Every Whispered Word (29 page)

C
amelia sat on the ground, studying the enormous rock that stood just beyond the staked perimeter of her site.

It was an impressive piece of stone, standing over six feet in height and more than twelve feet across at its widest point. Its edges had been worn smooth from thousands of years of exposure to the powerful wind and rain that swept across Pumulani in the summer months, and the painted etchings upon it had also weathered and faded. In many ways it was not unlike the hundreds of other examples of African rock art her father had discovered and documented over the years.

But once Lord Stamford had stumbled upon this particular stone, he became convinced it held the secret to the location of the Tomb of Kings.

“I don't have any more nuts,” she told Oscar firmly as the monkey jammed his little paw deep into the pocket of her wrinkled linen jacket. “You ate them all.”

Oscar sat back on his haunches and pointed accusingly at Harriet and Rupert.

“Harriet ate a few, and I only had about five,” Camelia said, poring over the sketches of the stone contained in her father's record book. “And Rupert doesn't like nuts. That means you must have eaten all the rest, Oscar. You'll be lucky if you don't get a stomachache.”

Oscar jumped up and began to turn in swift circles, demonstrating how fit he was feeling.

“Well, good. But I don't suggest you eat any more, unless you want Zareb to put you in his tent and start building fires around you and dosing you with one of his foul medicines.”

“My medicines are not foul,” Zareb objected as he approached.

Oscar ran over to Camelia and climbed up onto her shoulder, seeking protection from the possibility of having to drink one of Zareb's elixirs.

“How are things progressing with the pump?” asked Camelia, looking up from her father's book.

“The same as it has been for the last week. It works for a few minutes, sometimes long enough to draw out several buckets of water. Then something happens and it stops working.”

“Does Simon know why?”

“He isn't sure. The water is heavy with mud, so it requires greater strength for the pump to pull it up. And although he believes he has created a steam engine capable of greater strength, he is challenged by the fact that the fire burns low, because it is fuelled by dung. That is affecting his ability to create steam, which in turn is affecting the power of the pumping mechanism.”

She resumed her study of her father's journal, trying hard not to let her disappointment show. “I see.”

Zareb seated himself on the ground beside her, adjusting his robes until they rippled around him in a brilliant pool of scarlet and sapphire. He studied her in silence a moment, taking in the lines of worry that had formed between her eyebrows, and the determined set of her jaw. She had changed since they first went to London, he realized, feeling both pride and anguish at the thought. There had been sadness within her when they left, of course. There was emptiness and loss after her father's death, and the trepidation one faces when one is going to a place far from the home one loves. But Zareb could see the pain she carried within her now was not the same as that which she had carried when she left.

“Does it speak to you yet, Tisha?” he asked quietly.

She looked up from her father's book in confusion. “Does what speak to me?”

“The stone. Has it whispered its secret to you yet?”

Camelia managed a small laugh. “If it had, I wouldn't be sitting here in front of it day after day, as my father used to, trying to make out the meaning of these figures.”

“Let us begin with the figures, then. What do you think they are telling you?”

She studied the stone a moment. “It looks like a simple hunting scene, with this herd of antelope surrounded by these warriors. But the stars above it indicate it is night, which suggests the scene has a mythical interpretation. There is this lion facing the herd, which may mean danger for the antelope, or the warriors, or both. Or, it may be the lion himself who is in danger—either of being trampled by the antelope, or shot by the hunters.” She shook her head in frustration. “My father was convinced this stone was the key to the precise location of the Tomb of Kings, but he was never able to decipher it. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if we are digging in the right place.”

“That depends on what you are looking for.”

“You know what I am looking for, Zareb. I want to find the Tomb of Kings, which my father spent his whole life searching for.”

“Your father searched for many things, Tisha. The Tomb of Kings was only one of them.”

“It was the one that meant the most to him. He would have given anything to have found it before he died.”

Zareb stared at the stone and said nothing.

“I miss him.” Camelia's voice was small and soft as she ran her fingers over the worn pages of her father's journal. “I wish he were here to tell me what I should do.”

“Your father never told you what you should do, Tisha. It was his way only to love you, and to give you the freedom to find out for yourself what it was you truly wanted.”

“What I wanted was to be an archaeologist like him. To spend my life unearthing the secrets of Africa.”

“Some secrets are not meant to be unearthed. They will either come to you of their own accord, or stay hidden. The choice is not yours to make.”

She regarded him in confusion. “Are you saying I'm not meant to find the Tomb of Kings?”

“The Tomb of Kings will either permit itself to be found, or it will not. All you can do is decide how much of yourself you choose to devote to that quest.”

“I will devote all of myself to it. Just as my father did.”

“Your father had other things in his life, Tisha. His search for the Tomb of Kings was but one small part of it.”

“He made other discoveries over the course of his career, but none of them was ever deemed significant by the archaeological world—largely because they were all in Africa.”

“I'm not speaking of his work, Tisha. I am speaking about his life.”

“His work was his life.”

Zareb shook his head. “When I first came to know Lord Stamford, he was a man torn between his work and his soul. The natives called him Talib, which means ‘one who seeks.' ”

“That makes sense, given that he was an archaeologist.”

“They had no concept of what being an archaeologist meant. They could not understand why a white man would dig up that which has been left behind by those who came before. They called him Talib because they sensed unhappiness in him. They believed he had come to Africa to find that which he was missing.”

