Meanwhile, Clark turned back to her, flashing her another thousand megawatt grin, at least as bright as the sun overhead. “Welcome to Egypt, Lois.”
She rolled her eyes at him and turned toward the airport’s main building. “Let’s just get our luggage and get out of here. Hopefully the hotel has air conditioning,” she griped.***
Two hours later, they were checked into their hotel, which Lois was delighted to find
did have air conditioning. A short walk, a ferry crossing and a taxi ride landed them on the West Bank of the Nile, waiting to meet their source. They stood in the middle of a seemingly deserted dirt path that was closed off to the public beyond. A makeshift wooden barrier gave the suggestion of keeping people out, but as it leaned precariously to one side, she doubted it would hold up against any challenge.
The breeze from earlier hadn’t abandoned them. Strengthened by the nearby Nile, it ruffled her partner’s hair again and kicked up little eddies of sand around her ankles as she leaned tentatively on the ineffectual wooden barricade.
“But come on, what are the odds?” she asked, continuing their conversation.
“Well, low overall, but pretty high considering where we are,” Clark replied.
“We travel six thousand miles away from Metropolis to stay at the
Luxor Hotel? No, thanks.”
She caught a concerned look passing over his face.
“It’s not the same place as The Lexor. He didn’t ever own this one,” Clark reminded her carefully.
“It just… caught me off guard,” she explained, kicking at the sand under her foot, hoping to minimize the unease that had filtered through her when she’d seen the hotel’s sign. For some reason, even knowing that they were traveling to Luxor, Egypt hadn’t helped her make the connection that the name of their hotel would jump out at her like a poltergeist from her past.
“Do you want to see if we can find another hotel?” he offered neutrally.
She almost wanted to say that yes, that
would make her feel better by a lot, and then she might be able to shuck off the hint of a creepy feeling she’d been unsuccessfully fighting off. But instead she shook her head.
While she usually detested being treated with kid gloves, the whole Luthor debacle had turned into such an unmitigated federal disaster–and federal
investigation–that she still hadn’t wholly made peace with it. And just when she felt like she might be getting her balance back, Luthor’s ex-wife had shown up with a head game she hadn’t been prepared for and a look-alike she still didn’t know what to make of.
Even now, weeks later and a continent removed, the whole thing had left her confidence rattled and made her even more mercurial than usual.
And Clark tended to bear the brunt of her inability to find her footing.
So she appreciated that in the face of her recently overactive and volatile temper, now he was being kind and careful about her feelings in the conversation—appreciated how caring and pointedly neutral he
always was about her frame of mind when any given topic veered into Luthor-adjacent territory. He had hated Luthor and hadn’t made a secret of it. But he’d been awfully supportive of her since the collapse of her wedding, particularly after Arianna Carlin had tried to make him think she was crazy.
And maybe she was.
At least a little bit.
Because the hotel name felt like an albatross in the place she least expected it.
Not that she expected
much of this ill-conceived trip. She was half convinced that Perry, knowing she’d never take a vacation, had sent them to the other side of the world just to ensure that she would get a break from her regular life, which still seemed to be tinted by the fallout of the House of Luthor and the public’s reaction to it. And while she was currently allowing a gentler treatment from Clark, he was the only one with a pass–a
revocable pass–and she wasn’t sure she was going to let Perry get away with his meddling.
“We’re supposed to be Metropolis reporters.
Metropolis!” she bit out. “What are we even doing in Egypt?!
“Last time I checked, we worked for the Daily
Planet, not the Daily
Metropolis,” he teased her.
“But that doesn’t mean that
we, specifically, have to cover the
entire planet for the
Planet.”
“‘Get to’ cover it for the
Planet, Lois, ‘get to’,” Clark corrected her cheerfully.
“Hello there!”
A voice from beyond the dirt road’s barricade interrupted her barbed retort.
“Dr. Carnahan?” Lois called back, fighting against her rising ire for a neutral tone after Clark’s baiting.
“Yes, yes! It’s good to meet you,” Dr. Carnahan called jovially, trudging unevenly toward them across a stone road that was partly covered in sand.
Dr. Rupert Carnahan was an archeologist at Metropolis University, but he was on loan to the American University at Cairo, who had apparently staffed him out here. With thick white hair, a beard to match, and a surprisingly dark tan for an academic, he walked with a slight limp that made his gait look like a friendly lumber. He was Perry’s source at the excavation site near Luxor.
