Flight of the Phoenix (16 page)

As they flew on toward Egypt, Fenix slept and dreamed of Lazarus. He came to her once again in the ancient city. This time the city was perched on a cliff over the bluest sea Fenix had ever seen. The water was the color of Lazarus's eyes as he walked down the narrow alley toward her. He held out his arms and she ran into them.

He held her so tightly she couldn't breathe, but she loved it, burying her face in his soft wool robe. He smelled like the earth and spices and warmth. She inhaled deeply imprinting his scent on her memory, afraid when she woke, she would forget it. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I have always loved you.” He stroked her hair, lifted her chin and kissed her. “We don't have much time, moon of my heart. We must take our pleasure quickly.”

He scooped her into his arms and carried her into the same small house. “What about Bryn? Will we make it in time?”

“Hush, now is not the time to worry about worldly things. Now is only the time to discover joy in each other.”

They were instantly naked. As they fell together on the soft pallet, she closed her eyes and savored the feel of him inside her, the strength of his arms around her and the pressure of his powerful chest on hers. When he kissed her, she swirled into a mesmerizing fog of desire and passion she prayed would never end.

When she woke up they were flying low over the Nile River and the feel of Lazarus on her body still lingered. She stretched like a cat, filled with the wonderful languor of their lovemaking, but the real world immediately intruded.

Quinn shook her hard. “Fenix! Bryn stopped breathing. Help me.”

She threw off the remnants of sleep and jumped across the aisle to kneel beside her sister. She placed a finger on her sister's throat and felt a thready pulse. “She still lives, Quinn, but just barely.”

“Do something,” he cried. “If she dies, so shall I. I can't live without her.”

Fear for her sister and a tremendous sense of sadness filled Fenix. What would she do without Bryn? The thought was inconceivable. They'd been together so long. Tears brimmed in her golden eyes and dropped one at a time on Bryn's face and mouth. Bryn groaned and her eyelids fluttered. Fenix sighed with relief. At least her tears could help. They might not be able to cure Bryn, but they could keep her alive until they reached the pyramids.

Fenix pulled herself back into her seat and fell back against the cushions. “Where are we?” She asked Quinn. “I fell asleep.”

Quinn shrugged. His eyes were red from crying. He swiped them with the back of his hand and when he spoke his voice was choked. “I'm not sure, somewhere over Egypt.”

“Are we getting close?”

“I told you I don't know.”

Sympathy washed through Fenix. Quinn's suffering was very real and intense. He held Bryn in his arms, stroked her face and whispered love words into her hair without cease. “I'll look,” she told him.

But there was no need. Fingle popped out of the galley carrying a tea tray filled with small sandwiches and a pot of steaming tea. “I thought ye might be in need of a little bite to eat.”

He rolled a tea cart into the aisle. “Where are we, Fingle?” Fenix asked.

“We been over that big river for a while. I be thinkin' we be gettin' close to wherever we goin' because this crazy airship been droppin' for the last hour. It's gettin' closer and closer to the water.”

Draak Priest suddenly awoke shrieking. “Get out of my mind!” He tore at his hair. His head showed raw spots where he'd ripped clumps out by the roots.

When Priest tore his restraints off and launched himself toward the windows, Fingle tackled him and Quinn fell on top of both of them as they attempted to hold the deranged man down. Fenix knelt beside them and whispered a spell that should quiet him. It was a spell to calm the insane and Priest clearly qualified. She wished she had her wand, but it was gone, water under the bridge of this endless journey.

Quinn struggled to his feet, panting. “Whatever you just did, worked. I thought he was going to leap out of the window.”

“I couldn't allow that. Malenfant has the dagger and he's in Priest's head. We must take good care of him until we get to the pyramids.”

Fingle and Quinn muscled Priest into a different seat and strapped him down. Fingle found rope in the galley, and tied poor Priest into the seat. When he was done, he returned to his abandoned tea cart, poured out three cups of tea and sat down next to Fenix.

“He seems to be getting' even nuttier,” Fingle said with a mournful expression on his long face. “I be hoping the rope is strong enough to keep him in that chair.”

