"Connie Willis - Death on the Nile" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

ceiling far down a narrow corridor.

тАЬZoe!тАЭ I shout, and start after her. The floor is uneven, and I trip and put my hand on the wall to steady
myself. тАЬCome back! You have the book!тАЭ

The light flashes on a section of carved-out wall, far ahead, and then vanishes, as if she has turned a
corner.

тАЬWait for me!тАЭ I shout, and stop because I cannot see my hand in front of my face.

There is no answering light, no answering voice, no sound at all. I stand very still, one hand still on the
wall, listening for footsteps, for quiet padding, for the sound of slithering, but I canтАЩt hear anything, not
even my own heart beating.

тАЬZoe,тАЭ I call out, тАЬIтАЩm going to wait for you outside,тАЭ and turn around, holding onto the wall so I donтАЩt
get disoriented in the dark, and go back the way I came.

The corridor seems longer than it did coming in, and I toy with the idea that it will go on forever in the
dark, or that the door will be locked, the opening plastered over and the ancient seals affixed, but there is
a line of light under the door, and it opens easily when I push on it.

I am at the top of a stone staircase leading down into a long wide hall. On either side the hall is lined
with stone pillars, and between the pillars I can see that the walls are painted with scenes in sienna and
yellow and bright blue.

It must be the anteroom because Zoe said its walls were painted with scenes from the soulтАЩs journey into
death, and there is Anubis weighing the soul, and, beyond it, a baboon devouring something, and,
opposite where I am standing on the stairs, a painting of a boat crossing the blue Nile. It is made of gold,

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 Death on the Nile


and in it four souls squat in a line, their kohl-outlined eyes looking ahead at the shore. Beside them, in
the transparent water, Sebek, the crocodile demigod, swims.

I start down the steps. There is a doorway at the far end of the hall, and if this is the anteroom, then the
door must lead to the burial chamber.

Zoe said the tomb consists of only three rooms, and I saw the map myself on the plane, the steps and
straight corridor and then the unimpressive rooms leading one into another, anteroom and burial
chamber and Hall of Judgment, one after another.

So this is the anteroom, even if it is larger than it was on the map, and Zoe has obviously gone ahead to
the burial chamber and is standing by TutankhamunтАЩs coffin, reading aloud from the travel guide. When
I come in, she will look up and say, тАЬ The quartzite sarcophagus is carved with passages from The Book
of the Dead.тАШтАЬ

I have come halfway down the stairs, and from here I can see the painting of the weighing of the soul.
Anubis, with his jackalтАЩs head, standing on one side of the yellow scales, and the deceased on the other,