“I’m Lois Lane,” she said as he met them at the dilapidated wooden barrier. “And this is my investigating partner, Clark Kent.”
Clark reached out to offer a handshake, which Carnahan accepted with enthusiasm.
“Good to meet you, good to meet you! Come on around,” he said, ushering them to the side of the little wooden barricade.
“Perry wanted us to pass on his ‘hellos,’” Lois said dutifully.
“That old hound dog,” Carnahan said affectionately. “It’s hard to keep in touch as much as we’d like. How is he?”
“Just as much himself as ever,” Lois said.
“Still making Alice a widow to the paper?”
“You know Perry,” Lois replied with a smirk, when it was apparent that Carnahan did.
“Oh, yes,” Carnahan laughed. “I remember many drunken debates about journalistic ethics over the years, all whilst Elvis records fought for our attention in the background.”
“How long have you known each other?” asked Clark.
“A good many years now,” Carnahan said fondly. “I was his expert in antiquities while he was on the arts beat.”
“The
arts beat?!” Lois exclaimed, shocked.
“He felt much the same,” Carnahan said with a conspiratorial grin. “But he was young, just starting out. And anyway he ended up chasing down so many tough and gritty stories about crime and politics and all that, well, he didn’t last very long reporting on museums and gallery openings. …which was still
too long, as far as he was concerned.”
“I can imagine.” Lois chuckled at the image of the young, upstart newspup Perry White, struggling against what he thought was the puff beat. She exchanged a grin with Clark, who had a matching smile on his face, and had to be picturing nearly the same thing.
A group of light-colored tents had appeared in the near distance, partially obscured by the rolling dunes they were still trudging up and down. This was clearly Carnahan’s destination.
“So, how long have you been on the dig site?” Lois asked, steering them onto the story.
“About six months now.”
“And you’re on staff at Met U?”
“Yes, though I’m a visiting lecturer at the American University at Cairo for this academic year.”
“That must be quite the commute from Luxor to Cairo,” Clark joked.
“Eh? Oh, yes, yes, wouldn’t that be dreadful?” Carnahan replied, his grin widening before he went on. “American subsequently assigned me to the Theban Mapping Project under Dr. Weeks. The lecturer role is really just about checking an administrative box to be able to send me here.”
“And the Project has been around for fifteen years?” Clark followed up.
Carnahan looked impressed that Clark had done his research. “Very good, yes. Going on sixteen years now.”
“That’s a long time for a map,” Lois said curiously.
“Indeed,” Carnahan agreed. “And it will likely take decades more to discover all the secrets held in the Valley of the Kings.”
“Valley of the Kings?” she questioned.
“Yes, this whole river-valley here, running along this side of the Theban hills. Ancient Egypt’s royal burial grounds. There are about sixty tombs cut into the rock, along there,” he said, pointing down the whole wall of the valley. “All under the later dynasties of the New Kingdom, early 1500 BC to late 1000 BC, roughly. It hosts quite a famous contingent of royalty: Ramesses the Great, Seti I, Hatshepsut, even Tutankhamun were all laid to rest there.”
She’d only ever heard of King Tut, but she guessed that an academic might have a different definition of ‘famous’.
They were coming up to the tents now, and Carnahan steered them toward one in the middle, opening the flap to usher them in.
On the outside, the pale-colored tent didn’t look like much; in fact, it was a fair match to Carnahan’s beige linen pants, which nearly blended in with the sand, leading her to believe that her time in Egypt would be dominated by a monochromatic dust look. So she was surprised when she stepped inside to a riot of color. Geometric shapes were sewn into the inside panels of the tent walls. Small tapestries depicting pharaohs and gods told the stories of Ancient Egypt in vibrant hues. Colorfully embroidered carpets thickly overlaid each other, covering the sand floor. Multiple carved end tables held chaotically stacked books, their spines as many different colors as the tapestries.
Dr. Carnahan gestured them toward thick square cushions set around a low table at one end of the tent. He headed toward a corner table set with a heavy-looking silver tray and began to fumble with it. “Please, sit. Can I offer you some tea?”
“Yes, please,” Clark accepted.
“You live here,” Lois deduced, taking in the open suitcases and the large mosquito netting hung above a long, raised mat in one corner.
“Yes, a number of us are staying over. It’s considerably easier. Eliminates the ‘commute,’ as you say,” he said, tipping his head to reference Clark’s earlier comment as he brought the heavily laden tray over, setting it on the low table between them.
