her in a lazy circle as she craned her neck to try not to lose her view.
“Bet you can see it better from the ground, Princess,” Adam called down wryly.
Ellie slid the rest of the way down and hurried over to a portrait of nobly dressed hunters pursuing a diverse array of water birds. She gazed at it with an expression of pure joy, raising her hand to where a heron swept up from the clustered reeds, each feather depicted in perfect detail. Her fingers hovered above the ancient pigments as she drew in a careful, uneven breath, her eyes glistening.
“Aw hell,” came the sound of Adam’s voice from above.
Ellie forced her attention away from the paintings to call up to him. “Are you stuck?”
“Just… a little… tight…” Adam grunted, and a scattering of stones came loose to join the rubble under the fissure. “Got it. Guess I should’ve laid off the extra kofta.”
He dropped from the opening, his battered boots landing solidly on the ground. As he straightened, his broad shoulders took up most of the span of the hallway.
“I don’t think the kofta are the problem,” Neil commented a little weakly.
