"Smith, Guy N - Accursed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

'Others leave.' The wizened old man pointed back to the desert. 'They follow Suma. He afraid, too.'

'Well I'm not afraid because there's nothing to be afraid of.' The Reverend Mason prayed that his lingering fears did not show in his expression. 'Now the sooner we break into the tomb, the better. With luck we can all be away from here before dark.'

The outer entrance door was a greater obstacle than they had anticipated and it took them three hours' work with crowbars and chisels before they finally broke through into a dry, musty passageway.

Mason stood there in the interior, had the feeling that he was in a timeless void, a chamber that bridged the gap between civilizations. He held on to the wall, experienced a sensation of vertigo. In the dusty gloom he saw the outline of the inner door, through which lay....

'Bad place.' The old man was clutching the boy to him. 'Very bad place. See!' His voice rose to a pitch, an extended finger shaking.

'It's only a painting.' The clergyman was aware how his own tone shook. A kind of emblem on the narrow portal, a double-headed snake with piercing eyes that would seek you out wherever you tried to hide.

'/t is the sign of Set!' The old native was backing away, dragging the boy with him. 'This is an evil accursed place. Let us flee now before we are murdered as Osiris was, put to the sword as were Dalukah and Aba-aner!'

'Leave now and you get no money!' Mason shouted, his words echoing in the enclosed space. 'Money no matter.'

'Look.' He moved with surprising agility for his age, barred their way. Tm not going to have everybody running out on me when the goal is in sight. I'll bargain with you. Help me smash down this door and then I'll pay you your wages and you can go. I will go into the tomb alone.'

The native sucked his toothless gums, glanced back again at that painting on the door. The boy was tugging at him, crying, and begging him to leave now.

'All right, we'll break the door for you. But then you pay us quick and we go.'

Mason nodded, gave an audible sigh of relief, and picked up his crowbar.



Now he was all alone. The vicar listened to the padding footsteps of the retreating natives and wondered if he ought to follow them. No, not now he had come this far, spent a large part of his savings in finding this tomb. It was barely noon yet; he would work for five or six hours, take out as much as he could in the time, load up the truck and be away before dark. At all costs he had to be away from here before dark!

He drew a deep breath and stepped over the debris, aware that this was the moment when he went back in time, trespassed in the kingdom of the dead. Hollow shuffling footfalls, a torch beam that shook crazily penetrating the dust of aeons kicked up by his every movement.

The Reverend Mason recoiled, almost fled before fear deprived him of the use of his limbs. The interior, the simple undecorated chamber with the small sarcophagus in the centre, so familiar that he recognised it instantly. This was the place of which he had dreamed, the tomb of his vision!

Strangely his terror subsided as he stood there in the centre swinging the torch beam around him in an arc. The chamber was no more than twenty yards square, humble in comparison with others he had seen, simplicity as opposed to grandeur, a place where the dead could rest in peace. Or could they?

He had expected to find a second coffin. It stood there on a raised stone platform, a casket that was much larger than the first one with neither carvings nor paintings on its surface.

He swung the beam to his left, started involuntarily as it reflected two pairs of glowing eyes set closely together, an amulet depicting that double-headed serpent again. Set's malevolence glinting evilly. Beside it on the single shelf was an obsidian head the size of a cricket ball, finely carved features, nobility that eyed him proudly yet not hatefully.

'Strange.' He spoke aloud, grateful for the sound of his own voice. 'A tomb of this size and yet it is empty of treasures, with no signs of robbers having been here before. No food to sustain the kas on their long journey, no wealth stored here, although surely the dead were of a wealthy line.'

He found himself approaching the smaller of the two coffins as though some force drew him, as if his actions were not his own. His fingers smoothed along the lid but found no fastenings of any kind, merely a hinge which moved as easily as if it had been oiled yesterday. It lifted noiselessly, swung back. And in that moment his terror returned! For here lay Dalukah who had pleaded with him only last night!

He didn't want to look, wanted to slam it back, leave this place and flee just as Suma and the natives had done because now he sensed the oppressive evil, the cold cloying unseen force, those double eyes boring malignantly into him like laser beams. The dust was thicker, his torch beam fainter as he shone it down on the still form inside the sarcophagus, saw her features staring up at him from amidst a mass of loose swathings as though somehow she had torn them from her because she was not really dead and needed to breathe.

Such beauty, unmarred by the passing of thousands of years, eyes that had not dulled, long dark hair that had not lost its sheen. Then the horror as he saw the wound, an ugly incision below her left breast where a cruel sword blade had pierced and disfigured, been wrenched free as she had fallen bleeding to the ground.

Eyes that still saw and understood. He held on to the sides of the coffin, fought off a wave of dizziness, saw those lips move and heard her gentle tones like the rippling of the tide on a deserted beach.

'You have not failed me, stranger. Now take myself and Aba-oner, the soldier, away from this place to your own land where we shall be freed from the curse placed upon us. Do not delay for every second that we remain here we are in danger!'