Eternal Journey

“Doc, sorry. Didn’t hear you.”

Jon knew their project head detested the Indiana Jones films.

“Cindy said she told you about my translations.”

“Um, yeah.” Jon was always nervous around instructors.

“Walk with me,” the professor said.

“Sure.”

Doc was a small man, at little more than five feet and slender. Most of the students dwarfed him. He was a tidy man, somehow staying clean despite sifting and digging alongside his charges. Jon admired him because Doc didn’t ask the students to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.

He was always in a broad-brimmed hat to shield his face from the sun. He had several in his jeep, and was wearing an olive-green one today with a tie that disappeared into his thick black beard. Jon guessed that Doc dyed the beard since the short and always neatly combed hair on his head was a mix of gray and black.

Doc rubbed his hands together as they walked and pursed his lips in a pensive expression. He mumbled about seeking more funding from the university, perhaps in the form of grants; the words were meant for himself, and Jon politely pretended not to listen.

Their course took them past the students around the sifting table and beyond the tents where they passed the nights. They came to a rock cleft, where a piece of split sandstone had formed a crevice. Spikes held a rope ladder that led down into it. The crevice couldn’t be seen from a distance. Because of the sandstone and the shadows that extended from the ridge, you almost had to be on top of it to notice.

Jon hoped he was being given permission to climb down. Doc was careful about the university’s liability, and only allowed students down there under careful supervision. There were more hieroglyphics down there. A lot more.

“Tomorrow,” Doc told him. “You and I and Cindy…”

Jon made a face.

“You and I and Matthew will go down and take many more photographs, bring some things up. There’s important work to do.”

“We could go down now.” Jon couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Tomorrow, when we’ve a full day of it.” Doc’s voice was kind but stern. “I’ve got some lights coming in the morning that will make it much easier to see. I need the light to better translate.”

Jon anxiously shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I just knew you’d be able to translate that first tablet. And the one I’m still cleaning. You’ll read that one, too.”

Doc nodded. “These hieroglyphics,” he began. He tipped his head up and inhaled the cool fall air, and his gaze followed a noisy flock of birds heading west, farther into the forest preserve. “They are very ancient, archaic, from the early dynasties. Most Egyptologists would not be able to translate them, Jon. They’re all schooled to read what’s called Middle Egyptian. Very few—myself one of them—can read the formative styles.”

“Because these hieroglyphics look a little like Phoenician and Sumerian,” Jon supplied, puffing out his chest a little.

Doc nodded. “And that’s one of the reasons not everyone thinks these hieroglyphics are Egyptian.”

“So much the fools, them,” Jon said.

“Fools indeed,” Doc agreed.

“Think I’m gonna dux this class, Doc?” Jon cringed, realizing he shouldn’t be asking something like this so soon in the session.

Doc crossed his arms and placed his hands on his elbows. He didn’t answer.

“Presumptuous of me, huh?” Jon rocked back on his heels and shook his head. “Sorry.”

“You’ll dux this class,” Doc said after a moment. “We both know you’re my best student.”

Jon’s eyes gleamed and he opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped when he heard a muffled chirping sound. Doc disentangled his arms and reached into the deep pocket of his jacket. He retrieved a satellite phone and thumbed a button.

“If you’ll excuse me, Jon.” Doc continued walking.

I’m gonna ace this, Jon thought. He happily headed back to clean his slab.

DOC WAITED until he was well out of earshot of any of the students, then he held the phone to his ear.

“This must be important.” He paused and swallowed hard. “Had better be important to bother me here while I am with the students.” He cocked his head and listened intently. Then he dropped his voice. “Annja Creed? The American? You have her, yes?”

He scowled, all the lines of his face drawing together so that his expression looked pinched and pained.

The voice on the other end came through. “She escaped us, but we killed her cameraman. He put up little fight, and no one will find his body.”

“Go on,” Doc said.

“We have his cameras and his computer. They’re on the way to your office now.”

The lines on his face deepened.

“I put them in a packing crate, just as you told me, labeled it so anyone looking will think it’s filled with books.”

“What else?”

“The rest of the television people, they left before we got to the hotel.”

Doc clicked his tongue against his teeth, waiting for the speaker to finish.

“Likely they are of no consequence. It was the cameraman and Annja Creed. They’re the only ones who saw.”

“And you let her get away.”

A hiss of static came across the phone.

“Yes, she got away. Sir…Master. She had a sword. She killed Zuka and Sute and—”

“Where is Annja Creed now?”

There was another hiss of static.

“Where, I say?”

“Master, she got on a bus. I could not read the words. I do not know its destination. The police came to the hotel, and we had to leave. We could not take the bodies with us, Zuka and Sute and…”

Doc held the phone away from him and stared at it, the shadow cast by the big brim of his hat obscuring the buttons. Finally, he brought it back to his ear.

“I suggest you find her or you may also be among the casualties.” He ended the connection and replaced the phone in his pocket, stood quietly and stared at the rise that separated the two digs. After several minutes he turned and retraced his steps, stopping at the slab Jon still busily and carefully cleaned.