Eye of Ra Page 3

  “The Eye of Ra,” Ira said patiently. “I need that amulet. You have no idea.”

  Zachary nodded along.

  “Forty-two gods, Zack,” Ira said. “All of them wanting an explanation.”

  “Forty-two?” Zachary almost giggled. “Has that been established absolutely? I mean, it’s a theology, not a fact…”

  “Do you know what happens if I fail?” Ira stopped his swinging, leaning forward intently. His eyes had that serious look that Zachary had noticed that first day. Sitting at a specimen table, magnifying glass in one hand, brows crinkled in concern, a lock of shining black hair hanging so that it tangled in his lashes. The clarity and depth of expression, the worlds of intelligence, the color like the depths of the ocean. Ira's eyes had taken Zachary’s breath away.

  “My god, you are so beautiful…” he was on his knees again, one of Ira’s hands clasped in his. “Ira, I love you, you know that?”

  Ira raised Zachary's hand and kissed it gently. Then he slid to the floor with him. Their lips met and their bodies pressed together. Zachary buried his face in Ira’s neck and inhaled him. “You smell of myrrh,” he said sadly. “Even in the dream I can’t forget that …”

  “The incense protects me, somewhat,” Ira said, fingers braiding into Zachary’s hair. He kissed Zachary's ear. “The amulet would keep Amemet way. Maat demands…”

  Zachary burrowed against Ira’s neck. “Stop, please, gods, let me have this. Stop plaguing me with this incessant Egyptology lesson.”

  “Do you want me to be devoured?” Ira asked, his hands sliding up Zachary’s back and down again, drawing his ass forward. Zachary shivered in their grasp and opened his mouth on the muscle of Ira’s shoulder.

  “I want you back with me,” he said tearfully. “I want my chance back.”

  “You chose already, Zack.” Ira leaned back and looked him in the eyes, hands caressing cheeks and temples.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know.”

  Ira only looked at him, those eyes so wise. Zack had to look away.

  “I need the amulet,” Ira said. “You owe it to me, Zachary.”

  “I can’t…”

  “You can. Bring it to the site. Tonight, while the others sleep.”

  “Seth will kill me.”

  “Let me worry about Seth,” Ira said, and the look in his eye was so foreign that it gave Zachary a chill. Then the warmth was back and he kissed Zachary gently on the forehead, the bridge of his nose, lips moving to breathe warmth against Zachary’s lips. “My love,” Ira said on a breath. And Zachary was lost again in the madness, pushing them both to the floor.

  ***

  He woke feeling like he’d been drinking mescal all night. His head throbbed with migraine, a shudder of nausea rising up his spine again and again, every creak and groan of the wind outside like fingernails clawing slate.

  The metal rings from which the door curtain hung screeched across the front of his skull.

  “Professor Taylor? Sir?”

  “Fuck,” Zack almost wept into the sheets beneath his face. He tried to cover his head and his ears with his arms. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he said into the mattress.

  There was a very loud sound of feet shuffling at the doorway. “I’m sorry, sir,” said Corporal ‘call me Brian’, softly. “But you have to wake up, there’s an..…incident developing.”

  Zachary felt the burn of the light as it seared his brain and he rolled and let his eyes open just a little. “An incident?” his voice sounded completely foreign to him. The shape of Corporal Brian seemed to fade and shudder in the throbbing light of the room, like a wraith.

  “There are men outside, sir. They… we aren’t sure what is going on.” Zachary very, very carefully lifted his head so he could see the corporal’s face. He looked like he was at a loss.

  “I’ll be right there,” Zack said, and tried to sit up.

  He didn’t know how much time passed, but when he came out of the gritty, yellow fog, his mouth tasted of vomit and he was sitting on the cool earth with a hot, firm arm bracing him and a big, leather-clad hand carefully patting his cheek.

  “Are you all right?” Corporal Brian’s eyes were such a light blue, it was like looking through his head at the sky, thought Zack wildly. His head swam and he clutched at the big solid body.

  “No,” he croaked. “I think I’m sick.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brian said, as if this were the most obvious statement he had heard in his lifetime. “I’m going to help you back into bed, sir. You should try to…”

  “You said there was an incident.”

  “Mr. Green will take care of it, sir. He’s radioed the central patrol office.”

  Zachary accepted this, the way a man will when he’s too ill to comprehend something large and complicated. “I don’t think I can stand,” was all he said.

  If he hadn’t felt so utterly wretched, he would have felt humiliation at the way the Corporal lifted his body, cradling it like a child’s, and lay him gently back on his cot. The dark, brown face broke briefly in a clean white smile. “I’ll just step outside and get some more water, sir.”

  “Thank you, Corporal,” Zack said, and rolled over, hopefully, to die.

  Through the night, Corporal Brian tended him. It may have been more than a night, truthfully. Zachary’s sense of time dissolved and he swam in a miasma of dreams and memories; sometimes Ira visited him, sometimes the nightmare. Ira screaming, mouth filling with earth, the Eye of Ra glowing and obscuring his face…

  “Zachary!” Brian’s face was there again; hands firm and cool, dampness against his forehead, on his lips. Zack sipped at whatever liquid was being placed there.