The sandwiches and the tea revived her. Quinn would only nibble on the food and took but one sip from his cup. He tried to get Bryn to drink the tea. He poured it against her lips. Some went in but most dribbled down her chin.

When Fingle had removed the tea cart, Fenix knelt in front of Bryn and turned her arm so she could examine the wound. She unwrapped the bandage slowly. It had become stuck to the wound. What she saw made her gasp. The skin around the cut was dying, Bryn's arm was now hugely swollen with dead skin peeling off. The flesh around the wound had turned black and it still bled sluggishly. When Quinn saw it, he moaned. “It looks like a snake bite.”

“I see,” Fenix said quietly. The sight of the wound terrified her. Never in her life had either of them suffered any illness or wounds that suppurated. She allowed several of her healing tears to fall onto the wound. When they landed, Bryn screamed and writhed in Quinn's arms. He held her tightly as her flesh bubbled and blistered where the tears landed. Some of the blackened dead skin fell away, but the tears did little to help.

“We need to get to Giza very soon,” she told Quinn. “Very soon.”

His only answer was a moan as he rocked Bryn in his arms. Overcome with fear and grief, Fenix rushed to the window to see if she spotted any landmarks. Centuries ago, she and her sister had lived here. Would it be the same? Would she recognize anything?

She did. “We are nearing the cemetery of kings on the Giza plateau,” she told Quinn. “Below us is Amarna, the capital of Egypt during Akhenaten's reign. Soon, we will pass ancient Memphis and then we will be in Giza.”

The words were just out of her mouth when the flying machine canted down at a steep angle, the sound of the engines, background noise for miles and miles, stopped and they fell. Fenix screamed, grabbed one of the chairs and held on. Quinn struggled to hold onto Bryn as he slowly slid toward the nose of the airship. The ground below rushed toward them clearly visible through the windows in the nose. An explosion was heard on the right side of the aircraft. The explosion pushed them to the left and was followed by two more explosions each on the right which pushed them left. Suddenly, the Nile River appeared below them and they plunged toward it.

“Tomlinson is using the guns to steer us toward the river!” Quinn screamed as he struggled into a sitting position on top of the front windows.

Another explosion shot them over the center of the wide river. Seconds later, they hit the water sending up an enormous geyser.

“This is the second time we've crashed into the water,” Fenix yelled. “I never want to fly again.”

This aircraft, perhaps because it was designed by an undersea ship's captain, floated. One of the engines roared to life above them and the airship started moving toward shore.

With the floor of the ship once again flat, Fingle appeared. “I thought me time had come,” he said as he wobbled to a seat and fell into it.

Fenix climbed slowly to her feet and made her way to the rail. She grabbed the speaking tube. “Arthur, can you hear me?”

“Yes, dear Fenix, sorry about the crash.”

“Nevermind that, head for the west bank. There is a system of canals we can use to take us to the pyramids.”

“I think I see the entrance,” Tomlinson replied. “It looks kind of small. We may have to abandon the airship and use a boat.”

Fenix ran to the front of the aircraft and stared out the windows. Weeds hung from the top of the craft over some of the huge panes of glass but Fenix clearly saw the entrance to one of the canals. She could remember only that the smaller passageways eventually led to a larger one that was used to haul materials to the plain where the pyramids were being constructed. Tomlinson tried to enter the narrow canal and ran the airship aground. The one working engine could not lift them, but was strong enough to propel them up the bank and into the reeds. Nile crocodiles basking in the sun were rudely disturbed as the craft plowed right over them.

The aircraft hit one of the huge berms edging the canal and shuddered to a stop with the one engine still roaring above them. The engine died and Fingle flung open the door. Quinn, still holding Bryn tightly against his body, stood up and peered outside. “How close to the Great Pyramid are we?”

“Seven or eight miles,” Fenix said. “The canals are not the most direct way to get to them. If we can find some camels, we can go across country and get there faster.”

Tomlinson appeared in the open doorway. “Did someone say camels?”

Fenix nodded. “They would get us there much faster than following the canals.”

Tomlinson pointed. “I believe we are in luck.”

Fenix climbed out of the aircraft and laughed. Ten curious camels stood staring at the aircraft. “Marvelous, now all we have to do is catch them.”

