Valley of the Kings by Cecelia Holland

across the valley. It was like a landscape from the moon, waterless and windless. The cold blue-white light of the moon picked out the tumbled surfaces of rock and earth against pits of black shadow. The tomb had disappeared as if a tide of rubble had rolled in over it. I played with my imagination, pretending that it had been a dream; it might have been, for all the evidence we had left. I called Ahmed.
    â€œMount a guard over it. Discreetly, d’you understand? I have to go to Cairo for supplies.”
    â€œHow long will you be gone?” he asked.
    â€œA day and a half,” I said.
    Actually I intended to be gone three days.
    He smiled at me in the darkness. “You trust me, Carter.”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said. I trusted him to know that it would take longer than thirty-six hours to clear the passageway beyond the door.
    He bowed to me. “I will do as you say.” He would wait for a better moment.
    I sent this cable to Carnarvon in England.
    At last have made wonderful discovery in valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations.
    There was no need to inform him prematurely of my little difficulty with the department.
    I also sent a telegram to the museum in New York. I could use Carnarvon to manage Conway, and the Americans to manage Carnarvon.
    When both messages were off, I went out on a minor buying spree. The main thing was to do this carefully, because if the department learned that I was buying, as an example, eight hundred packages of surgical gauze, they would know that I was planning to wrap something up, probably not wounds. Yet I had little time. Perhaps that helped: it takes time for rumors to filter from the Egyptian quarters of the city, where I was careful to remain, into the cloistered offices of the English. I was back in Luxor two days after the day we uncovered the doorway at the foot of the stairs.
    The doorway was constantly in my mind. I saw it before me at every moment. That was what was real for me: that alone.
    When I got back to Luxor, I went to see Conway, who was visiting an officially financed dig at the temple on the east bank.
    â€œI’ve been out to look at your handiwork again, Carter,” he said to me, smiling. “You seem to have repaired the damage done.”
    â€œYes, sir,” I said.
    We were standing practically in the shadow of the Ninth Pylon. Before us loomed the tremendous columns of the temple. The sun shone through in slanted bars, foggy with dust. In that dust, who knows but that Pharaoh passed once more through the sanctuary of the god? Conway’s coarse, fleshy face was before me.
    â€œSir,” I said, “I’ve come to ask you a favor.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Now, Carter, let me—”
    â€œI repaired it, as you said,” I said quickly, trying to run him into my way of thinking. “Please, just let me keep my licenses. If you take them away, I’ll be publicly ruined. We’re giving up digging at the end of this year, anyway. Less than two months. Please.”
    He stared at me, frowning, his eyes like bullets. His jowls were wet with sweat.
    â€œPlease, sir,” I said. “I’m begging this of you.”
    â€œIt’s against my better judgment,” he said loftily.
    â€œOh, sir, please.”
    â€œVery well,” he said. “I’ll consider the matter ended.”
    â€œOh, sir,” I said, “thank you.”
    He smiled, puffing a little. Feeding on it. What power does to a man. I thanked him several times more and promised him to sign my inadequate report the very first time I was back in Cairo. Then I went back across the river to Kurna, to wait for Carnarvon to come.
    A few days later I was at the river, but not to meet Carnarvon. The Americans had responded to my telegram by dispatching the young American photographer directly to me. Laden with bags and strung with cameras, he stepped off the