  “Gods,” he croaked. “Oh gods…I’m sorry. You must think…”

  Brian’s eyes were gentle as he smoothed Zachary’s dampened hair back, dabbing at the dampness that had trickled into his ears. “I heard about it, sir. It must have been horrible.”

  Beyond horrible, Zachary thought. “Yes,” he said. “Was I talking in my sleep?”

  “You were calling out his name,” Brian said.

  Zachary felt a little better. A little stronger. He wondered how long he’d been laying here. He wondered what he’d shouted out in his delirium. “I’m not crazy,” he said. “Had you heard that I was crazy?”

  Brian’s eyebrows, Zachary was discovering, could speak volumes. Now they spoke of fond amusement, surprise. “Not crazy, sir. You’re a brilliant man.”

  Zachary chuckled. “Eccentric, then.”

  “I had heard that, sir.” Zachary felt a soft touch on his cheek. Brian’s callused fingers so hesitant. He leaned into the touch, feeling as if a clay wall inside him was crumbling. The humanness of it felt so good.

  Brian’s hand opened, his palm caressing Zachary’s cheek. “Professor Taylor…” he said, his voice husky.

  “Call me Zack,” said Zachary, turning his lips into that warm hand.

  The metal rings of the curtain screeched and they both jumped.

  “Well, well, well,” said Seth. He looked back and forth at them, his mouth pursed as if he had just bitten into something sour. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  ***

  “You fucking idiot.”

  “Seth,” Zachary was still too weak to feel anything like the outraged indignation he knew was appropriate. His voice sounded, to his own ears, feeble and ineffectual. “Corporal Brian and I. I have to assure you, we weren’t…”

  Seth shook his head, like a dog shaking water from himself. “God, don’t tell me the details. I can fucking just imagine.” He shuddered again.

  Fine. Let him torture himself with his homophobic fantasies, Zack thought, clamping his lips closed over his protestations.

  “I want him transferred,” Seth said. “As soon as we reach the field unit again.”

  “Reach the field unit?” They were ten miles from Lampur and a huge military depot. What could be the problem?

  “The storm has completely cut us off. Jesus, how
out of it have you been? Can’t you hear it?”

  The howl and scream was so constant that Zachary didn’t even note it anymore. Now he paid attention, though, he could hear it out there, like large planks of wood being torn by some jealous gods.

  “We lost radio contact three days ago, when you first became ill. No one dares to leave the dig site; you can’t see three feet in front of your face. All the wires are down, the cells - the remote devices. It's some sort of freakish electrical abnormality caused by the dryness and the wind. Or so says their nineteen-year-old communications 'officer',” Seth said angrily.

  Zachary felt like his mind was crawling over a towering sand dune. “We’re cut off?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Seth rose and stomped across the room.

  “Three days? Seth, they would send somebody out here! There must have been some kind of contact, some message. I mean, where are our supplies coming from?”

  Seth slapped at his jacket; sand burst and rained from it. “Part of the problem, man. The well seems fucked up and your Corporal says he needs some fucking specialized part to fix it.”

  “He’s not my Corporal …”

  “Whatever!” Seth whirled around, eyes glowing with some inner fire.

  “Well,” Zachary said reasonably, “we’ll just have to abandon the site. Have the guard tie everything down, load up the camels and…”

  “No,” Seth said, his voice very, very quiet. “We will not abandon the site.”

  Zachary rubbed at his hair, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. “Well, obviously we can’t stay under these conditions. I’ll go, I’ll bring back…”

  Seth was across the floor and had him by both shoulders, face inches away, teeth bared. “You are not going!”

  Zachary stared. For a wild moment he thought Seth was going to kiss him. “Okay, Seth,” he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “I’m not going. We can send somebody else.”

  That unholy fire in Seth’s eyes seemed to bank somewhat. “Maybe. In a few days, if the storm doesn’t let up.” His fingers were still digging into Zachary’s shoulders.

  Zack nodded. “Right, Seth. Sounds like a plan.”

  Seth finally let go of him and stood. He shook his head and squinted. “Sorry. It's just … the fucking wind, you know?”

  Zack nodded again, wishing to the gods that the man would get out of his tent. Outside, above the screech and scream of the wind, he heard the sound of something banging and then a tumult of men’s voices. Seth’s head whipped around like a dog on the hunt. “What the hell is that?”

  He went for the door, looking back just once at Zachary. “Stay here,” he commanded.

  Zachary nodded again, feeling uncomfortably like he was under arrest. He lay back on the cot, his head still bright and filled with vertigo.

  “Professor… Zack?” Brian was back in the doorway again. The expression on his face unmistakable in its affection. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Zachary nodded. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Er, a little… some of the locals are worried about the storm.” Brian looked behind him quickly then came closer. He leaned over enough to put one warm hand on Zachary’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Sleep.”