Quinn erupted through the door of the aircraft. “Bryn stopped breathing!”

Fenix whirled around and shot back into the airship. Bryn lay on the scarlet carpet, her grotesquely swollen and discolored arm stretched to the side. Thick drops of Bryn's precious blood dripped slowly onto the carpet. Fenix threw herself onto the floor and knelt beside her sister. Golden tears rained from her eyes onto Bryn's stark white face washing streaks of dirt and blood away. Fenix couldn't stop sobbing and the tears continued to flow. They seemed to have absolutely no effect on her sister, but she couldn't stop.

Quinn knelt beside her and lifted Bryn into his arms. “Don't leave me,” he moaned. “I can't live without you.”

Fenix rocked back on her heels. She'd suddenly detected a faint heartbeat. “She's alive, Quinn, but barely and who knows for how long. We must set the capstone. It's our only hope of saving her.”

Priest began laughing hysterically from his seat. “You shall never see the pyramids. You will all die horribly on the way there. I shall see to it and then I will carve you up, Miss Fenix, who thinks she's so high and mighty. I shall carve you up and futter your dead body.” He cackled crazily.

Quinn left Bryn, leaped onto Priest and crammed his handkerchief into Priest's mouth. “I believe Malenfant has finally taken him over.”

While Fenix had been involved with Quinn and her efforts to save Bryn, Tomlinson, Fingle, who was a genius with all large animals, and poor Commodore Brighthouse, clearly out of his element, had rounded up six camels. They stood roped to a wooden fence, spitting, foaming and gurgling deep in their throats.

“I found four camel saddles in that old barn,” Tomlinson said. “I say, camels are disgusting creatures. Just look at all that slobber.”

“We have no time, dear Arthur,” Fenix said. “Bryn has only hours to live. We must hurry.”

Fingle tossed one of the camel saddles on a sorry-looking beast missing huge clumps of hair. He figured out the fastening system, strapped it on tightly and handed the rope to Fenix. “Don't know how we's supposed to guide these infernal animals, but climb on. This one is on its last legs.”

Fenix watched as Tomlinson and Brighthouse finished saddling the remaining beasts. Only four had saddles. Quinn urged one into a kneeling position, climbed into the saddle and waited while it rocked back upright, first the back half, then the front. Tomlinson handed him Bryn and without waiting for the rest of them, Quinn lined up the setting sun and headed west toward the Pyramid of Cheops.

Fingle dragged an unconscious Priest out of the airship and flung his inert body onto the back on one of the camels.

“How did you manage to control him?” Fenix asked.

“You don't want to know, Miss. Let's just say I had to use me fives.”

Fenix chuckled. “You punched him?”

Fingle nodded. “Had to.”

Brighthouse and Tomlinson mounted one camel and rode together while Fingle clambered onto a black beast with alert ears that wiggled back and forth. He picked up the lead of the camel carrying Priest and started after Quinn as Fenix leaped lightly aboard the last camel. It immediately took off at a dead run after Quinn's beast and Fenix had to hold on for dear life. But she'd ridden camels in her youth. The lead rope slapped loose in front of the beast. When Fenix finally regained her composure and her seat, she snatched the rope and pulled the camel down into a slower lope. It rocked her back and forth, so she slowed it to a strange trot where both legs on one side worked together. Pushing the beast at this speed, she quickly caught up and passed Quinn who was beating his camel's rump with the camel stick.

“Follow me,” she yelled over her shoulder. Sighting in on the setting sun, which was directly west, she turned slightly north and continued on. She knew this route. It was all coming back to her. What a marvelous gift Lazarus had given her when he returned her memories. She distinctly remembered riding a camel as a child and she knew she'd once swam in the canals behind her, and to the south lay the city of Memphis which she also remembered. They would ride past the Sphinx, through the ancient cemetery and the Great Pyramid was on the right. She'd been taken there as a girl and remembered it well.

The full moon was rising over the Pyramid of Cheops as they rode up. Quinn threw himself off his camel, carrying Bryn in his arms. Her hair hung down to the ground, her head was back and her eyes closed. Her white skin was the color of paste. She appeared to be dead.