Clark grinned back in acknowledgement and Lois got them on track again.
“So, you were saying it would take a long time to map the valley?”
“The Valley of the Kings, yes,” Carnahan replied, pouring out the tea. A heavy bouquet of mint and another scent she couldn’t place rose from the cups in front of her. “You see, on a topographical map, you can walk across the land and write down what you see. On an archeological map, though, you’re searching for needles in a haystack before you can start to record it.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“Because all of the tombs are underground. Some have been hidden. Some are covered in sand. Some largely destroyed. Some now underwater.”
Carnahan handed her a steaming cup as he explained, and she reluctantly took it, wondering if the man was crazy or just eccentric for drinking hot tea in this sweltering heat.
“And that’s why the Theban Mapping Project has already been here for fifteen years,” Clark pieced together.
“Correct, Mr. Kent,” Carnahan said, handing him a cup of steaming tea, as well. “The most recently discovered tomb is…” he hesitated, “unusual.”
“Why ‘unusual’?” Lois asked, expecting to hear a dry recitation of why one dead old ruler was more important than the last.
“Well, I suppose it’s because of the curse.”
She and Clark exchanged a sharp look, hers disbelieving, his curious. Without speaking, they agreed that Clark would field this one.
“The curse?” he asked.
“The tomb that we’re uncovering belonged to Ramesses II: it’s been denoted ‘KV5’. The entrance was concealed for millennia. It was discovered in the early part of this century, but then, almost immediately, and accidentally, buried.”
“Accidentally buried?” Lois cut in.
“Well, yes. You see, it was discovered in modernity by a British Egyptologist in the forties, but ignored for being rather small and, well, not very notable. As the Egyptologist excavated other tombs, he, quite accidentally, further obscured the entrance to this one. Dirt moved from one location needs to land in another, after all. This dirt happened to land on Ramesses II’s front door.”
“So, why would it be cursed?” Clark asked.
“You have to understand the context: the majority of the other tombs nearby were opened thirty, forty, fifty years ago, many even longer back. So, as the gossip goes, many of the superstitious remunerations for trespassing would have been bestowed upon the excavators of old, who were the first people in modernity to open these tombs. However, it is possible that this tomb hasn’t been touched since antiquity—quite exciting actually, from a research perspective! But, well, ergo, any ancient curse would fall upon the team here now, as we well may be the first ones to open it.”
“But that’s just silly superstition!” Lois exclaimed.
“Perhaps…” Dr. Carnahan acknowledged, taking a sip of his still-steaming tea.
She looked at Clark again, subtly asking if he also thought Carnahan was more of a loon than his first impression suggested.
Clark sipped his tea in response, and she felt her annoyance flicker at the pair of them. She hadn’t come out here for games and ghosts. If she’d wanted that, she may as well have stayed in Metropolis.
“Dr. Carnahan,” Clark asked, “is there any reason to believe that these superstitions have any basis in truth?”
She raised an eyebrow at her partner in response to his tepid framing of the question. He shot her a look back that he used when he wanted her to be patient.
Carnahan slowly put his teacup down.
“When I first arrived here, I was impressed that Dr. Weeks had arranged such a well organized operation. He’s been doing this for over a decade at this site alone, with a focus on preservation–and it looks like it. His process is smooth and thorough. He’s very careful to protect the space that his team moves through, as he maps its location clearly and catalogues its contents religiously,” Carnahan hesitated. “Or, at least, that was true until we lost the mummy.”
“How do you lose a
mummy?” Lois asked incredulously.
“That’s been an object of some speculation, I can tell you!” Carnahan chuckled. “We’d discovered the passage to that room only that day, and seen the sarcophagus for the first time that afternoon. We photographed it, but couldn’t fully examine it before dark. Later that night, we heard a crash come from KV5. We assumed it was a minor cave-in after we’d traversed the area for the first time. Even though they’re built into bedrock, instability isn’t uncommon in some of these structures.”
“But it wasn’t?” Clark guessed. “Wasn’t a cave-in, I mean?”
“The next morning, when we went down into the tomb, the top of the sarcophagus was cracked. The mummy inside was gone.”
“Well, it couldn’t have just gotten up and walked away!” Lois sputtered.
“At first, Ms. Lane, we assumed it was thieves—grave robbers come to collect the spoils once we’d done the work,” Carnahan replied, shaking his head. “But mummies are buried with their worldly possessions, since it was believed that their owners would need them in the afterlife. There were easier and
more valuable things to steal in the chamber than that mummy.”