  Suddenly, Zachary could barely keep his eyes open. “I am still tired.”

  “I’ll watch over you,” Brian said comfortably. “You rest now.”

  ***

  When he woke, Ira was sitting on his belly.

  “Oh, gods.”

  “Shhhh…” One of those elegant fingers lay across Zachary’s lips. Ira’s hips rocked, his buttocks bumping Zachary’s immediately erect cock. “I only have a minute.”

  “A quickie?” squeaked Zachary, hands reaching to touch Ira’s chest, his belly, his long, perfect, wet cock. Ira’s eyelids lowered, fluttering.

  “So good, Zack.” Ira’s body rocked on his, restlessly. “Always so good.” Then he rose and lowered his body carefully onto Zachary. His hole enclosed Zachary’s cock in perfect, tight heat.

  Zachary thrust up, unable to stop himself, arching his head back, closing his eyes.

  “Bring it tonight,” Zachary heard Ira say before his orgasm obliterated the dream. “It has to be tonight.”

  ***

  It was strange, Zachary thought, how the wind seemed to stop just as he emerged from the tent.

  Across the Valley of the Kings the starlight shone bluish, making the shadows heavy and substantial-looking. He walked straight across the sand, not concerned at being seen or questioned about the bundle in his hands. A kind of serenity possessed him, now that he’d decided to do this thing.

  The site was as they’d left it. Tourists rarely cared about the less fantastic sites, even when the finds there had been famous. Zachary crawled through the passages, easily remembering the locations of every pillar and crumbled wall. He also knew by heart the pot shards and human bones that had been tagged and kept in place for further cataloguing. He came at last - breathing hard to draw enough oxygen from the stale dank air - to the tomb where they had found the Eye of Ra. He pushed around the corner, lowering his head and rolling, until he was able to drop into the chamber. Once there, he drew the flashlight from his pack and switched it on.

  “I knew you’d be here,” he said to the shadowed figure that sat in the corner. “I knew…”

  “How did you know?” Seth’s voice was like that of a snake’s as he stepped forward so Zachary could see him. Zachary almost dropped the light.

  “Seth?” He stared. “Seth, what has happened to you?” The sight of his partner was almost as surprising as finding him here in the tomb in the first place. Seth was dressed like his namesake of Egyptian mythic fame - the clinging white tunic, the heavily carved head piece. An ornate pottery beard had been adhered to his chin and his brilliant blue eyes were heavily lined with kohl.

  “I am as I was,” Seth said, his American accent replaced by something wholly foreign and unfamiliar. He gestured toward the bundle that Zachary had almost forgotten, cradled in his arms. “That belongs to me.”

  “No it doesn’t,” said Zachary, clutching the bundle. “It belongs to Ira.”

  At mention of his lover’s name, Seth’s entire face became suffused with an insane rage. “That child?” he screeched. “That pretender to what is mine?” He came across the tomb now, fast and fierce as a bird of prey. Zachary flinched and cowered over his bundle.

  “Stay away from him.” Brian’s big body was suddenly between them. His face had that stony, unblinking look Zachary associated with military police. He took a step forward and Zachary saw his hand resting on the butt of his military-issue rifle.

  Seth snarled, teeth bared. “Get the hell out of here,” he hissed.

  Brian shook his head slowly, watching Seth. One hand came back to rest possessively on Zachary’s chest. “Mr. Taylor has business here, Mr. Green. You don’t. Go back to your tent.”

  Seth raised his hand and began reciting words that were familiar, yet not. Zachary recognized the Egyptian, but the accent was so strange and the cadence so odd that he could only translate sketchily. “Blood” and “Mother Isis” and “the Source.”

  Brian made a threatening sound and unlatched the safety on his rifle.

  Zachary’s head was spinning. The vertigo and words flooding his brain. “Stop…”

  Seth kept up his chant. His words seemed to have weight and volume, falling on Zachary’s and Brian’s heads like clods of earth. Zachary found himself crouching on the floor, Brian bent protectively over him. And the seeming earth had now become real earth. Over Seth’s voice, Zachary could feel and hear the ceiling caving in on top of them.

  “No…” he whimpered. “Not him, too. Ira. Please…”

  A surprised grunt came, as if he had been hit, and Brian collapsed on top of him. The last thing Zachary remembered was the odd vision of the stars through the earthen ceiling.

  ***

  There was too much noise. Why was t
here always so much noise? Zachary tried to bury his head under the pillow and found his wrist constrained.

  “Zack?” The voice so near him sounded hoarse. He tried to open his eyes.

  “Zack? Can you hear me?” The sound of aluminum on tile came and then a loud voice bellowing, “Nurse, get someone over here, he’s awake.”

  “Oh, please,” Zachary whispered wearily, his eyelids feeling as if he literally had to peel them from his eyeballs to open them. “Must you always wake me?”

  Brian’s eyes were warm and shining with something very like tears. “Yes.”