“He wasn't missing anything—except the recognition of the archaeological world.”

“You are looking at him through your eyes. You cannot help but see his love for you shining back at you. Before you came to live with your father, he was a different man. There was a terrible emptiness within him. Not even his love for Africa could ease the pain of that emptiness.”

“But he had everything,” Camelia objected. “A title, his work, a wife and child—”

“A wife and child who lived an ocean away.”

“I suppose he missed being with us,” Camelia allowed. “But his work was very important to him. He found enormous fulfillment through it.”

“Yet he was prepared to give it up for you.”

She regarded him in surprise. “He never told me that.”

Zareb fixed his gaze upon the stone and said nothing.

She was much like her father, this beloved girl who had been placed in his protective care so many years ago. Strong-willed. Intelligent. Determined. Perhaps even just a little bit selfish, in the way that those who are destined to achieve great things must be—protective of their time, their responsibilities, their hearts. But there was an unhappiness growing within her, and its shadows had only deepened in the week since Zareb had seen her fleeing into the night from Simon's tent. Zareb sensed unhappiness growing within the white inventor as well.

A fire had raged between them, and neither time nor the wall they had erected between each other had succeeded in diminishing the flames.

“Before your mother died,” he began quietly, “Lord Stamford knew his work was exacting a terrible price from you. And there came a time when he no longer wanted you to pay that price. Then your mother died, and he brought you here—not because he intended to raise you in Africa, but because he intended to abandon his dig and go home with you to England.”

Camelia frowned. “If he was going to abandon the dig, then why did he bring me here? Why didn't he just leave me in England until he came back?”

“You were just a little girl, Tisha, and you had just lost your mother. You were lonely and afraid. Your father understood you needed to be with him at that time. There were those who said you should be sent away to school. Your mother had an aunt who insisted she should take you in, assuring his lordship that she would raise you to be a proper young lady while he pursued his work. But your father wouldn't agree to it. He loved you, and he wanted to care for you himself, even if that meant giving up his work in Africa.”

“Then why didn't he?”

“Because once you were here he saw that Africa called to you, Tisha. Just as it had to him.”

“I guess it was obvious,” Camelia reflected. “From the moment I arrived here, I felt as if I had come home.”

“And it was at that moment that your father felt as if he were home—once he knew you were happy here. But it was not the place that made it home for him, Tisha. It was you.”

“I suppose I may have been part of it,” Camelia allowed. “But my father belonged here. He would never have been happy if he had been forced to return to England.”

“His choice was to be with you, Tisha, wherever that was. You were his home.”

She regarded him uncertainly. “Why are you telling me this, Zareb?”

“Something has changed in you, Tisha.” His expression was sober. “There is a sadness that was not there before, and it pains me to see it.”

“I miss my father.”

“And you will for the rest of your life. But the sadness I feel from you is not that of a daughter missing her father.”

She looked away, suddenly feeling vulnerable and exposed.

“My life is here, Zareb,” she insisted quietly. “Nothing can change that.”

“This is but part of your life, Tisha,” Zareb countered. “It was the part that formed a powerful bond between you and your father, and that is good. But it is not your entire life. There is much to come. Much that has yet to be written. That is the part you can change.”

He rose, brushed the dust from his robes, then raised his gaze to the sky. “The wind is beginning to shift,” he mused, watching as a scattering of gauzy clouds settled in a delicate veil around the jagged peaks of the mountains.

“Does that mean that the dark wind is finally going to stop blowing?” Camelia tried to keep her voice light. “I think we could use a little good luck around here.”

Zareb stared at the sky in silence, trying to sense the forces swirling around him. Something was coming toward them, he realized, feeling it as surely as he could feel the steady beating of his own heart.

Something powerful.

He closed his eyes and sharpened his senses, until he was acutely aware of the blinding brilliance of the sun pouring down upon him, the warm caress of the wind blowing against his robes, the pungent, smoky scent of Simon's dung fire drifting slowly through the air.

Beware,
the wind whispered, its voice so soft Zareb was uncertain he was hearing it correctly.

Beware.

Sweat began to trickle down his brow as he strained to listen, trying to understand.

Beware of what? This place? A man? A spirit? The tomb?

Tell me,
he pleaded, spreading his arms wide until his robes were draped around him in a great banner of slowly rippling color.
Tell me . . .

“What is it?” Camelia demanded suddenly, her voice sharp with concern. “What do you hear?”

The wind was abruptly silenced.

Zareb opened his eyes to look at her. Her eyes were wide and shadowed with fear. Clearly she, too, had heard something.

“We must tread carefully, Tisha.” His voice betrayed none of the anxiety that had unfurled within him. “The dark wind still blows.”

“What did you hear, Zareb?”

“Only a warning,” Zareb told her truthfully. “The spirits remain protective of this place. We must move carefully, so as not to displease them.”

She stared at the painting on the rock, considering Zareb's warning. “If the Tomb of Kings truly did not want to be found, then it would have driven me away by now.”

“There are those who would say it has killed several men and frightened away most of your workers. It has sent you months of drought followed by months of rain and flooding. Passages that took weeks to build have collapsed, machinery has been destroyed or doesn't work, and the money you need to keep excavating is all but gone. You were attacked in London, your father's home was ransacked, and on the voyage here you were stricken with an illness so severe I feared you would not survive.” His expression was almost beseeching as he asked, “Do you not think these obstacles are meant to drive you away, Tisha?”