“So it wasn’t grave robbers?” she asked skeptically.
Glancing over at Clark, she could tell her partner wasn’t ready to rule out thieves either. But he did look more intrigued by the mystery than she was. She, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure that they weren’t being fed a tall tale, and even without making eye contact, she knew that Clark could feel the skepticism rolling off of her in waves.
Whether it was true or not, Carnahan continued his story. “After that, odd things started happening. Tools being moved without anyone seeing where they’d gone. Small artifacts going missing after they’d been catalogued. Ladders falling when no one was near them. Rubble moved back into a path after we’ve cleared it. If I were a betting man,” Carnahan said with raised eyebrows, “I might guess that someone didn’t want us here. …Or, at the very least, that they wanted to slow us down.”
“Like sabotage,” Lois suggested confidently. Sabotage was a much more believable scenario, and one that she could get behind.
Carnahan merely sipped his tea.
“Once the canopic jars from the room disappeared, too,” and here he backtracked, based on her blank look, “—jars that would have held the organs removed during mummification. After the missing mummy’s jars were taken, many of the workers on the excavation crew settled on the theory that the saboteur was, in fact, the awakened mummy, here to reclaim what was his and seek vengeance upon those that disturbed his everlasting sleep.”
Lois’ chin dropped as she looked at him dubiously. “They decided it was the
mummy,” she repeated.
At the edge of the tent, an alabaster bowl suddenly fell off the table there, clattering loudly against the crate beneath it.
Her head whipped toward the sound, heart in her throat, seeing the bowl settle just as it came to rest against the crate.
She let out a nervous puff of air, and then scoffed, making eye contact briefly with Clark, who hurriedly pushed his slipping glasses all the way up on his nose.
They both looked back at Carnahan, who shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the unexpected jump scare.
“Anyway, that’s what they say,” Carnahan finished.
“Well, it obviously isn’t a
mummy,” she said, guffawing at the thought.
Carnahan took yet another measured sip of his tea.
“Oh, come on,” Lois snapped. “You don’t really expect us to believe all that, do you?”
“I expect you to believe quite a bit of it, Ms. Lane,” Carnahan said steadfastly. “It is why I snuck into Luxor last week and called Perry White. Unlike you and your partner, I am not an investigator of the
living; I only know how to read the clues of the dead. But I am a worthwhile enough historian to know that the oddities happening here are an escalating pattern. It is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. Or
worse. And that is the sort of thing that could shut down the Theban Mapping Project for good.”
The older man’s voice rose as his teacup trembled in his hand.
“We exist largely on grants, and grants become scarce when rumors fly. The Project
cannot be shuttered. It is too important. There is an entire society
lost below our feet.”
Carnahan took in a breath, gathering himself.
After a moment, he looked up at them with pleading eyes.
“In response to my blatant request for help last week, my old friend sent me the two of you. So, to answer your question, Ms. Lane, yes, I expect you to believe quite a bit about what’s been happening here.”
She and Clark exchanged a look, the same thought bouncing back and forth between them: at least that explained why they were really here.
The idea of Perry sending both of his best investigative reporters to write up a preview of a
museum opening had really been getting to her. But now it looked like Perry had thought he might be able to help out an old friend and get a story out of it to boot.
Less agitated overall because of that revelation, she reevaluated the man in front of her, who had just demonstrated how fiercely protective of the Project he was. It reminded her of the way Perry felt about the Planet. She felt herself soften, shifting a little bit over to his side.
“So you don’t really believe this is some ancient revenge from the mummy?” she asked pointedly.
“I believe that there is something happening at KV5 that should
not be happening. However,” Carnahan stipulated with a light chuckle, steepling his fingers together, “I wasn’t the first one in the tomb that day. And I didn’t open the sarcophagus. So I suppose I have less of a stake in the matter.”
Lois rolled her eyes but Clark seemed to appreciate the professor’s humor.
“We’ll do whatever we can to find out who's behind this,” Clark earnestly assured the man across the table from them.
“We thought we were supposed to be here getting a preview of the artifacts that will debut at the Museum of Metropolis,” she said. “That should still be our cover. But you’ll have to figure out a way to discreetly walk us through the places that these things have been happening.”
“Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the team,” Carnahan said. “And I can show you around from there.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she agreed.
“Tomorrow,” Clark echoed, shooting her an anticipatory look.
